InternetNZ pleased Green Party also taking Internet issues seriously
InternetNZ is pleased to see the Green Party join Labour in having a serious discussion about online rights.
InternetNZ CEO Jordan Carter says that there is a lot of merit in having this discussion, but he’s not sure that new
legislation is the right way to address these concerns.
“The Green Party’s proposal has a lot of very clever ideas in it. Crowd sourcing for this type of thing is a great idea
and we hope to see more political parties embrace this sort of modern thinking. There are a lot of people out in the
Internet society with a lot of brilliant ideas and tapping those minds shows a willingness to learn and get the best
possible result.
“However, we still believe that many of the issues that are raised in this bill could be addressed with a strengthening
of the Bill of Rights Act. There is no reason to think that laws governing behaviour online should be different to laws
offline.
“There is nothing further that a Digital Bill of Rights Act could do in outlawing mass surveillance that the current
Bill of Rights Act does not. There are some very useful principles that the Green Party has articulated well. But we
believe these can be developed further to act as a guide for how legislation should be “recast” in terms of the
Internet.”
InternetNZ will be working on a statement of issues for political parties to take into account as they develop policy,
as it has done in previous years – and will again present a briefing to the incoming Government on Internet issues
following the election.
ENDS