Australia says no to ACTA also

I blogged last week on the massive vote in the European Parliament against ratifying the ACTA copyright treaty. I noted:

The final version of ACTA was in fact relatively benign. The draft versions pushed by the US had some draconian provisions, but the New Zealand Government, and other Governments, insisted that there be nothing in there that would require a significant change to our copyright laws. Eventually the US backed down, and the final version is, well as I said, fairly benign.

What New Zealand politicians should reflect on is if even a relatively benign copyright agreement such as ACTA can provoke such opposition that only 5% of the European Parliament will vote for it, think what electoral fate would await politicians who vote for a truly horrendous copyright regime?

Well the Australian Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Treaties has recommended not ratifying ACTA at this time. The full report is here.

Again, this reinforces the importance of New Zealand and other TPP negotiating countries staying firm on the TPP negotiations, and rejecting the IP chapter proposed by the US. Any IP provisions in the TPP agreement should be compatible with existing NZ law and policy.