Two good bills

Two good bills drawn from the Ballot – one ACT and one Greens.

The ACT one is the Employment Relations (Termination of Employment by Agreement) Amendment Bill.

Basically it allows an employer and employee to negotiate without prejudice a settlement to terminate employment. The current law is an ass, because it it actually prevents employers from saying “Look it isn’t working, is there a way we can resolve things”. So what happens is the employer has to spend three to six months working through a process that inevitably then leads to lawyers getting involved, and the lawyers then negotiating the exact same settlement as could have been done months earlier without the legal fees. I’ve been through this as an employer (not Curia). Both employer and employee end up worse off, as so much money goes on legal fees. Many employees would welcome an employer being able to say “Look I don’t think things are working out. Would you be open to resigning in return for six months salary”.

The other is from the Greens and is the Copyright (Parody and Satire) Amendment Bill. Gareth Hughes initially submitted a bill like this in 2011. It surprises many that our law doesn’t explicitly allow parody or satire to be a permitted “fair use” like in the US. I used to be involved very much with copyright law due to its intersection with the Internet, and am a big supporter of this law change.

The bill says:

The purpose of this Bill is to introduce into New Zealand copyright law the authority to use a copyright work for the purpose of parody or satire, which brings New Zealand’s law in line with the laws of other developed countries, including Australia, the United States, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Germany. The amendment will also bring New Zealand into the 21st century with its attitude towards copyright and freedom of speech. It introduces an amendment to the Copyright Act 1994, to clearly permit the use of copyright work for parody or satire. The amendment follows the Australian Copyright Act 1968, section 41A.

This amendment allows for a much wider interpretation of current copyright law in favour of the public wishing to use copyright works through parody or satire to promote an issue freely under our understanding of freedom of speech.

The current law has been used to try and stop parodies by claiming they breach copyright. I hope Parliament votes 122-0 for the bill at first reading.