Speech to International Federation of Reproductive Rights Conference

E nga iwi, e nga waka, e nga mana, e nga reo, e nga hau e wha, e nga rangatira ma,
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

I have greeted you in Maori, one of the two official languages of New Zealand; I greeted all of the people here, noting all of the journeys that have brought the people of the four winds here, celebrating the importance of this event and celebrating the arts and language that have brought us together, recognising the leaders here.

This meeting has special relevance for me – my responsibilities are not only to provide backup to our Prime Minister Helen Clark, who is also Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage in New Zealand, but also as the Associate Minister of Commerce with responsibility for intellectual property.

Copyright and other intellectual property is a key tool for our creative industries to protect their creative efforts and to share them with others. New Zealand is known internationally for its innovation and ingenuity and increasingly we are recognising the importance of new and creative approaches to everything we do if we want to maintain and enhance New Zealand’s economic prosperity and international trade.

Creative industries provide not only profile for New Zealand internationally, the way that authors such as Katherine Mansfield, Keri Hulme, and Lloyd Jones have, but also jobs, growth, economic returns and exports. To do that, of course, we need to ensure that right owners can protect their creations and can benefit from them through, for example, various forms of reproduction rights.

And that is, of course, why we are here today.

The theme of the seminar running after this annual meeting, Knowledge economy fostering creative industries, is also extremely important to the Government.

The ‘knowledge economy’ is more than just a slogan – it is a world-wide reality and New Zealand must respond to the challenges and opportunities that reality presents.

As we evolve into a knowledge-based economy, intellectual property rights have become increasingly relevant in key areas such as trade, cultural heritage, health or biodiversity.

Many creative works are already available or are delivered in digital form. Information and digital technology provide creators, copyright owners and users with new tools for communicating works and there is an increasing demand to have access to and make use of copyright works in digital format, as well as to digitise and store creative works.

Along with the opportunities to communicate creative works in digital form, come new challenges to manage intellectual property rights associated with those works. The challenge is not just upon individuals who directly manage their rights but on the reproductive rights organisations to collectively manage the rights of their members.

I believe there is a continuous need for reproductive rights organisations to play a key role in licensing content in the future, particularly where the individual exercise of rights is impractical.

The challenge ahead is to find practical solutions and business models that allow for the use of digital content, the digitisation and storage of works while at the same time ensuring adequate protection of the rights of copyright owners and creators. This is not an easy task and involves tackling very difficult issues. The piracy of creative works such as books and the role of digital rights management systems in the future are only two examples.

I think we all agree that piracy is a huge problem, worldwide and here in New Zealand as well. We have had the impact of this crime come home to us, when an early cut of a hugely popular locally-made film – Sione’s Wedding – was stolen while in pre-production and pirated around the country. This had a devastating impact on the actors and producers of the film, both emotionally and financially.

Piracy is not only a threat to the creative industries but also to the national economy and the society as a whole. The first step to effectively combat piracy and illegitimate uses of creative works is to educate and raise awareness on intellectual property issues.

Reproductive Rights Organisations already play an important role in promoting respect for copyright works and increase an understanding of copyright and I would like to acknowledge the continuing efforts made by our national reproductive rights organisation here in New Zealand, Copyright Licensing (CLL), to raise awareness on those issues.

New Zealand also has cultural and indigenous dimensions to creative works to consider. (We are a multicultural society on a bicultural base as well as providing a platform and being an advocate for the people of the Pacific, many of whom have settled in New Zealand.) Invaluable knowledge, innovations and practices of Mâori and other local communities has developed from experience gained over the centuries and adapted to the local culture and environment, and passed on orally from generation to generation.

Not just in New Zealand, but anywhere in the world where access to cultural and scientific works is offered, there is a need to understand and respect any underlying traditional knowledge issues.

Because of this, I am delighted with the emphasis your conference is showing in the seminar after this annual meeting on indigenous rights and protecting traditional knowledge. This is an area of importance to New Zealand.

I was pleased to see that Dr Charles Royal will be one of the key speakers at the seminar tomorrow. He is not only a distinguished New Zealand researcher – he has worked as a researcher of traditional Mâori knowledge for more than 15 years - but also a writer and musician and a Director of Mauriora-ki-te-Ao / Living Universe Ltd.

Internationally, issues relating to traditional knowledge have received increasing attention due to concerns such as the rapid loss of traditional knowledge and cultural diversity, illicit uses and misappropriation of traditional knowledge with little or no sharing of benefits with traditional communities, and interest in harnessing the potential of traditional knowledge for sustainable development.

Many countries and communities are considering how to best address these issues and concerns. A recent South Pacific Commission publication on the “Pacific Model Law” in this area recognises that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ or ‘universal’ template to protect expressions of culture is not likely to be workable in terms of accommodating national priorities, legal and cultural environment and the needs of traditional communities.

Instead, a broad and holistic approach to issues relating to traditional knowledge is taken in order to find the best way to enable policy solutions to fit seamlessly together and work in a complementary manner.

The preservation, protection and promotion of traditional knowledge are of crucial importance for Pacific Communities, including those in New Zealand. Traditional knowledge forms an integral part of the life of Pacific peoples and plays a critical role in their health, culture, identity, education, food security and natural resources management. It is therefore vital to the future well-being and sustainable development of Pacific Communities.

At the international level, New Zealand has actively participated in discussions of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and other forums, about the protection of traditional knowledge.

Our domestic and international experience suggests that further work needs to be done to address the concerns raised by Mâori, and other indigenous peoples about the impact of intellectual property laws on traditional knowledge both in terms of cultural preservation and economic development opportunities.

Ladies and Gentlemen: the issues you work with are not easy ones for governments and their citizens to grapple with. There is a huge amount of policy work ongoing in New Zealand around copyright, traditional knowledge and related issues, and I cannot lay out any easy solutions to those issues at this point in time – although I would dearly love to.

But I think there is huge value in an international organization such as yourselves and the work done at meetings such as this one today and the seminar tomorrow. I commend you for bringing all these people together from around the world, I wish you all the best in your deliberations, I look forward to hearing about the outcomes.

Finally, I have great pleasure in welcoming you all to Auckland, my home city. New Zealand has just finished its first NZ Book Month, celebrating local authors and publishers. We have a vibrant literary community here, and I hope you get to sample some of it while you are here. Thank you.