This'll work well

Buoyed by his fantastic success in New Zealand, Kim Dotcom wants to launch the Internet party in the United States:

Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom says he will be "Hillary's worst nightmare" as he revealed plans for a US version of the Internet Party.

Dotcom, who is fighting extradition to the US where he is wanted on piracy charges took to Twitter today to announce the new political movement.

"The Internet Party is coming to the United States in 2015. Stay tuned for our celebrity founders from the music, film and Internet industry," Dotcom posted.

This is a mad idea. It is extremely difficult to break into politics with a new party. What made the Internet Party potentially viable in New Zealand was MMP, and an alliance with Mana supposedly guaranteeing it a seat (whoops). The US has neither of those advantages. Instead, it has an extremely regressive form of FPP, with gerrymandered districts and restrictive ballot-access laws designed to keep politics firmly in the grasp of the current oligarchy. On the plus side, he's free to throw millions of dollars at candidates in an effort to buy a result, but while he's rich by New Zealand standards, Dotcom is a minnow in the US funding pool. US donors blew US$3.7 billion buying influence in this year's midterms; Dotcom's paltry millions are a drop in the bucket.

Ending student fees is possible and affordable

Internet-Mana launched their free tertiary education policy today, promising exactly what it says on the label: an end to fees, universal student allowances, and eventual debt writeoffs. Its a clear point of difference with the other left parties. The Greens want to work towards all of the above, but make no specific commitments. Labour, full of former student politicians and reliant on students for its election volunteers, doesn't give a shit (of course they don't. It was Phil Goff who introduced fees and loans and means-tested student allowances in the first place).

So how much would this cost? Not that much:

Fee-free study would cost $568 million, and the implementation of a universal student allowance would cost $570m.

(Debt relief could cost a lot more, but it all depends on the book-value of debt that will never be repaid)

Which is less than National wants to give away in tax cuts, and less than Labour gave away in 2008. It won't break the bank to do it; the question, as always, is one of priorities. I can understand putting it behind child poverty (because that really is the moral challenge of our time), but behind forking money over to the rich? I would rather have a fully funded public education (and health, and welfare) system than give a single cent to them.

This'll be interesting

Speaking of Internet-Mana, not only is Kim Dotcom promising a pre-election bombshell, but he's getting Glenn Greenwald along to help:

Internet Party founder Kim Dotcom says he has enlisted heavy-hitting US journalist Glenn Greenwald, who blew open secrets about mass spying by the US Government, to help embarrass Prime Minister John Key immediately before the election.

Mr Greenwald will travel to New Zealand for an event at the Auckland Town Hall on September 15, when Dotcom says he will release information that is highly damaging for Mr Key and National.

The general election is five days later.

This is guaranteed to put some international attention on whatever is revealed. Hopefully it'll be big enough to justify it. Meanwhile, there's the obvious question: while John Key get his spies to deny Greenwald entry to New Zealand as a "threat or risk to security"? Five days before an election, it would be absolutely toxic, a confirmation of authoritarianism. But OTOH, this is the SIS we're talking about, whose stupidity knows no bounds...

Either way, it'll be interesting, and good to see the government squirm.

A circus of self-mutilation

The political weekend: the Greens announce serious, sensible, and popular policy, Internet-Mana packs out another public meeting, and Labour's self-mutilation continues:

However, Labour MPS are disgusted by Cunliffe's skiing holiday just two months before the election and will question his work ethic at a caucus meeting on Tuesday, a senior party insider said.

Labour is trailing National by 30 percentage points, polling just 24.9 per cent in the latest Stuff-Ipsos poll.

"A lot of MPs are really f..... off about it," the insider said.

"They are all working hard up and down the country, and f...... Cunliffe is on holiday. Guys like [Phil] Goff and [Annette] King and [David] Shearer, these guys really want it badly and they are working like their lives depend on it. And I think they are a little incredulous about what the guy is doing."

Yes, faced with an election they're trying to convince us they need to win or National will privatise your kidneys and sell your children to a charter school, Labour's "senior insiders" are sabotaging their own campaign and focusing on positioning themselves for the post-loss leadership struggle. Why would anyone vote for such a clown-show? More importantly, why would anyone volunteer for them? They're clearly not worth the time and effort.

Meanwhile, Labour hacks are talking about the need for everyone on the left to work "hard, seamlessly, together, and well" (meaning "STFU and stop criticising Labour"). But its clear which party isn't pulling its weight here. The Greens are on track to equal or better their 2011 performance. Internet-Mana is doing so well even John Armstrong has to notice. If the left loses this election, it will be because of Labour.

The Internet Party on copyright

The Internet Party released its copyright policy today, requiring a first principles review of the Copyright Act 1994 and a host of changes, including legal protection for circumventing geoblocking, broader fair use exceptions (including parody and satire), effectively gutting the skynet law, and removing any penalty for copying works unavailable legally in New Zealand. Disappointingly they're not saying anything about the length of copyright, but that's difficult given the international agreements we're party to. However, they will add protection for derivative works based on orphan works.

Overall, it looks pretty good, and an important contribution to the debate. The question now is whether other parties will respond with their own policies, or try to pretend that this isn't an issue.

Putting the threshold on the agenda

The unlikely alliance of Internet-Mana has caused a surge of hate from the political status quo for the electorate lifeboat rule, which guarantees us a more representative Parliament (and gives outsider parties another way of "breaking in"). Meanwhile, Internet-Mana is trying to shift the debate to the real problem: the undemocratic 5% threshold:

The Internet MANA Party has called on Parliament to change the law on voter thresholds and will test public opinion online.

An online petition went live on the Internet Party’s website today (Sunday) and will run for a week. It calls for a change to the law to guarantee equal value for all party votes.

Harré highlights the distortionary effects of the threshold: distorted voting preferences and wasted votes. Hone Harawira is more scathing, calling it a "protection racket set up by the old guard". They're both right. The threshold is an undemocratic distortion in our electoral system whose primary effect is to reduce electoral competition and choice. The arguments for it - that small parties are undeserving of representation or are simply "ineffective" - cannot be justified. It needs to go. Sign the petition today and add your voice to calls for a better democracy for New Zealand.

[And in related news: Keri Henare's MMP calculator is back up, so you can calculate the effects of tweaks to the system on electoral outcomes]

A new alliance?

So, its official: Mana and the Internet Party are forming an electoral alliance. Given that the two parties have practically nothing in common its an odd alliance, and its hard to escape the feeling that Kim Dotcom is basically buying the electorate seat he needs, especially as they'll be providing the money. And on the gripping hand, Mana's members (give or take Sue Bradford) are apparently happy with the arrangement. Its their party, so who am I to disagree?

As for the practical effects: its likely to be a tight election (especially as National has no friends), so every seat will be crucial. Stopping 1% of the vote from being wasted and locking it onto the anti-National side could be the difference between a National-led and Labour-led government. If so, we can expect more wailing about MMP from National in future.

A technology policy, not an environment one

The Internet Party released its environment policy today, promising a "smart future". What does that mean? A 100% renewable electricity target, smart meters everywhere, turning Christchurch into a "smart city", and building a "Green data centre" running on renewable energy to attract internet businesses. Note what's missing from all of this: the natural environment. This is really a technology policy about pushing innovation and development in a greener direction, not an environment one.

As for the specifics, looking at the full document the actual details are a bit sketchy. For example, there's no detail on how that 100% renewables target will be achieved, though they will "appoint a multi-disciplinary expert panel" to look at it, which I guess puts them one step ahead of the government. Ditto making New Zealand a world leader in green technologies - its pure management speak. On smart cities there's more detail, but its still a grab-bag of vague possibilities, rather than solid policy commitments. Only on the data centre do we see the sorts of specifics that are necessary.

Overall, the impression is that they want to be green, and use technology to enable that, but that this isn't really what they do. Still, the fact that this is the second policy they've announced, after pulling the plug on the spies, sends a powerful message about their priorities: they're a future-oriented party, and that means a greener one.

Pulling the plug on the spies

The Internet Party has released its policy on spying, and has promised to pull the plug on the spies by immediately repealing John Key's spy bill. The accompanying TICS legislation, which requires ISPs to be registered with the GCSB and allows the spies to micromanage their security and staffing decisions will also be repealed. They're also promising to pull out of the "Five Eyes" spy-alliance and exercise "sovereign control" of our intelligence agencies.

These are good policies, ones which will right a wrong and restore our independence. And its good to see a political party actually advocating them.

But there's more. The spy bill process highlighted the fundamental problem of our constitution: that Parliament cannot be trusted to defend our human rights. So the Internet party is pushing for the BORA to be entrenched as superior law - meaning Parliament will be able to be checked by the courts when they overstep the mark. I welcome this - Parliament has forfeited all trust in this area, repeatedly passing legislation which violates core rights without justification or in some cases even real debate. By contrast, the courts are trusted, and their decisions must be robust and withstand scrutiny. If the courts decide to uphold a law which prima facie violates the BORA, you can be sure they won't give us bullshit like this as a "justification".

The full policy document is here.

I don't see it either

The "big" political news today (this being a non-sitting week when the politicians are on holiday, some of them literally) is that the Internet Party is in talks with Mana to form an electoral alliance (which presumably means a joint party list). Like pretty much everyone else, I'm boggled by this. Its easy to see why the Internet Party would want to talk to Mana: they're unlikely to make 5%, so they need to find an electorate MP to get their people into Parliament. But its much harder to see why Mana would be interested in assisting a party founded by a multi-millionaire (who sought to buy influence via John Banks), and whose platform and core constituency has virtually nothing in common with theirs. Even talking to Dotcom undermines Mana's sense of authenticity and alienates its supporters and activists. For them, its all cost and no benefit.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Maori and the poor are deeply interested in internet freedom, and maybe there's a lot of IT geeks who support the Treaty and worker's rights. Or maybe, despite those enormous differences, they'll be able to get along, or at least co-habit. After all, Winston manages it - though largely by ensuring his two core constituencies of conservative Maori and racist Pakeha pensioners are never in the same room together. But I doubt it.

Missing the obvious

The big political news of the weekend was that Kim Dotcom will be launching his new political party later this month. This has naturally led to speculation about exactly what this party will stand for, with the suggestion that it will be a largely personal vehicle which promote social libertarianism, but lean right. But all this speculation has missed something very obvious. Kim Dotcom's natural issues are state surveillance, civil rights and intellectual property reform. There is already an international model for a party based on these issues, with a local instance: the Pirate Party.

Pretty obviously, Dotcom wants to avoid that word - its poor branding when you're fighting extradition for enabling piracy, plus he has his own "Mega" brand he can leverage off as well. But the Pirate platform is a natural fit. So my expectation is that the Mega Party will largely be a pirated Pirate Party, perhaps with a dose of opposition to extradition treaties with the US thrown in.

(This will obviously be bad for Pirate Party New Zealand. Tough. They've tried and failed to win votes in that space for years. If Dotcom can do better, then good on him).

But while I'll be pleased to see a party pushing internet issues with greater visibility, it is a very narrow platform. In Germany, where the Piratenpartei Deutschland has successfully won seats in several state elections, they've discovered that its not enough, and that they have to take sides on other issues too. Which led to damaging infighting amongst a party which previously hadn't had to care where people stood on areas beyond their common digital ground. In Iceland (where they have 3 MPs in the 63 seat Althing) they've avoided that so far, largely by being willing to horse-trade and support other parties' policies in exchange for their own. while the undemocratic 5% threshold makes it unlikely that the Mega party will win seats, it will still be interesting to see what path it goes down.