I see in the paper the Greens have released their IT Policy and have a few simple demands to achieve digital utopia. Some eyebrow raising policies that leap out at me on my first scan of their document:
1. Ban software patents
2. Require the government use free and Open Source software
3. Require the government to favour locally produced software
4. Set up free (tax payer funded) municipally owned wireless networks
5. Force internet providers to supply redundant access
6. Remove any freedom of an ISP to choose what information it carries.
7. Duplicate all public information held by the government in Te Reo Maori
8. Require government to provide more free (tax payer funded) or low cost public information online.
9. Introduce the concept of "E-waste" and promise to research then tax and legislate E-Waste out of existence.
10. Introduce public and democratic scrutiny of any proprietary system responsible for human life or gathering votes.
11. Potentially give tax breaks on software development as it is environmentally friendly.
12. Exclude any American company from supplying management or data storage services to government departments which store information on its citizens.
Item 6 is interesting: The way I read it, to ensure freedom they feel they need to force carriers to carry anything "legal". Thus an ISP who sets up a service that blocks porn sites could be in contravention of the Greens legislation. A customer who likes the price could still complain that the ISP is filtering porn material he really feels a right to view. Irrespective of other customers signing up to get an ISP 'safe' for their children. It becomes an electronic Queen Street Boobs on Bikes.
The approach to ban American companies from providing services to some government departments is equally hysterical. They specifically cite America as the problem due to America's security laws. That was separate to the obvious anti-Microsoft bashing in their policy document.
The Greens also want government to downgrade buying criteria based on suitability for purpose. Rather than buying software according to how good it does the job, a lot more attention should go on how free or open sourced it is. They also want to ban software patents. Banning software patents is an interesting discussion in itself, but I find most people confuse the three topics (free software, open source software, patent protection) and we need to be careful to discuss each as distinct topics.
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Related Link: Green Policy - Information Technology
Related Link: Ban Software Patents and Ban Microsoft