Thursday 13 April 2017
“The Romantic Backstory of Amy Adams’ Engagement Ring”, The Aventurine
The Adventurine Marion Fasel met with celebrity designer Jean Dousset to discuss “The romantic Backstory of Amy Adams’ engagement ring”. Jean created Amy’s ring
when the got engaged to Darren LeGallo in 2008. Known first for her
award-winning jewelry coverage with InStyle, Marion developed The Aventurine, a platform where she shares her passion and expertise for jewelry.
Friday 30 October 2015
Star Style at The Hollywood Reporter’s 5th Annual Power Stylist Luncheon
The Hollywood Reporter and Jimmy Choo celebrated the 2015 Most Powerful Stylists issue of THR with an exclusive luncheon held in West Hollywood on March 18. Stars and their stylists attended the event including Amy Adams, Gwen Stefani, Olivia Munn, Zoe Saldana and Emily Ratajkowski.
Check out star style from the event below.
Monday 10 August 2015
Amy Adams defends anti-cyber bullying bill as critics say free speech will be criminalised
Justice Minister Amy Adams defends the anti-cyber bullying bill rejecting criticism that free speech will be be criminalised or suppressed and insists not enacting new legislation “would be failing the public.”
Ms Adams says the Harmful Digital Communications Bill, due back in the House next week, has few changes. But it will now allow web hosts to “opt out” of ‘safe harbour’ clause and follow their own terms and conditions. The safe harbour provision gives publishers and others who run websites a grace period to remove offending material they did not realise was on their site.
“That’s completely up to the content host how they choose to work through that process. And that’s important, because we don’t want to compel hosts to take down information, because that would be a very unreasonable limit on the freedom of speech.”
If online content hosts choose the ‘safe harbour’ option, involving a 48-hour notice period, then they won’t be held liable for any action they take; but they will lose legal protection if they opt out.
Ms Adams says only in extreme cases will the bill result in criminal action being taken: "We have made sure that it is only where the person intends to cause significant harm to the victim and actual harm is caused.”
People who are offended by online satire will be able to complain and ask for take-downs under new law but says “the terms under the legislation make it quite clear that having a joke at someone’s expense will not meet the threshold.”
Playing down criticism, Ms Adams says the same goes for journalism: “I have no concern at all that genuine investigative information revealing things in the normal course of news media would be captured by this law.”
There will be no defence of truth under the new law. But citing revenge porn, Ms Adams says, “The fact that it happened doesn’t mean it’s not very damaging and inappropriate for that to be put up on the internet.”
She says the definition of harm as serious emotional distress will be unchanged
Law professor Ursula Cheer says she still has concerns about the bill and media could get dragged into complaints.
“That’s completely up to the content host how they choose to work through that process. And that’s important, because we don’t want to compel hosts to take down information, because that would be a very unreasonable limit on the freedom of speech.”
If online content hosts choose the ‘safe harbour’ option, involving a 48-hour notice period, then they won’t be held liable for any action they take; but they will lose legal protection if they opt out.
Ms Adams says only in extreme cases will the bill result in criminal action being taken: "We have made sure that it is only where the person intends to cause significant harm to the victim and actual harm is caused.”
People who are offended by online satire will be able to complain and ask for take-downs under new law but says “the terms under the legislation make it quite clear that having a joke at someone’s expense will not meet the threshold.”
Playing down criticism, Ms Adams says the same goes for journalism: “I have no concern at all that genuine investigative information revealing things in the normal course of news media would be captured by this law.”
There will be no defence of truth under the new law. But citing revenge porn, Ms Adams says, “The fact that it happened doesn’t mean it’s not very damaging and inappropriate for that to be put up on the internet.”
She says the definition of harm as serious emotional distress will be unchanged
Law professor Ursula Cheer says she still has concerns about the bill and media could get dragged into complaints.
The Harmful Digital Communications Bill will see the appointment of an approved agency (the Law Commission has nominated NetSafe), which will take complaints to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter that can be hard for individual people to make direct contact with.
It also has a provision for complaints about cyber bullying to be escalated to a district court judge. A post deemed a harmful digital communication is punishable by up to three months in prison or a fine of up to $2000. The bill also introduces a new incitement to suicide offence punishable by up to three years in prison.
RAW DATA: The Nation transcript: Lisa Owen interviews Justice Minister Amy Adams and law professor Ursula Cheer about the Harmful Digital Communications Bill
Watch the interview here
Amy Adams: Well, obviously when you’re dealing in the cyber medium, you’re not just dealing with a one-to-one conversation which can be hurtful and might be overheard by a few people. As we all know, these things can go viral and reach audiences literally of millions very, very quickly, so the damage to people’s reputation and to their mental health from this sort of abuse is significant. And, of course, it lasts forever. Once something’s on the Internet, unless it’s taken down and dealt with very carefully, it can be there for a long time, and the damage is repeated.
Lisa Owen: This bill is back in the House next week. Can you tell us what kind of changes you’re looking to make?
Well, really, over the course of the bill, we’ve just been looking to clarify some of the drafting and provisions, and of course there’s always some technical tidy-ups that the drafters find. So there’s going to be nothing staggering that’s new in the changes. There are a few areas where we want to, as I say, clarify, for example, how the safe harbour works, clarify that the fence regime covers a number of different options. So there’s a few tidy-ups of that nature.
Can you tell us a bit more about that? A safe harbour clause that you talked about then?
Yeah, well, the bill provides a safe harbour provision in it which makes it very clear that if you are what we call an online content host - so think your Trade Me message boards or the ISP who provide the net service - we don’t want them to be criminalised in this, so we’ve created a very specific process that they can follow - they don’t have to, but they can follow - of receiving the complaint, giving notice to the person who put the message up, and if they follow through that process, then they can’t be held in any way liable for any action they take. That’s not to say, of course, that the content host can’t do what they would want to do anyway. So take it down immediately if they think it’s offensive or follow their own terms and conditions. But it just provides a very clear legislative process that if they follow that, there can be no question at all of any liability for them.
All right. I want to talk through some examples a bit later, but can you tell me whether the definition of harm - because this is all about - whether a tweet or something that’s put out in cyberspace harms someone - is the definition of harm going to be the same? To cause emotional distress?
Yeah, look, we’re not changing that. This is a piece of legislation that we have to balance very carefully, and the select committee, I think, did a very good job of testing exactly where that balance needs to sit between protecting people from unfair cyber bullying but not going so far as to be an unreasonable limit on freedom of speech and free expression.
But in terms of the harm, causing harm, isn’t that kind of loose, subjective language that’s open to interpretation? How do you measure that? Because one person’s horseplay is another person’s bullying.
Yeah, that’s true, but it’s not actually unusual in the law to talk about concepts like reasonableness and whether a reasonable person would be upset by it, so that’s something the law is used to dealing with. And, as I said, the vast majority of cases will be dealt with by the approved agency who can’t compel anyone to do anything but to try and mediate between people to remove content that’s inappropriate. And it only becomes a legal issue if it really is at the very serious end of the spectrum. And harm in that sense can go from significant emotional distress right through to people potentially wanting to take their own lives. We’ve certainly seen that in cases like Charlotte Dawson and the like.
All right. Well, to help us understand this, let’s use an example. So, there is a post on The Nation’s Facebook page that calls Steven Joyce a lazy bludger, and it accuses him of racism and discrimination. So, let’s say Mr Joyce rings the host of our webpage under this law and says that it’s caused him harm or emotional distress, what happens under your law?
Well, there’s a couple of things. First of all, a politician is probably not the best example to use because we have an expectation that in our jobs, we are subject to a lot more abuse and criticism than the average person, and our thresholds adjust to that.
But there’s nothing in the bill that specifies that, is there?
No, that’s exactly right.
Right, so let’s use this example then. He rings in and says it’s caused him harm.
Okay, so there’s three players involved here. There’s the person who put up the information. So, the poster of the information. There’s the host - as you say, the site it’s on - and the complainant. So, the complainant can go to the online host and lodge a complaint. Now, the host, at that point, can choose to go down the safe harbour provision, which is a 48 hour notice receiving the information and then dealing with it. Or the online content host can choose to follow their own processes, which may be taking it down straight away, as they do now. It may be doing nothing further. So, that’s completely up to the content host how they choose to work through that process. And that’s important, because we don’t want to compel hosts to take down information, because that would be a very unreasonable limit on the freedom of speech. So there is an option there for the content host, and what happens is the approved agency would work with the parties to see if it can be resolved amicably between them.
You talked about the safe harbour provisions, but a host could conceivably take it down to avoid grief of the matter going any further. So that in itself, as the default position, could be censorship.
Well, that’s the position now. Right now, if you don’t like something that’s up on Facebook about you, you can ring Facebook and ask them to take it down. And right now, they’ll make their own assessment about whether they will or won’t. This doesn’t change that. What it does say is that there is a specific process that the host can use if they want to. And if they want to, then they can’t be held criminally liable for their decision.
And if they use that specific process, they can contact, can’t they, the person who has produced that item that’s caused the offence.
That’s right.
And those people have, at the moment, 48 hours to respond. That’s correct?
That’s right. Absolutely.
And if they don’t, if they’re unable to contact those people or they don’t get a response, the default position, if they want to use this clause to protect themselves, is they’ve got to take the material down, don’t they?
If they want to follow through the safe harbour provisions, that’s exactly right. But, as I’ve said, that’s entirely optional for them, and they can choose to use or not use that process.
So they can use their own terms and conditions, and then they’re on their own in terms of liability if they opt for that. If they use safe harbour, they get no response within 48 hours or can’t contact the person who has produced that material, then in order to be protected, they must take it down.
That’s right. They need to work with the approved agency to do that, but we have to have a process whereby it’s not an out to simply return a call. So, if you take a situation of revenge porn where someone’s put up very personal, very intimate photos or information about you on a website, you make a complaint under these provisions, and the online content host can’t get hold of anyone, you can’t have that remaining there for extended periods of time. We want there to be an adequate method of response, and I have every confidence that the approved agencies and the online content hosts will use that appropriately.
Okay. You talk about not wanting to suppress free speech, and Thomas Beagle from Tech Liberty has said this offence will criminalise all speech that causes harm, regardless of whether that speech has any other value. He’s right, isn’t he? It will criminalise-?
No, I don’t think he is at all. No, look, I don’t accept that at all. The criminal offence in the bill is for the very extreme end of harmful digital communications, and we have made sure that it is only where the person intends to cause significant harm to the victim and actual harm is caused. So you have to set out to want to hurt that person, and that person is in fact harmed.
Okay. Well, can we talk through a couple of examples, then. Jeremy Corbett and Paul Ego will come on this show shortly, and they will make someone the butt of their jokes. I think this week it’s Nick Smith. It goes up on our webpage. Now, what’s to stop someone asking for that to be taken down because they feel it’s harmed them or referring it to the agency or taking it to court? And then a lot of time and money is spent working out whether that’s a joke or it’s bullying.
So, you’re right. As I said before, people can complain, and people actually take cases to court under all sorts of provisions at the moment that there isn’t a proper basis for and they don’t proceed further. There’s always that balance between should they not be able to raise the issue, or should it be able to be raised and tested. I’m very comfortable that, actually, the terms under the legislation make it quite clear that having a joke at someone’s expense will not meet the threshold of causing the sort of harm that the bill anticipates.
Critics say that this is one of the types of cases that will get caught up in this bill and will waste time and money.
Well, I simply don’t agree with them. And, of course, if that is the case, then the law can always be looked at.
Can you say, Minister, that cartoons- the likes of cartoons, Minister. Can you say that those will be protected as well, like cartoons about Muhammad and Christ? And they cause a lot of people a lot of distress.
Look, it really- Whether there is a satirical drawing or some sort of other information is not the test; the test is the content of the information. So if the information in cartoon form or any other form created serious harm, incited racial hatred or the like, the same principles apply.
Well, for example, the Charlie Hebdo cartoons that obviously resulted in a number of lives being lost - sometimes the intent of cartoons is to stir, to create public debate.
Well, this bill isn’t going to criminalise anything that doesn’t set out to cause serious harm and serious harm is caused. And it will be for the court in each case to work out whether that test has been made. But what I can assure you is that that threshold is very high.
Will there be a defence of honestly held opinion or truth?
So, when you have offences that require- that prosecute people for intentionally causing serious harm to someone, I don’t think it’s okay to simply say, ‘Well, I think it’s reasonable,’ or ‘It’s my right to say it.’ The courts actually say if you’ve gone out to cause serious harm-
But what if it’s true? What if it’s true, Minister? What if the thing published in cyberspace is true?
Well, you have to be very careful, I think, Lisa. There’s a lot of what we’re talking about will be true in so far as that someone might have taken a recording of you doing someone incredibly intimate. Now, the fact that it happened doesn’t mean it’s not very damaging and inappropriate for that to be put up on the internet.
But what about let’s say- Let’s use an example of a politician who may be married and has campaigned on family values is then found to be having an affair, and that material is put up in a story in cyberspace. While it might be harmful to that individual, it is truthful. And the intent may be to undermine their political career, but it’s truthful, and it has some public value, perhaps, the story.
Look, it’s very difficult to start going through every single situation and trying to guess how a court will assess it. The point being that we need to have a system for dealing with people who actively set out to cause serious harm by inciting violence, by inciting hatred by posting intimate information about people. That is not the same as investigative journalism, and I have no concern at all that genuine investigative information revealing things in the normal course of news media would be captured by this law. That is not the intent. I think the Law Commission and the select committee tested those things very carefully. And I think if we were to say, ‘Well, look, we’re just not going to take any action at all, and this harm being caused by harmful cyber bullying is not something we’re going to worry about,’ then I think we would be failing the public.
All right. Thank you very much. Justice Minister Amy Adams. Very interesting to talk to you this morning. Thank you.
You’re welcome.
Lisa Owen: This bill is back in the House next week. Can you tell us what kind of changes you’re looking to make?
Well, really, over the course of the bill, we’ve just been looking to clarify some of the drafting and provisions, and of course there’s always some technical tidy-ups that the drafters find. So there’s going to be nothing staggering that’s new in the changes. There are a few areas where we want to, as I say, clarify, for example, how the safe harbour works, clarify that the fence regime covers a number of different options. So there’s a few tidy-ups of that nature.
Can you tell us a bit more about that? A safe harbour clause that you talked about then?
Yeah, well, the bill provides a safe harbour provision in it which makes it very clear that if you are what we call an online content host - so think your Trade Me message boards or the ISP who provide the net service - we don’t want them to be criminalised in this, so we’ve created a very specific process that they can follow - they don’t have to, but they can follow - of receiving the complaint, giving notice to the person who put the message up, and if they follow through that process, then they can’t be held in any way liable for any action they take. That’s not to say, of course, that the content host can’t do what they would want to do anyway. So take it down immediately if they think it’s offensive or follow their own terms and conditions. But it just provides a very clear legislative process that if they follow that, there can be no question at all of any liability for them.
All right. I want to talk through some examples a bit later, but can you tell me whether the definition of harm - because this is all about - whether a tweet or something that’s put out in cyberspace harms someone - is the definition of harm going to be the same? To cause emotional distress?
Yeah, look, we’re not changing that. This is a piece of legislation that we have to balance very carefully, and the select committee, I think, did a very good job of testing exactly where that balance needs to sit between protecting people from unfair cyber bullying but not going so far as to be an unreasonable limit on freedom of speech and free expression.
But in terms of the harm, causing harm, isn’t that kind of loose, subjective language that’s open to interpretation? How do you measure that? Because one person’s horseplay is another person’s bullying.
Yeah, that’s true, but it’s not actually unusual in the law to talk about concepts like reasonableness and whether a reasonable person would be upset by it, so that’s something the law is used to dealing with. And, as I said, the vast majority of cases will be dealt with by the approved agency who can’t compel anyone to do anything but to try and mediate between people to remove content that’s inappropriate. And it only becomes a legal issue if it really is at the very serious end of the spectrum. And harm in that sense can go from significant emotional distress right through to people potentially wanting to take their own lives. We’ve certainly seen that in cases like Charlotte Dawson and the like.
All right. Well, to help us understand this, let’s use an example. So, there is a post on The Nation’s Facebook page that calls Steven Joyce a lazy bludger, and it accuses him of racism and discrimination. So, let’s say Mr Joyce rings the host of our webpage under this law and says that it’s caused him harm or emotional distress, what happens under your law?
Well, there’s a couple of things. First of all, a politician is probably not the best example to use because we have an expectation that in our jobs, we are subject to a lot more abuse and criticism than the average person, and our thresholds adjust to that.
But there’s nothing in the bill that specifies that, is there?
No, that’s exactly right.
Right, so let’s use this example then. He rings in and says it’s caused him harm.
Okay, so there’s three players involved here. There’s the person who put up the information. So, the poster of the information. There’s the host - as you say, the site it’s on - and the complainant. So, the complainant can go to the online host and lodge a complaint. Now, the host, at that point, can choose to go down the safe harbour provision, which is a 48 hour notice receiving the information and then dealing with it. Or the online content host can choose to follow their own processes, which may be taking it down straight away, as they do now. It may be doing nothing further. So, that’s completely up to the content host how they choose to work through that process. And that’s important, because we don’t want to compel hosts to take down information, because that would be a very unreasonable limit on the freedom of speech. So there is an option there for the content host, and what happens is the approved agency would work with the parties to see if it can be resolved amicably between them.
You talked about the safe harbour provisions, but a host could conceivably take it down to avoid grief of the matter going any further. So that in itself, as the default position, could be censorship.
Well, that’s the position now. Right now, if you don’t like something that’s up on Facebook about you, you can ring Facebook and ask them to take it down. And right now, they’ll make their own assessment about whether they will or won’t. This doesn’t change that. What it does say is that there is a specific process that the host can use if they want to. And if they want to, then they can’t be held criminally liable for their decision.
And if they use that specific process, they can contact, can’t they, the person who has produced that item that’s caused the offence.
That’s right.
And those people have, at the moment, 48 hours to respond. That’s correct?
That’s right. Absolutely.
And if they don’t, if they’re unable to contact those people or they don’t get a response, the default position, if they want to use this clause to protect themselves, is they’ve got to take the material down, don’t they?
If they want to follow through the safe harbour provisions, that’s exactly right. But, as I’ve said, that’s entirely optional for them, and they can choose to use or not use that process.
So they can use their own terms and conditions, and then they’re on their own in terms of liability if they opt for that. If they use safe harbour, they get no response within 48 hours or can’t contact the person who has produced that material, then in order to be protected, they must take it down.
That’s right. They need to work with the approved agency to do that, but we have to have a process whereby it’s not an out to simply return a call. So, if you take a situation of revenge porn where someone’s put up very personal, very intimate photos or information about you on a website, you make a complaint under these provisions, and the online content host can’t get hold of anyone, you can’t have that remaining there for extended periods of time. We want there to be an adequate method of response, and I have every confidence that the approved agencies and the online content hosts will use that appropriately.
Okay. You talk about not wanting to suppress free speech, and Thomas Beagle from Tech Liberty has said this offence will criminalise all speech that causes harm, regardless of whether that speech has any other value. He’s right, isn’t he? It will criminalise-?
No, I don’t think he is at all. No, look, I don’t accept that at all. The criminal offence in the bill is for the very extreme end of harmful digital communications, and we have made sure that it is only where the person intends to cause significant harm to the victim and actual harm is caused. So you have to set out to want to hurt that person, and that person is in fact harmed.
Okay. Well, can we talk through a couple of examples, then. Jeremy Corbett and Paul Ego will come on this show shortly, and they will make someone the butt of their jokes. I think this week it’s Nick Smith. It goes up on our webpage. Now, what’s to stop someone asking for that to be taken down because they feel it’s harmed them or referring it to the agency or taking it to court? And then a lot of time and money is spent working out whether that’s a joke or it’s bullying.
So, you’re right. As I said before, people can complain, and people actually take cases to court under all sorts of provisions at the moment that there isn’t a proper basis for and they don’t proceed further. There’s always that balance between should they not be able to raise the issue, or should it be able to be raised and tested. I’m very comfortable that, actually, the terms under the legislation make it quite clear that having a joke at someone’s expense will not meet the threshold of causing the sort of harm that the bill anticipates.
Critics say that this is one of the types of cases that will get caught up in this bill and will waste time and money.
Well, I simply don’t agree with them. And, of course, if that is the case, then the law can always be looked at.
Can you say, Minister, that cartoons- the likes of cartoons, Minister. Can you say that those will be protected as well, like cartoons about Muhammad and Christ? And they cause a lot of people a lot of distress.
Look, it really- Whether there is a satirical drawing or some sort of other information is not the test; the test is the content of the information. So if the information in cartoon form or any other form created serious harm, incited racial hatred or the like, the same principles apply.
Well, for example, the Charlie Hebdo cartoons that obviously resulted in a number of lives being lost - sometimes the intent of cartoons is to stir, to create public debate.
Well, this bill isn’t going to criminalise anything that doesn’t set out to cause serious harm and serious harm is caused. And it will be for the court in each case to work out whether that test has been made. But what I can assure you is that that threshold is very high.
Will there be a defence of honestly held opinion or truth?
So, when you have offences that require- that prosecute people for intentionally causing serious harm to someone, I don’t think it’s okay to simply say, ‘Well, I think it’s reasonable,’ or ‘It’s my right to say it.’ The courts actually say if you’ve gone out to cause serious harm-
But what if it’s true? What if it’s true, Minister? What if the thing published in cyberspace is true?
Well, you have to be very careful, I think, Lisa. There’s a lot of what we’re talking about will be true in so far as that someone might have taken a recording of you doing someone incredibly intimate. Now, the fact that it happened doesn’t mean it’s not very damaging and inappropriate for that to be put up on the internet.
But what about let’s say- Let’s use an example of a politician who may be married and has campaigned on family values is then found to be having an affair, and that material is put up in a story in cyberspace. While it might be harmful to that individual, it is truthful. And the intent may be to undermine their political career, but it’s truthful, and it has some public value, perhaps, the story.
Look, it’s very difficult to start going through every single situation and trying to guess how a court will assess it. The point being that we need to have a system for dealing with people who actively set out to cause serious harm by inciting violence, by inciting hatred by posting intimate information about people. That is not the same as investigative journalism, and I have no concern at all that genuine investigative information revealing things in the normal course of news media would be captured by this law. That is not the intent. I think the Law Commission and the select committee tested those things very carefully. And I think if we were to say, ‘Well, look, we’re just not going to take any action at all, and this harm being caused by harmful cyber bullying is not something we’re going to worry about,’ then I think we would be failing the public.
All right. Thank you very much. Justice Minister Amy Adams. Very interesting to talk to you this morning. Thank you.
You’re welcome.
Lisa Owen: Ursula Cheer is a law professor at Canterbury University. She says the bill is a risk, and she joins me live from our Wellington studio. Good morning, Professor.
Ursula Cheer: Good morning, Lisa.
We all want to stop bullying, but there have been some concern raised about this Bill — some from you — that it may unintentionally undermine free speech. Are any of your concerns relieved by what you've heard there from the Minister?
Well, I guess I wouldn't be quite so sanguine and certain as the Minister about what the effects of the legislation will be. This is the next piece of legislation that may have quite serious impacts on speech in New Zealand. So, certainly, the aims are very worthy and I think worth pursuing, but I think just because other countries are doing things like this, doesn't mean that they're all going to work out necessarily. Particularly, we can assume they're going to work well and not take in speech, and that there is no risk to speech that shouldn't be, perhaps, criminalised or covered by a civil regime. So, this is new legislation, and all around the world, countries are trying to deal with the issue of cyber porn, and they're all trying it without really knowing what the effects might be. So I think there are risks there, and they do need to be kept in mind both when the agency is being appointed to deal with the lower level of this regime, and then by all the individuals and civil servants and so on who will be asked to administer this scheme.
Because the reality is that free speech can cause harm.
That's absolutely right, and I think our Bill of Rights contains freedom of expression, and it has to be borne in mind wherever any legislation is passed and wherever it's administered. So I guess my first concern is about the agency that is supposed to run that low level part of the scheme where an individual who thinks they've been harmed can go and complain and then seek to have mediation, something of that kind, carried out for them. So we don't know who this agency's going to be yet, and although the Law Commission talked about NetSafe being the appropriate body, there's two things about that agency. First, they're going to have to be really well resourced because this is likely to be a regime I think that will be quite popular. Speech on the internet now is exploding so...
Professor, do you think that agency, whoever it turns out to be, could be inundated with, perhaps, nuisance complaints?
Well, not only nuisance complaints but just lots of complaints, and it's like the Privacy Commissioner has become very popular in that way. And your agency has to be resourced really well to deal with that, and you don't want to be like the Privacy Commissioner's office which has a backload and needs more money. So that's the first real issue. But, of course, there will be, possibly, what will be seen as vexatious or frivolous complaints as well. And they have tried to deal with those, but it's always tricky to weed those out and work out whether you should deal with certain complaints. And that takes time to work those things out, and it takes resources.
Do you have any concerns about the media not being exempt from this law?
That's unusual for legislation of this kind, so what will happen is there will be compliance costs that may impact on media, and there might be the occasional complaint in relation to web pages. All the media outlets run web pages. So it's possible people will be offended by, perhaps, a religious cartoon or some other sort of coverage that impacts on somebody's privacy. Then the media have to get involved in the process if a complaint is made, and then if it is, perhaps, looks as if it's upheld or there can't be a mediation around it and it goes on to the court, then there have to be methods there within the scheme to allow for the media position. They have tried to...
The Minister was very strong about saying there that you need to have intended harm, but if we look at a case this morning. We've done an interview about Colin Craig, and we intended to reveal some material that presumably could cause him and his family distress. Could that get us in trouble under that law?
OK, I think what the Minister was talking about there was the criminal offence, and that threshold has been set very high as to whether behaviour will be criminalised or not, so I think it is unlikely the media will be caught by that. There has to be the intention to cause harm, and the harm, including emotional harm, has to actually have been caused. So I think that's not so much an issue, but I think the civil regime, whereby if it goes to a court, a district court, there might be an order for a 'take down' or something like that. That's more likely to maybe impact on the media. They have tried to build in the public interest being taken into account, but it's not a defence. It's not a specific defence. It's just one of those things that will be weighed up along with everything else by a court. And in the meantime, the media has the cost and the time involved in dealing with that complaint. So the media may well be dragged into this process.
All right. Thank you so much for joining me this morning, Professor Ursula Cheer.
Thank you.
Ursula Cheer: Good morning, Lisa.
We all want to stop bullying, but there have been some concern raised about this Bill — some from you — that it may unintentionally undermine free speech. Are any of your concerns relieved by what you've heard there from the Minister?
Well, I guess I wouldn't be quite so sanguine and certain as the Minister about what the effects of the legislation will be. This is the next piece of legislation that may have quite serious impacts on speech in New Zealand. So, certainly, the aims are very worthy and I think worth pursuing, but I think just because other countries are doing things like this, doesn't mean that they're all going to work out necessarily. Particularly, we can assume they're going to work well and not take in speech, and that there is no risk to speech that shouldn't be, perhaps, criminalised or covered by a civil regime. So, this is new legislation, and all around the world, countries are trying to deal with the issue of cyber porn, and they're all trying it without really knowing what the effects might be. So I think there are risks there, and they do need to be kept in mind both when the agency is being appointed to deal with the lower level of this regime, and then by all the individuals and civil servants and so on who will be asked to administer this scheme.
Because the reality is that free speech can cause harm.
That's absolutely right, and I think our Bill of Rights contains freedom of expression, and it has to be borne in mind wherever any legislation is passed and wherever it's administered. So I guess my first concern is about the agency that is supposed to run that low level part of the scheme where an individual who thinks they've been harmed can go and complain and then seek to have mediation, something of that kind, carried out for them. So we don't know who this agency's going to be yet, and although the Law Commission talked about NetSafe being the appropriate body, there's two things about that agency. First, they're going to have to be really well resourced because this is likely to be a regime I think that will be quite popular. Speech on the internet now is exploding so...
Professor, do you think that agency, whoever it turns out to be, could be inundated with, perhaps, nuisance complaints?
Well, not only nuisance complaints but just lots of complaints, and it's like the Privacy Commissioner has become very popular in that way. And your agency has to be resourced really well to deal with that, and you don't want to be like the Privacy Commissioner's office which has a backload and needs more money. So that's the first real issue. But, of course, there will be, possibly, what will be seen as vexatious or frivolous complaints as well. And they have tried to deal with those, but it's always tricky to weed those out and work out whether you should deal with certain complaints. And that takes time to work those things out, and it takes resources.
Do you have any concerns about the media not being exempt from this law?
That's unusual for legislation of this kind, so what will happen is there will be compliance costs that may impact on media, and there might be the occasional complaint in relation to web pages. All the media outlets run web pages. So it's possible people will be offended by, perhaps, a religious cartoon or some other sort of coverage that impacts on somebody's privacy. Then the media have to get involved in the process if a complaint is made, and then if it is, perhaps, looks as if it's upheld or there can't be a mediation around it and it goes on to the court, then there have to be methods there within the scheme to allow for the media position. They have tried to...
The Minister was very strong about saying there that you need to have intended harm, but if we look at a case this morning. We've done an interview about Colin Craig, and we intended to reveal some material that presumably could cause him and his family distress. Could that get us in trouble under that law?
OK, I think what the Minister was talking about there was the criminal offence, and that threshold has been set very high as to whether behaviour will be criminalised or not, so I think it is unlikely the media will be caught by that. There has to be the intention to cause harm, and the harm, including emotional harm, has to actually have been caused. So I think that's not so much an issue, but I think the civil regime, whereby if it goes to a court, a district court, there might be an order for a 'take down' or something like that. That's more likely to maybe impact on the media. They have tried to build in the public interest being taken into account, but it's not a defence. It's not a specific defence. It's just one of those things that will be weighed up along with everything else by a court. And in the meantime, the media has the cost and the time involved in dealing with that complaint. So the media may well be dragged into this process.
All right. Thank you so much for joining me this morning, Professor Ursula Cheer.
Thank you.
Amy Adams only interested in 'strong female roles'
Amy Adams: "Even to this day I have this fantasy: 'What else would I do if I didn't act?' And I've got nothing." Photo: Paola Kudacki/trunkarchive.com/Snapper Media
When Amy Adams first read the script for her new film Big Eyes, five years ago, she passed on it. She was only looking for "strong female roles" and it didn't fit the bill.
Big Eyes is based on the true story of artist Margaret Keane, whose second husband, Walter, took credit for her paintings of children with huge, doleful eyes, passing them off as his own, then popularising them in the 1960s through mass-production prints. As Walter kept telling her, "People don't buy lady art."
Adams initially regarded Keane – locked in a custody battle with her first husband for her daughter and wanting Walter's protection – as a pushover. Then, a year later, the actress had her daughter Aviana and reconsidered her definition of what constitutes strength.
Amy Adams: "Even to this day I have this fantasy: 'What else would I do if I didn't act?' And I've got nothing." Photo: Paola Kudacki/trunkarchive.com/Snapper Media
"I think that there's probably a great conflict within her, between being an artist and being a mother," Adams says of Keane's surrender to her husband's plan. "You start doing something because you believe it's the right thing to do, and it ends up being the wrong thing to do for the right reasons."
Adams described Keane in her Golden Globes acceptance speech (she won a Best Actress award) as "a woman who had such a quiet voice, strong heart and strong artistic vision – and ultimately was able to use her voice".Keane eventually sued Walter and took back control of her intellectual property and is now considered by some to be a late-blooming feminist.
Adams, the middle of seven children,has been driven to find her own voice from a young age. Born in Italy 40 years ago, where her father was stationed with the US Army, she mostly grew up in Castle Rock, Colorado. Adams was raised Mormon until the age of 12, when her parents divorced and left the Church. Even now, there's a residual wholesomeness about her that is decidedly un-Hollywood.
On the day we meet, the petite star is dressed in a modest Calvin Klein twinset, that matches her pellucid blue eyes. Her thick auburn hair drapes softly at her shoulders and the only tiny sign of rebellion is her tan pumps, kicked off impetuously on the floor.
Not only does Adams, in spite of her fame, remain softly spoken and eager to please, she is raising Aviana, 4, to be a little lady, too. "I'm a pretty firm mother," she says. "I really believe in manners and I've definitely had other mothers look at me like I'm a little hard on her. I don't want her to blindly follow authority but at the same time I'd like her to understand boundaries."
This is partly a case of Adams having learnt the hard way. School was not her forte, mostly because she was just waiting for it to be over so she could join the workforce. "Being one of seven kids, I was going to be responsible for my own education, financially," she says. "And I didn't want to accrue all these student loans and have to pay them off as a dancer. I was very practical."
Instead, she spent several years singing and dancing in dinner-theatre shows across middle America until she caught a break, scoring a role in the beauty pageant mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous. Co-star Kirstie Alley encouraged Adams to leave regional theatre and try her hand in the rough and tumble of Hollywood – a move that brought its share of lows as well as highs. What kept her going in the face of rejection? "Lack of options," she admits. "Seriously. I could not figure out what else I would do. Even to this day, I have this fantasy: 'What else would I do if I didn't act?' And I've got nothing."
That pragmatism paid off when she scored a role in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can as a nurse who falls for a charming con man, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. It was another three years, though, until her breakout role in Junebug (2005), playing a naive and vulnerable housewife whose baby is stillborn. The performance earned her the first of five Oscar nominations (pundits regarded her failure to garner an Oscar nomination forBig Eyes as a surprising snub from the Academy).
The accolades are impressive but the work itself has come at a psychological cost. "I'm very jealous of this sense of freedom other actors have with their work," Adams admits. "I've approached my work with fear, if I'm being honest. It's a big part of my life – a lot of fear of judgment, a lot of fear of failure."
Enjoying a low-key life helps ease some of the anxiety that has come with meteoric success. Adams has been in a relationship with artist and actor Darren Le Gallo for 13 years. If the paparazzi capture candid shots of the family, they are typically hiking in the hills around Los Angeles, or shopping at a weekend farmers' market. "When I did Julie and Julia I picked up cooking skills that changed how I saw cooking," she says of the 2009 film in which she co-starred with Meryl Streep. "It became very meditative for me."
Although, after a six-year engagement, people have mostly stopped speculating when Adams and Le Gallo might throw a wedding, the question of whether they want a sibling for Aviana is persistent.
She knows that whatever happens, her daughter's childhood will be very different from her own. "It's been something I've struggled with, to create the balance and provide some sort of normalcy for her, but understanding there is no normal life," she says.
Adams's regrets about missing out on college are sometimes tweaked by the creative milieu the girl from small-town Colorado finds herself in. "I've worked with some really amazing people," she says. "So, that'll do it to you. I'm like, 'Hmm, I should probably try and figure out what they're talking about.' "
DiCaprio enthusiastically filled out her film knowledge, she says. As for her love of literature, that is owed to an old love, who remains nameless but about whom she's still clearly wistful. "They say you're supposed to have one really great person you don't end up marrying," she says. "He was lovely and he knew I was sort of insecure about not having gone to university and he would give me books - Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, [John] Steinbeck. I really appreciated that he shared that with me."
In preparing for her Big Eyes role, Adams visited then 86-year-old Margaret Keane in her studio. "I knew I wasn't going to learn to paint like her but I could glean how she related to the paints and the canvas, watching how she used the brush," she says.
Keane disclosed to Adams that the figures she paints speak to universal childhood anxieties: "Why do we have wars? Why do people kill each other? All those things you ask as a child that adults can't answer."
"I think we never lose that fear," says Adams. "We just learn to live with it."
When Adams turned 40, she decided it was time to let go of the worry that had plagued so much of her adult life. "I let go of a lot in my 30s but I've hung on to certain ideas, thinking that they served me," she says. "Now, it's letting go of all of that superstition, like: 'You know what, Amy? Your anxiety is not the reason that you are where you are. That actually robs you of your joy. So let's see how we can let go of that fear.'"
Like so many parents of a four-year-old, Adams spent most of last year exposed to an unrelenting rotation of the Oscar-winning hit song Let It Go, from Disney's animated movie Frozen.
"It's silly that a kid's song is one of my defining songs for the year but I totally get where Elsa's coming from," she says of the film's main character. "You've bottled yourself up, being who people want you to be, but no - I'm going to be who I am, 'stand in the light of day', you know, 'let the storm rage on'."
By now, she is laughing at herself, animatedly quoting the lyrics of her daughter's favourite song. "There's a beautiful saying: 'Fear and gratitude cannot exist within the same breath.' So that's where I'm coming to. I want to start being present and experiencing joy."
Amy Adams: "Even to this day I have this fantasy: 'What else would I do if I didn't act?' And I've got nothing." Photo: Paola Kudacki/trunkarchive.com/Snapper Media
Amy Adams: "Even to this day I have this fantasy: 'What else would I do if I didn't act?' And I've got nothing." Photo: Paola Kudacki/trunkarchive.com/Snapper Media
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