This bill follows  the Law Commission's Ministerial Briefing Paper 2012 on Harmful Digital Communications and is aimed at creating a new civil enforcement regime to quickly and effectively deal with harmful digital communications. It sets our principles of communication and creates new criminal offences to deal with the most serious harmful digital communications; there are a few small amendments to existing legislation to clarify their application to digital communications and cover technological advances.

A summary of the bill can be found here:
http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/legislation/bills/digests/50PLLaw21041/harmful-digital-communications-bill-2013-bills-digest

NZNO supported the LC's recommendations and in conjunction with the NZNO National Student Unit, and Nurse Educators in the Tertiary Sector (NETS) developed a paper to guide student nurses' use of social media tools: Social media and the nursing profession: a guide to online professionalism for nurses and nursing students.

Feedback Due: Please send comments to Policy Analyst, Marilyn Head  marilynh@nzno.org.nz 04 494 6372 by February 14, 2014