Major Events Bill
The Major Events Bill introduces a novel approach to ambush marketing legislation. Rather than adopting the event-specific legislation seen for the Sydney and London Olympic Games and the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, the New Zealand Government has opted for legislation that can be invoked by regulation for major events.
New Zealand will be hosting a number of major world sporting events in the next eight years including the:
- Rowing World Cup in 2010
- Under-17 Womens Football World Cup in 2008
- World Netball Championships 2007
- Rugby World Cup 2011
- Co-hosting of the Cricket World Cup in 2015
Subject to a number of exceptions and defences, the Bill prohibits ambush marketing by association and also ambush marketing by intrusion. The Select Committee has made a number of amendments:
- Examples have been added into the statutory provisions to clarify the intended effect.
- There is a recommendation that the definition of “advertise” be narrowed to protect expression of personal opinion made by a natural person for non-commercial gain.
- The offence of ambush marketing by association is to be extended to also cover persons who paid for, commissioned or authorised the representation and the person who received consideration for the placement or location of the representation.
- The exception for reporting news, criticism or review in the media is to be expanded to cover the reporting of “information”.
The Select Committee has maintained the high standard for declaring an event to be a “major event” before the legislation may be invoked. Because the protections in the Bill would restrict freedom of speech and business activity, the Select Committee considered that the threshold for declaring an event to be a major event should remain high.