'Wanna-be geek' champions IT

Nandor Tanczos took on parliament's IT service. Picture / Dean Purcell

Green Party technology spokesman Nandor Tanczos is not above going into battle for the IT underdog.

In the last parliamentary term he fought - and eventually won - a battle with Parliamentary Service's computer support department over what web browser he was allowed to run on his Bowen House PC.

A "hell of a fight" broke out when he wanted to run Mozilla Firefox and the parliamentary PC police decreed that only Microsoft's Internet Explorer was allowed on their network. The dreadlocked MP eventually got his way when the support staff threw up their hands and conceded that if he installed the software himself they wouldn't trash it.

"They have a real resistance to open-source operating systems and applications," Tanczos says.

Green policy, on the other hand, is to embrace open source.

"I'm not against Microsoft per se, I use Microsoft products as a lot of people do. They are convenient to use, there are a lot of benefits in using Microsoft products in various ways," he says. "But one of the things we'd like to see is more choice in that area. And in that sense we're looking for Government to take a bit of a lead in supporting some of the alternatives." The party backs open source because, by nature, it is democratic.

It comes back to a key Green principle, he says: appropriate decision-making.

Another core Green principle, ecological wisdom, is behind two other policy issues Tanczos plans to push hard in his IT spokesman role: a reduction in waste generation from old electronic equipment, and unbundling the local loop.

To reduce "e-waste", the Greens want a levy on hardware purchases to encourage technology recycling.

Like a refund on glass bottles, computer users would receive money back when they dropped their old machine at a recycling depot rather than sending it to the landfill.

Removing Telecom's local loop monopoly would also ultimately benefit the environment, Tanczos says, because more competition would mean better broadband uptake, more tele-conferencing and tele-working and therefore less fossil-fuel depleting corporate travel.

"We don't see why Telecom should retain the monopoly over the copper wire. Telecom as a corporation didn't create that infrastructure. That was created by the nation, paid for by taxpayers and they [Telecom] have ended up with the benefit of that," he said. "We think that's to the detriment of New Zealanders because it's anti-competitive."

The Greens were "quite aghast" when the now-notorious 2004 letter from Telecom chief executive Theresa Gattung to then-Communications Minister Paul Swain threatening an end to network development surfaced last year.

"I find it pretty interesting that the argument is that the way to ensure new services are developed is to retain a monopoly because I think general experience is that competition is more likely to see that kind of development going on," Tanczos says.

He plans to asks questions in the House on the issue when Parliament resumes this year.

"It's pretty clear that that letter must have had a pretty significant influence on the cabinet decision - we need to hold them to account for that and have to put the Government into the position of explaining why they decided not to go for local loop unbundling."

Tanczos - who is also the party spokesman on justice, electoral reform, constitutional issues, statistics, land information, environment, waste and sustainable land management - says he put his hand up for the IT role because it is an area that fascinates him.

"I'm not a geek, but I'm more like a wanna-be geek. I'd like to be a geek. It's a big learning curve for me but it's something I'm very passionate about and interested in," he says.

"For the Greens it's particularly important because there's this attempt by our opponents to smear us as anti-technology Luddites, and of course that's far from the truth. In fact I'd say the Greens are one of the most technologically literate parties."

Tanczos is a heavy BlackBerry user and - in the spirit of promoting open source - is about to install Linux on his laptop. But, in a bow to his old foes in parliamentary IT support, he plans to partition his hard drive so he can keep running the Windows operating system as well.

Who: MP and Green Party information technology spokesman.

Favourite gadget: BlackBerry - "I'm constantly relying on it."

Next big thing: Convergence of technology into the cellphone, which will become the main way people receive information, music and organise their lives.

Alternative career: "This was very current to me just a couple of months ago." Options include: organic banana grower, hemp processor (and ultimately "hemp magnate").

Spare time: Spending time with family, carpentry, rock climbing.

Favourite sci-fi movie: The Matrix, "Even though I don't like Keanu Reeves."