Tuanz chairman Chris O'Connell confirms his organisation is in talks with Internet New Zealand, and that staff cuts are taking place. But he says a merger of the two high-profile lobby groups is only one possible outcome, and denies it's a defensive measure against the slowdown.

Tuanz (the Telecommunications Association of New Zealand) represents corporate telco customers. InternetNZ represents ISPs, internet users, web designers, academics and others in the local internet industry. It also administers the .nz domain, and sells domain names through its commercial arm, NZ Registry Services.

Conference business "dries up completely"
Tuanz is going through tough times. Three staff are being made redundant, Mr O'Connell says, as its events business dries up. Conferences have traditionally been a "good earner", topping up subscription, Mr O'Connell says.

But"events have gone right off the boil since August," says Mr O'Connell, who blames corporate belt-tightening that hit Tuanz even before the sharemarket meltdown officially began during September.  Now, sponsorships are harder to come by and "registrations have died away completely. Travel and conferences are easy to cut when you're uncertain about the future."

However, the decision to trim staff pre-dates the current talks, and any merger will "probably not" result in further cuts, Mr O'Connell says. Tuanz core subscriber events - its After 5 drinks - and its Telco Days - will continue. The organisation is also looking to the incoming government for new conference sponsorship.

Lobby buddies
Despite the recession's obvious effect on Tuanz events business, Mr O'Connell says it was not the catalyst for the talks: "There's no 'let's batten down the hatches to get through this thing together' attitude."

He says the two organiations' policy and lobbying interests have been converging over the past two or three years, and that talks would have proceeded much sooner if InternetNZ hadn't been going through a restructure - which is now resolved.

"When Tuanz began 20 years ago it dealt with one old public utility [Telecom]", Mr O'Connell says. Now we live in an environment of lots of interconnected IP networks, and InternetNZ is part of that environment."

Both Tuanz and InternetNZ are strongly focussed on National's proposed $3 billion fibre network, 50% subsidiesed by government funds. The two organisations need to take steps to ensure their members' voices are heard "early enough in the lobbying process to make a difference," Mr O'Connell says.

No big telco stick
Tuanz CEO Ernie Newman has denied a separate rumour that Tuanz members TelstraClear, Telecom and Vodafone have threatened to cancel their subscriptions to the organisation, annoyed by Mr Newman's frequently toey comments.

The chief executive says there's no truth to the rumour. He adds that even if there was, it would not have been a prompt for the Tuanz-InternetNZ merger talks, as the telcos' subscriptions form a small part of his organisation's budget compared to subs from its hundreds of end-user members.