Shaw James: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShaw James: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3755. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMES SHAW (Green): I just wanted to speak briefly to these Supplementary Order Papers. We did speak earlier on in the debate about the Supplementary Order Papers that we will be introducing. If you would just allow me to read from the Supplementary Order Papers the first one which is in the name of Gareth Hughes adds new clause 3A which is to amend section 90 of the Act “Crown use of telecommunications development levy”. After section 90(3) it would insert subsection (4): “The Minister must ensure that any use of the telecommunications development levy for purposes specified in subsection (1)(b) or (d) promotes—(a) competition in non-urban telecommunications markets; and (b) the diversity of non-urban communities intended to be served by the levy; and (c) the range of different technological options that may best serve particular non-urban communities; and (d) the rapid pace of technological development.” The second Supplementary Order Paper which is in my name would amend section 90 as well and inserts “(4) The Minister must ensure that any use of the telecommunications development levy for the purposes under subsection (1)(b) or (d) does not fund any person to meet their existing contractual requirements with the Crown.”I would just like to speak very briefly to these Supplementary Order Papers. Earlier on in the debate I tried to discern what the different objections were and the Labour Party has raised a number of extremely pertinent questions about the bill. One of those is to do with the evaluation of and reporting on the effectiveness of the existing Rural Broadband Initiative. That is essentially the intention of Gareth Hughes’ Supplementary Order Paper which is to ensure that new technologies that are emerging and the pace of that change are taken into account in order to ensure that there is competition and diversity of players in the market place. The Supplementary Order Paper will ensure that the needs of the local environment and the local communities and some of those variances between places are taken into account so that we do not have a one-size-fits-all approach.Earlier on in the debate Mr Cunliffe used the example of Mount Cook saying that we are not necessarily going to lay a massive ultra-fast broadband pipe to Mount Cook because there are not enough people there. But there are a range of technologies that we might consider. As an example people have used balloons or mobile telephony and so on. The intention behind this Supplementary Order Paper is essentially to ensure that these funds raised are used wisely and that they encourage a market-oriented approach as opposed to favouring just a few big companies.The intention of the second Supplementary Order Paper in my name where it says “The Minister must ensure that any use of the telecommunications development levy … does not fund any person to meet their existing contractual requirements with the Crown.” is to deal with a question raised about how Spark and Vodafone—particularly when they were awarded earlier contracts with the 700 megahertz spectrum—got a lower price because they made a commitment to install black spot towers in return for a better price. We wanted to ensure that the funds raised through this extension of the levy are not used to fund existing contractual requirements—essentially so that those companies would not have two bites of the same cherry. That is the intention of those Supplementary Order Papers and I shall rest here.