Curran Clare: Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Curran Clare: Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:16069] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 The Minister expresses such passion for his portfolio yet that was I think a 3-minute speech—an embarrassment. I am glad to get the opportunity to talk about the Government’s much-vaunted ultra-fast broadband policy. It was No. 2 in John Key’s top 10 pledges made before the 2008 election. His personal guarantee was to deliver ultra-fast broadband fibre to 75 percent of New Zealand homes for $1.5 billion. People thought that sounded good. How are we doing? Two years later and there is no broadband. Two whole years! When National became the Government Labour already had a broadband policy. It was not packaged in such a sexy manner but it was sound. Thirty-six broadband projects in communities across New Zealand worth several hundred million dollars were poised to roll out across the country from Hobsonville to Otago. They included fibre to the home projects for new communities existing cities and rural areas. Many of them would have been built by now but they all got canned by Steven Joyce. 
It has taken 2 years for the Government to recast its policy with a complicated scheme that may or may not deliver ultra-fast broadband at prices that New Zealanders can afford. Two years later we get a bill brought to the House that is deeply flawed a scheme dogged by complexity and secrecy. There was the first dribble of a decision this week to roll out fibre in some regional towns covering about 16 percent of the country so that before the end of the year Steven Joyce can get his photo in the paper and on the telly with a hard hat on and pretending to lay out fibre paid for by the New Zealand taxpayer. That is not ultra-fast broadband it is ultra-slow broadband. It does not fill one with great confidence. 
Looking more and more like the big elephant in the room Telecom remains a massive problem for the Government to solve. Labour supports this bill going to the select committee. We have strong reservations. We have already publicly opposed a key part of the bill the proposal to introduce a 10-year regulatory forbearance period up to 2019. This prevents the Commerce Commission from playing a watchdog role over ultra-fast broadband and perhaps the rural broadband initiative prices as it has done in the mobile market. Labour has deep concerns that this bill weakens hard-fought legislative protections for consumers and exposes the public to an unnecessary risk of future monopolistic practices. The Telecommunications Act already includes protections for investors so the proposed regulatory holiday is unnecessary. The Government argues that it is not a regulatory holiday but it is playing with words. We do not like it; we have said we are opposed to it. We will review it should we win Government next year. 
Labour wants New Zealanders to have ultra-fast broadband but broadband is just part of what is needed to deliver a digital transformation strategy for this country. We want New Zealanders to have access to the best technology to help transform our economy and take advantage of the opportunity that technology provides and we want to use technology to better deliver Government services and better engage with its citizens. We need digital vision and a concrete digital agenda. Under this Government and this Minister we do not have either. It was Labour who developed the Digital Strategy 2.0 and it is this Government and this Minister who canned the Digital Strategy—the vision that surrounded this new network. There is no vision no sense of what New Zealanders will be able to do with this network. Instead it is about ticking the box next to that election promise of ultra-fast broadband delivered to 75 percent of New Zealanders in their homes—a promise that should never have been made. 
If Steven Joyce had had any sense he would have taken Labour’s broadband scheme re-branded it and gradually expanded it throughout the country. Instead we have had 2 years of nothing. We want to be ultra-fast not ultra-slow. We want equitable access for New Zealanders across urban and rural New Zealand. We never understood why the Government needed to put in place two completely different schemes one run by a Crown-established company Crown Fibre Holdings and the other one by the Ministry of Economic Development. We want a broadband programme that is underpinned by a set of principles: participation accountability and transparency access to technology and affordable technology. That is the key thing because it is all very well talking about building a new network but if people cannot afford to access it then it will not be much good. 
Instead this week the Government announced two—out of 27—contracts for urban broadband and three short-listed bidders for rural broadband because it had to do things its way. This meant that successful projects already out there delivering fibre to people in rural New Zealand at affordable prices will be shut down—people like James Watts of InSPire Net who has laid hundreds of kilometres of fibre between Woodville Pahiatua Eketahuna and Palmerston North. InSPire Net charges $100 a month for 100 megabytes per second access and the Government’s plan is to deliver 5 megabytes per second access. Watts and InSPire Net were shut out of the rural broadband initiative after the Government said it would take proposals only from national companies. Watts has said publicly that the most disappointing part would be to watch the Government pay someone to dig into schools that are already connected courtesy of the community’s own hard work. It is people like James Watts whom we should be leveraging off. 
Instead if there is one thing this Government and this Minister have excelled in in trying to work out how to make its broadband policy slogan work it has been secrecy—the cloak of commercial sensitivity to exclude the public from knowing what is going on in developing its newest network paid for by them. Why? Firstly the Government did not know how to make it work and it has mucked about for 2 years creating a complex cumbersome dual system in urban and rural New Zealand which may or may not deliver affordable broadband. Secondly Telecom. It has been the elephant in the room from the beginning and it remains the elephant in the room. If Telecom is to be a successful bidder in ultra-fast broadband then it has to structurally separate. The country should know that the bill contains amendments to enable the structural separation of Telecom if it is chosen as a preferred supplier. 
I am told by the Ministry of Economic Development and the Minister’s office that amendments to enable this could be introduced in a Supplementary Order Paper at the select committee. It is extremely concerning that in its submission to the ministry’s suggestions on how Telecom should structurally separate into two businesses the Commerce Commission said that the ministry seemed more concerned with the interests of investors rather than consumers. Even more concerning is the suggestion that instead of introducing a Supplementary Order Paper at the select committee it could be introduced in the Committee of the whole House. That would give the public and the Opposition no time to submit or formulate arguments. I would like the Minister to confirm that that is not so. It would be taking secrecy arrogance and disregard for the democratic process to the greatest extreme. 
I put on record my discomfort and unease at what appears to be at least a perception of conflict of interest. A board member of Crown Fibre Holdings consulted for technology vendor Huawei Technologies for a number of months and presented at a Huawei Technologies conference on 17 September at the same time as Crown Fibre Holdings was directly involved in a process to select technology partners. SAMENA a multi-continent telecommunications consortium of South Asian Middle Eastern and North African telecommunications companies wrote in its web newsletter on 31 August that Huawei Technologies was hoping to supply fixed-line fibre broadband infrastructure and beat competitors Alcatal-Lucent Ericsson and Nokia Siemens to become the technology partner of the successful bidder or bidders in ultra-fast broadband. They referenced John Key’s Television New Zealand interview in July when he said that Huawei Technologies could be a possible partner in ultra-fast broadband. Tell me that that is not a potential conflict of interest needing a quick response from the Minister and the board chair. But did we get one? No. it was denial and more secrecy. It all adds up to a muddle a mess a flawed process and a new network being paid for by $1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money that appears skewed in the direction of investor interests not consumer affordability. 
There have been very few decisions made in 2 years. There is the big question of whether Telecom will be involved and if so what legislation will be needed to allow it to be involved. Will the public be able to scrutinise and submit on the legislation if Telecom does not get the contract? Will Telecom furiously compete with its existing copper network and make it unattractive for years for New Zealanders to access fibre? There are so many questions and doubts. It is not a good look and it is not something to be proud of.