Adams Amy: Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Adams Amy: Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:673;Page:19297] 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to rise in the second reading debate and speak in favour of the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill which as others have said has spent some time before the Finance and Expenditure Committee of which I am a part. 
I will start my contribution by taking a moment to say broadband is very much infrastructure. You know it did not use to be as little as 5 or 10 years back but now I think it is quite safe to say broadband is as important an item of infrastructure as power phones or roading. I have been amazed as I am sure many members of the House have at how quickly New Zealand has adopted broadband access and taken it to be an absolutely fundamental part of existence. I say that particularly in my capacity as an electorate MP for a largely rural electorate. When people are not in the major cities they increasingly rely on access to the world through broadband. Having broadband in our houses lets us connect with our suppliers customers and advisers—our lawyers accountants and bankers—as if we were there. The productivity gains we have made from access to broadband particularly in rural and more remote communities are significant. 
New Zealand is a remote country yet through access to good high-quality broadband we can do business throughout the world in an almost seamless way. It is a way of New Zealand negating the geographical disadvantage that we have. But we were seeing that fibre was not being rolled out beyond very limited central business district areas and that was tremendously disadvantageous to rural and remote communities. In order for that roll-out to happen it was going to take the Government to be prepared to put up some money to incentivise business to get on board. That is what we promised in 2008 to the people of New Zealand; that is what New Zealand elected this National-led Government to deliver. This bill is a large part of delivering that roll-out which will see 75 percent of New Zealanders have access to high-speed ultra-fast broadband and the vast bulk of the rest of New Zealand be connected through our Rural Broadband Initiative. That will make us one of the most connected countries in the world and I think that is something to be very very proud of. 
One of the things I think it is important to put on record is that this initiative is about the Government and private enterprise working in partnership to roll out the framework. The framework has open access so as that backbone infrastructure is rolled out any internet service provider can access it and offer services to its customers. This is not about Telecom being the only game in town—and I will come back to Miss Curran’s comments on Telecom in a moment—this is about the backbone infrastructure being rolled out in a partnership between the Government and industry and every internet service provider being able to access it in order to provide services to New Zealanders. 
I will touch on a couple of other things in the bill before I move back to the comments of the speaker who preceded me Clare Curran. The bill also amends the Telecom service agreements between the Crown and providers. It sets up the telecommunications development levy to fund the service obligation compensations the upgrade of infrastructure and the likes of that. It sets out of course the functional separation rules for Telecom. So although a big part of this debate will no doubt focus on the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative and Rural Broadband Initiative roll-outs there are also those important other aspects to the bill that I think are worth putting on the record. 
We have heard an interesting array of objections from Labour. Over the course of the ultra-fast broadband discussions and the rural broadband discussions we have heard Labour members say it is too fast: it is all happening too fast. We have also heard them say it is all happening too slowly. We have heard Labour members say the Government is putting in far too much money and we have heard them say the Government is putting in not nearly enough money. Now we hear them hammer us for selecting Telecom as the provider. 
Let me read a couple of comments from Ms Curran who just stood there and made a vitriolic attack on Telecom as the provider. Let me read to members some of these comments. “It looks very interesting. I certainly think any proposal that puts Telecom seriously in the frame is worthy of merit and should be looked at carefully by Crown Fibre Holdings and the Government because the future of Telecom is important.” I thank Ms Curran for that. What about these comments? “We think Telecom should have a future in New Zealand and if that requires it to structurally separate it should seriously consider doing so. They should have a crack at accessing the broadband money.” “It is obvious to everyone that Telecom desperately want to and need to be in the running.” “It is not in New Zealand’s interests for Telecom to be run into the ground and excluded from the biggest network build for the next generation or more.” 
Those comments come from the same member who just stood in this House and attacked this Government and attacked Telecom as the broadband provider. The Labour members need to decide where they stand. Why are they not supporting this bill? Why is the broadband initiative at the same time too fast or too slow delivering too much or too little and involving the right provider or the wrong provider? Labour members’ only real objection to this bill is that they did not introduce it and the National-led Government has done so. I am very pleased to commend the bill to the House.