Hughes GarethGARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou kia ora. I have got two words for why I am supporting this legislation—old Telecom. I remember old Telecom a monopoly that was pretty slow and lethargic and the CEO of which once famously said deception was its major marketing tool. I remember the impact it had on New Zealand and on the price of consumer products in New Zealand and of those services. It is a testament to work done by I think both parties over time over those years to unbundle the services that we do not have an old Telecom. In fact there is no such thing as Telecom New Zealand anymore. In fact there is a graph that I like to show as part of highlighting the electricity price rises we have seen the last 10 years that shows telecommunications spending as part of the consumer spending share rapidly dropping from the 1990s as electricity prices have continued to increase. I guess this is an opportunity for New Zealand because what we want to see is Kiwis embracing new technologies being empowered by them and building businesses and jobs in a richer economy and country on the back of new technology. But electricity price regulation also provides somewhat of a salutary lesson.The Green Party supports this and we think this is the right approach to go down with Part 4 of the Commerce Act's price-quality information disclosure regime in terms of the broadband and copper networks going forward post-2020. It is kind of surprising because you would have anticipated a National Government—surely a National Government in the 1990s—would have actually gone for voluntary market arrangements of the participants. It is interesting that it jumped straight to a regulatory approach. It is one that we would support but the devil is going to be in the detail. As we have seen with those graphs—and I wish I had printed it out—one of the major price rises or inflation in electricity price rises over the last 10 years has in fact come from the regulated sector of the electricity industry. These are the 29 regulated lines companies and the national transmission monopoly Transpower. Basically the way the system is run through the input methodologies as administered by the Commerce Commission has a huge bearing. What we have seen is the regulated component of a consumer's power bill go from around a fifth or 20 percent of the bill to now around 40 percent on average for many consumers across the country. This has been the major reason why prices have increased not in the competitive parts; in the regulated part.I talk about these two options because in a way we want to get the benefits of not having an old Telecom - like system and seeing such significant unaffordability of telecommunications products for customers but we also need to make sure that we do get the regulated price settings right. We are fortunate in the sense that in this legislation we are regulating only a single monopoly which is Chorus. In the electricity networks you have got 29 electricity distribution businesses all being regulated. You have got some of the other local fibre companies which now would face an information disclosure regime under this legislation but not a price-quality path as administered by the Commerce Commission.So look we think it is good. We think there are some benefits but the devil is going to be in the detail particularly in how those input methodologies are developed by the Commerce Commission because that is how we are going to set prices going forward. So we are supporting the bill because we think a regulatory-first approach is the smart best solution for consumers to make sure we have affordable internet services going forward. But we need to make sure that the settings the foundational structures are there to make sure we are not just building in future price inflation and we are not just giving a fantastically high rate of return for the capital owners of Chorus much above what you would normally get in a competitive sector of the economy and also that we are not slowing down new technologies—maybe new packer technology to move data round on the fibre cables—as we could perhaps make an argument that we are in the electricity network. Because it is so heavily regulated by the Commerce Commission it is very good at including expensive poles and wires in its regulated asset base but less so when it comes to embracing new technologies—maybe solar or maybe battery technologies which would be cheaper on a capital expenditure basis for the local lines companies. But because of the way that the input methodologies system has been run it has not gone down this path despite it perhaps saving its consumers money.This is the big part of the legislation. It is going to be fascinating if we are in the fortunate position to work on it in the 52nd Parliament.The other big changes—and I am sure members if they are returned as well will have lots of constituents asking them about their copper network their copper telephone systems being turned off. This is a big concern particularly in provincial and rural communities where they are unsure of the reliability of fibre in power cuts and all sorts of other circumstances. So the phase out of the copper network is going to be I think quite contentious and controversial. It is going to be interesting to hear those views around select committee. The Government has decided on a copper withdrawal code as a mitigating tool with these minimum conditions. That is going to be very interesting to see how that works in practice and we look forward to engaging with that.The last part I want to touch on is the so-called anchor products because while the Government has gone down a path of regulatory approach in terms of price quality with a revenue cap when it comes to these baseline services it is going down a price-setting regulatory approach for those anchor products—these are the baseline fibre services. It is going to be very interesting to see how it sets it.We remember the big debates we had when the copper prices were set—to go back 2 or 3 years ago—and just how a matter of cents or tens of cents would deliver hundreds of millions of dollars to Chorus's bottom line but equivalently also take that out of consumers' weekly pay cheques. So how those anchor products are set and the price point will be incredibly important. How that flows out across the other fibre services and products that are offered by the market will be incredibly important.So I have talked about some of the benefits. It is going to be very important to go through in detail to make sure we get this right because as we saw with old Telecom the way that these structures are built—and they are so fundamental to the New Zealand economy and society—if they are set up wrongly to not get the right outcomes we are going to harm the New Zealand economy and harm our society and our ability to engage with new technologies.I would issue a warning to those consumers who will be looking at telecommunications and internet policies this election and at which parties are going to stand up for a good high-quality fast affordable internet and all the laws that make sure the internet runs. They just need to look at the way its Rural Broadband Initiative has been managed by the Government to provide another salutary lesson in how perhaps you need a different party to make sure you are looking in the interests of the internet community in this country. Here you have a policy—I do not know if this has ever happened in history—announced before an election that still has not been implemented before the next election. It is another policy up the sleeves of Steven Joyce and Simon Bridges to roll out—as if the community could not remember or it somehow went down the memory hole—from 2014 that the exact same policy will be reannounced. It is absolutely staggering the audacity of the political machinations of the Government when it comes to the Rural Broadband Initiative. We want to see rural broadband rolled out across the country. We want to see cell towers and repeaters making sure that our rural communities are connected to high-quality internet. What people do not want is rehashed policies relaunched without the actual substance.We also want a whole country that is connected and able to access the internet and that is why it is simply staggering and deeply disappointing that the Government has cut the Computers in Homes programme. Here you had a successful programme rolling out computers—particularly to low-decile communities who were missing out from accessing the internet at home—so kids could do their homework at home using the new technology. Instead what has the Government done? It has cut this incredibly successful programme. It is deeply disappointing it is deeply regressive and what we are going to see is a two-track society where some kids can access the world's information and the world's knowledge of best-practice teaching using the computer and the internet services and other kids miss out for simple price reasons. The Government needs to step up.More importantly the Government could—and a Green Government would—set a target to close that digital divide. In 2017 no New Zealander should be going without access to the internet. A few years ago I launched New Zealand's first ever crowdsourced bill the Internet Rights and Freedoms Bill where I said that the right to the internet is a modern-day right. All of our other rights to express ourselves in our modern world and our democracy flow from the ability to engage with technology. It is a right to be able to access the internet and it is a darned shame that some Kiwis are missing out when successful programmes were fixing it.There is a huge number of issues about how our country harnesses new technology to build a modern economy. There is a limit to how many tourists we can cram into Fiordland there is a limit to how many cows we can cram into our paddocks and we are seeing it in the state of our rivers and waterways. There is no limit to the export of smart services intellectual property and software around the world. That is where I am focused in my work in Parliament—making sure that we can make the most of the new economy. I support New Zealand's tech industries' call for a Minister for the Future" to grasp these issues because while we are talking about regulating telecommunications going forward let us also talk about how we take up the opportunity for the economy in our society. Kia ora koutou."