Curran ClareCLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I think the member Louisa Wall made some really good points which I will touch on in a minute. There are a few more acknowledgments though that I would like to make around the select committee process. Actually quite a lot of speakers have spoken about how it was actually quite transformative for them to see how a select committee can do a really good job. I would like to acknowledge New Zealand First member Ria Bond Green member Gareth Hughes and also the National member Brett Hudson because we actually all did engage our brains and our ability to work collegially on something that was worthwhile.I want to go to the access provisions and the cost of not being able to get down shared driveways and into multi-unit dwellings and the impact that those barriers have actually had I guess in the last 4 or 5 years since ultra-fast broadband has been rolling out. We were told in the Commerce Committee by the Telecommunications Carriers Forum that 17 percent of people who are making applications for ultra-fast broadband are getting held up in this consenting process. This was backed up by Spark which used around about the same number for its connections. Enable Networks which is another provider around the Christchurch area told us that it was affecting around 60 percent of the work that it is doing which is actually really very concerning. The 17 percent figure is pretty concerning as well.We asked submitters to come back to us with some idea of how to quantify what that actually meant. Spark told us that it meant $40 million in terms of lost work essentially. That was about a year ago—or maybe it was around September I think that it contacted us so it is less than a year ago but that is pretty considerable. If you add that up—I cannot do the extrapolation and it would be good if we had the resources to do that—we are talking in the realm of around $100 million in lost connectivity for the industry and for the people who are not able to access ultra-fast broadband when they actually can access it but it is just that the consenting process and the complexity and the bureaucracy of it has been so difficult to get around.There are multiple cases. Every member in this Committee were they wont to do so—clearly the National Party members are not—could get up and tell stories from the constituents who have contacted them and are desperate for a way around this. While I was talking in my first contribution on this bill my office was having calls from a particular gentleman from the Wairarapa who wants me to raise questions on his behalf in the House as to why he has to put up with the terrible connectivity that he and the people in his community have. Well this bill will not fix all of those issues but it will go some way towards dealing with the blockages if you live down shared driveways and in multi-unit dwellings. If your electricity lines company is willing—after this bill passes—to enter into an arrangement to string fibre up out into rural New Zealand other providers will then be able to get you access to decent quality connectivity.There is a problem of a digital divide—[Bell rung] Mr Chair. The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I will do it with a warning to now stick very narrowly to what is in the bill and the Supplementary Order Paper. CLARE CURRAN: There is a digital divide in this country and this bill through the provisions in particularly new Subpart 3 and Subpart 4 of Part 4 in clause 10 are going to go a long way to address it.Unfortunately there is no proper quantification of the digital divide in this country although we heard over and over again in the select committee from submitters of the urgency to address these issues because of the pressure from communities to address poor connectivity. In Southland 24 percent of rural businesses said that a lack of connectivity affected their ability to attract staff and 41 percent said their internet service does not meet their needs. Council surveys in Huntly showed that just 44 percent of households have internet access and it was 51 percent in Tuakau and 51 percent in Taumarunui. In Southland again although 50 percent had heard of the Government's broadband programme only 4 percent had noticed any improvement so far. In Kawerau the main schools complained that very few of their students had the internet at home due to cost and access issues. Their students were being held back. The children of a family living near Blenheim were reported as having to stay up until 2 a.m. to do their homework because of the slowness of their internet connection.With the provisions in new Subpart 4 which allow for the deployment of fibre across electricity lines and across private land these issues can finally begin to be properly addressed because fibre is the solution and the fibre backhaul into rural New Zealand is the solution.I think Gareth Hughes acknowledged Northpower's submission to the select committee originally in August last year. I want to particularly acknowledge Northpower for the work that it has done in getting ultra-fast broadband out in its area faster than anybody else and for its foresight in thinking about how it can develop its business case further to cover its whole footprint rather than just the footprint required by the Government and for pushing the Commerce Committee as hard as it could into accepting that there was a real case for its proposal to be considered as part of this bill. So Northpower thank you; you have done the country a great service. I know that you will take up the cudgels on this and get fibre out as far as you can within your footprint of electricity lines. I just hope that other lines companies will do the same around New Zealand.I hope that the Government is paying attention as to how it can support lines companies or other third parties who do deals with lines companies to do that because if that happens then we will have a proper network of fibre backhaul into rural New Zealand we will start to see some real transformative change in rural New Zealand and we will start seeing some addressing of the digital divide. That digital divide exists in our cities but it also exists profoundly between rural New Zealand and urban New Zealand.This Government is doing no work that I can see on scoping what that real divide is and that is doing a great disservice to the country. So you are seeing issues with children being able to do their homework being able to learn in schools and being able to afford the devices that they need to be able to participate in the digital life and with businesses being able to properly do the work that they need to do to grow in the digital economy in rural New Zealand. They are currently being held back by not being able to properly access—the Government's rural broadband policy is not currently taking them anywhere near this. This legislation is finally a step towards enabling rural economic development and that is a fantastic thing.