Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Moving from the Second World War to present times—in fact to today—I would like to acknowledge the Minister of Civil Defence Nathan Guy who today announced $14.4 million of funding to go to the Kaikōura District Council. I would like to thank him on behalf of the people of Kaikōura. That is a very welcome announcement. We are talking about the second-smallest council in New Zealand with the smallest being the Chatham Islands Council.The Kaikōura District Council is grappling with a lot of damaged infrastructure. In fact after the earthquake the only way domestic water was being supplied into Kaikōura was through two plastic pipes running along the top of the ground. Now they have a rather large plastic pipe which has actually been buried parts of it but it is still above the top of the ground. It is going to cost that council a lot of money to get all of its infrastructure back up to speed. Its sewerage ponds were emptied after the earthquake. No one quite knows where everything went and I suppose we can guess but it really has to repair that now. It is quite expensive and it is a big impost on that small council. This will be really welcomed by the people of Kaikōura.I want to talk a little bit about WISPs which are Wireless Internet Service Providers. I think that the day of the WISP is almost here. In my electorate one of the typical issues that we are going to struggle with is around our internet infrastructure in New Zealand. We are talking about—it is rather difficult to get to places geographically. There are tight gullies with very few people in them. We have done a fantastic job of getting ultra-fast broadband out. There are a whole lot of new towns around New Zealand announcing that their ultra-fast broadband is coming out in the Ultra-fast Broadband Extension and there is an announcement soon on Rural Broadband Initiative 2 and that will reach a long way out.But to get to that last most difficult 5 percent of New Zealand I think the answer will be WISPs. In Marlborough there is a very good example in the Waihopai Valley where Creative Development Solutions and thepacific.net and Simcox Construction got together along with the Marlborough District Council and put a wireless transmitter which was quite small up on top of a big hill—a container on top of the hill—and provided Wi-Fi to homes right up in the most difficult places to get to. There was no cellphone coverage there but now they can get a cellphone hotspot within their own home running off that Wi-Fi. It breaks down that digital divide. I believe that that is the only way we are going to do that throughout the rest of New Zealand.Another good example of opportunity is out in the Marlborough Sounds. We have two-thirds of New Zealand's aquaculture production sitting out there in the Marlborough Sounds. Water quality measurements and those sorts of environmental parameters currently are taken manually by someone in a boat. That could all be done remotely as long as we have connectivity and that connectivity will come only from a WISP in my view. Putting up a half a million dollar cellphone tower in the middle of the Marlborough Sounds to capture a few permanent residents some baches and some passing boats simply will not be economic. It will not make economic sense and it will not happen. A WISP tower on the other hand can be built for a fraction of that price. It is designed really to go out into those small places that are hard to get to and I think that is actually where we will go in the end.Fletcher Tabuteau: It's an interesting topic because I don't think anyone is going to disagree with you.STUART SMITH: It is really actually quite rich to hear some interjections coming from New Zealand First members who voted against Rural Broadband Initiative 1 in Budget 2015 as I remember and so therefore do not really care about the regions. Actually while I am on that I would like to point out that in my electorate—and in most of regional New Zealand particularly in the South Island—we are desperately short of labour on our farms in our garages and in lots of our businesses. We are reliant on getting immigrants into the country who will come out and work on those properties. That is what a growing economy needs: skilled people coming into New Zealand. We do not need Luddites who will stand in the way of progress in the regions. So the party that stands up for regional New Zealand the National Party cares about those things cares about growth and that is why I am so proud to be a member of this party. Thank you.