Faafoi Kris: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3750. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Thank you very much Mr Chair for the opportunity to speak to clause 2. As your predecessor in the Chair has mentioned it is a very narrow clause. I do not intend to go into some of the issues in terms of the Royal assent but I do want to take this opportunity to talk about the commencement date. We do not know when this bill will come into force—it may be Monday it may be Tuesday—but when it does come into effect it will set in train a chain of events to allow the Government to negotiate with other telecommunications companies not only to allow the tax that is going to be collected under this piece of legislation to be collected but also because we know that this bill will become an Act to allow the second stage of the Rural Broadband Initiative to get under way.Although we on this side of the Chamber have noted some concerns about that I did want to use that in terms of the chain of events that starts when this bill becomes law to take issue with something that New Zealand First member Richard Prosser said earlier on. He suggested that members on this side of the Chamber—or from this party more or less—were using constituents who were coming to us into our electorate offices by dangling them out there to use as examples of people we do not really care about. I would say to Mr Prosser that that could not be further from the truth. There are a number of electorate MPs on this side of the Chamber who have had a number of constituents come to them and ask them why their rural broadband is so rubbish.One example of that is someone in my electorate. Like Chris Hipkins I have got a mixed electorate. I have got the rural areas of Pukerua Bay and some rural areas in Pāuatahanui and—Brett Hudson: Pukerua Bay is not rural.KRIS FAAFOI: Well there is a farm there. You want to come and have a look at it. It has got livestock and everything—come and have a look. One person who lives in those rural areas came to me and said: “Look my internet connection is not what I want it to be because of where I am located.” and he was in a rural area. So I looked at that case. I took it to Vodafone and said: “Look this chap lives here.” and I am just about to get to my point Mr Chair.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well the member had better because if he does not his call will be terminated.KRIS FAAFOI: The outcome of that conversation was: “You’re going to have to wait for the second phase of the Rural Broadband Initiative.” because he was not going to be in phase one. It is absolutely crucial for him to now get his broadband up to the speed that he wants. Is the commencement date of this piece of legislation—I will give him that. We want Rural Broadband Initiative 2 to start rolling out and this piece of legislation will commence probably on Monday or it might be Tuesday if we are still here.There are a lot of people who I guess are waiting for this piece of legislation to go through but our point of issue with it commencing on that date is that we do not think we have had a justification or a good analysis of the first piece of legislation which saw Rural Broadband Initiative 1 come in. So before this piece of legislation comes into force or commences we do not want this piece of legislation to go through without the right scrutiny of the first tranche of Rural Broadband Initiative 1.Do not commence this bill to spend $150 million without looking at the first piece of legislation which came in to bring in Rural Broadband Initiative 1 which was worth $300 million. We are not sure whether it has been effective so we do not think this piece of legislation should go through which is why we are not supporting it. Why? This piece of legislation is to expend $150 million. We on this side of the Chamber think that that is a lot of money. The Government does not seem to care about the accountability of expending $150 million. We would like a closer look at how effective that first $300 million has been before we go anywhere near letting this piece of legislation go through.To Mr Prosser I would say please do not take the examples we have used in this debate as something you can simply throw away. They are people whom we have cared for. It is our duty as electorate MPs to make sure that the Rural Broadband Initiative is as best as it can be. When this legislation commences hopefully that person—