Wong Pansy: Telecommunications Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Wong Pansy: Telecommunications Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:632;Page:4077] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 That was a very telling speech. That was Shane Jones Labour member and chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee telling the public that the Labour Government does not care about shareholders. That is quite interesting. The Government basically says to hell with shareholders today because it would not hesitate to come in to write off wealth belonging to shareholders. But not that long ago the Minister of Commerce stood up and said she wanted the capital market of New Zealand to work. She wanted mums and dads to take shares. That is why the Labour Government is confusing. It actually does not know what it wants and how it wants to deliver it. 
That is consistent because the Minister of Communications the Hon David Cunliffe has no regrets over the total inadequacy and incompetency of the handling of the announcement of the unbundling relating to Telecom which led to a billion dollar write-off from shareholders’ wealth in that company. He went on to comment on the appropriate future dividend policy of Telecom which is still a subject of inquiry by the Securities Commission. I am a bit sceptical because at the moment the Labour Government is delaying the debate of the Committee stage of the Securities Legislation Bill. That bill introduces a tighter definition of what amounts to insider information. I am sure that if that bill is passed the Minister of Communication’s comments with regard to Telecom’s appropriate future dividend policy—which he reckoned was too high in the past—would get him into real trouble. 
Let us look at this bill from three perspectives. Firstly would it work? I wonder whether the chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee has forgotten that in the last 6 years the telecommunications industry has not been left entirely to so-called market mechanisms. He was not aware that the Labour Government introduced in 2001 the Telecommunications Act which put the telecommunications industry in a sector-specific regulatory framework. So we cannot actually say that in the last 6 years the telecommunications industry was in his words almost subject to the Wild West of the market economy. I counted up—alongside my diligent and hard-working colleague the Hon Georgina te Heuheu—statistics from the library for the years 2001 to 2006 and there have been 69 reports and inquiries into and amendments to the Telecommunications Act 2001. So I am relieved that my competent diligent colleague John Key will be on the Finance and Expenditure Committee to make sure that the chairman Shane Jones will get the best advice because Mr Jones seems to have forgotten that the telecommunications industry actually is subject to a legislative framework. The question has to be asked—after 6 years 69 reports inquiries and amendments and a promise by the Labour Government that New Zealanders would get there by next year—of whether this legislation will work. The 2001 Act did not work and whether this one will work is yet to be seen. 
The second perspective relates to what the legislation will cost in terms of compliance costs and costs to the wider economy. I looked at the regulatory impact statement. It states that it was not possible or necessary to provide the cost. That is another contradictory statement because the Minister of Commerce went on and on about her dynamic regulatory review and insisted to the Commerce Committee that from now on any legislation that did not come with a compliance cost statement would not be entertained by Cabinet. She said Cabinet would not consider any legislation without an accompanying compliance cost statement so I wonder how this legislation got past Cabinet and landed here in the House without even an attempt to establish what the compliance costs are. 
It seems to me that the fact that this legislation will also allow the commissioner in the future to start inquiring into practices—whether or not they are perceived as a problem—will cause even more uncertainty in the telecommunications sector. None of us wants to see those providers spending a lot of time arguing and debating in front of the Commerce Commission but the fact is that these types of intrusive tools will without clear guidelines of when the Commerce Commission might interfere cause even more anxiety in the sector. I am not too sure that this Big Brother bully-boy tactic is the best way to develop and encourage the various providers in this sector. I hope the Labour Government will be more consistent and certainly try to live up to its word about providing good analysis of regulatory and compliance cost statements to accompany this legislation. 
The other perspective that I hope the Finance and Expenditure Committee will consider is the bigger picture of the impact of a move like this on New Zealand’s competition law. There is a lot of anxiety out there in the wider commercial world as to when the Labour Government will blame businesses companies and operators when a goal it has set is not achieved. We have all learnt and seen that the Labour Government is always putting the blame on companies and on the market when it does not actually know what it wants. In 2003 the Telecommunications Commissioner was threatening to unbundle then he retracted from that. Then 2 years later unbundling was suddenly dropped on the scene again and Telecom was set up to be the fall company. 
But there is a bigger and quite frightening message. It was given today by Shane Jones when he said that the Labour Government does not care about shareholders. The bigger message is what the Labour Government is trying to tell all companies public and private. When is it their turn for this intrusiveness that infringes on their property rights? In our mind for 6 years the Labour Government has failed to look at the Commerce Act and at whether the Commerce Commission understands the telecommunications sector and what some of the barriers are. 
National is willing and happy to send this legislation to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I am sure that members on this side of the House will give this legislation the rigorous assessment it deserves.