Foss Craig: Communications Legislation Bill — First Reading 
Foss Craig: Communications Legislation Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:631;Page:3012] 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Communications Legislation Bill. As previous National speakers have indicated we are supporting this bill to its first reading. Many speakers have pointed out that this is quite a technical and narrow bill but we have just recently heard what happens to Mr Maurice Williamson before he goes to bed at night and about dinner parties at Mr Gordon Copeland’s house. Interestingly for the previous speaker who was talking about Ghana—actually I think Nigeria was the one—he may be pleased to know that I believe it is a New Zealand company that has built and is supplying the billing software and network for that. The reason mobile phones are so active over there is that there was never any fixed-wire network. But he also may be interested to know that that same New Zealand company is suffering and is under threat because of the proposed changing of the “grey list” country legislation. The investors in that company will be suffering and they may not be able to expand further into the rest of Africa. 
As I said earlier we do support this legislation but I have some reservations and some misgivings. They are pretty much about the context the current environment all things concerning communications data and recent events. At the moment there is a context of total incompetence of total commercial naivety with the way the recent unbundling leak has happened and the reactions from the Beehive afterwards. 
 There is a very interesting phrase in the bill. It talks about inappropriate receivers and perhaps that can be applied to someone in Telecom surrounding this. But because of the way this leak has been dealt to $1.5 billion has been knocked off the share price of New Zealand’s largest listed company. That is $1.5 billion taken from the wealth of New Zealanders; that is mums dads superannuation funds trusts and individual savings—$1.5 billion. The bills for those are starting to arrive. They will arrive in New Zealand over the coming weeks when investors get the new valuations for their share portfolios when their brokers send them their analysis. The share price was about $4.80 today I think down from $5.60 or $5.70. In fact it was $7.30 not so long ago. So in fact about $2.5 billion over the last year or so has been knocked off the share price of New Zealand’s largest listed company. Mr Cullen is on record as saying he believes that a leak has been going on for quite some time. Well perhaps in fact it is not a $1.5 billion leak; it may well be a $2.5 billion leak. 
Also in the context of incompetence and incredible commercial naivety around spectrum radiocommunications and telecommunications matters in the past week we have had a donation—an asset giveaway—of three frequencies to CanWest another listed company; a giveaway of three frequencies to Kiwi FM. Even Neil Finn has come out saying: “That is absurd that’s silly what on earth are you doing?”. 
In the context of the current incompetence and total commercial naivety surrounding all things communication at the moment we actually have dormant mobile licences not being used. I believe they were partially owned and bid for by a Zimbabwe or South African consortium as well as a Maori consortium. 
There is also evidence of this. The Minister in answer to a question today mentioned Project Probe. Project Probe is a failure. The company that has just lost $1.5 billion off its share price—New Zealanders’ investments have gone down by $1.5 billion—received $34.3 million from the Government for Project Probe. It did not measure the outcome. It had no measures of success. It had no quality control. I have written answers from the Minister here—$34.3 million went to Telecom as the winner of some of the Project Probe regions out of a total of $48 million - odd. Yet the same Government in its total incompetence has essentially led to a write-off of $1.5 billion of New Zealanders’ wealth. 
There is further incompetence and again total commercial naivety around telecommunications and communications from the Beehive at the moment. There is an absolute shambles surrounding the current auction of the 3.5 gigahertz spectrum also known as WiMAX. Now that might not mean much to many members in here—in fact I would not expect it to. But essentially a new spectrum has been opened up for allocation for bidding to various regional players around the country. All well and good. It was supposed to have started last November. It was supposed to have been completed by now. It has been delayed and delayed. Rules have been changed. It is absolute incompetence. 
On the commercial side in fact there are allegations against one large player—in fact I will give members a bit of background to the way the WiMAX spectrum has been set up. It has essentially been set up to stop one player getting dominant control of the spectrum. Basically for those who do not understand this is Wi-Fi as some people know it but much better. With holes in the regulations with holes in the set-up and general incompetence in the way it was set up one large player has got control of this spectrum nationwide. Yet it was set up for regional players to start to create competition as the member over there constantly refers to to try to compete with the one large player. It is total incompetence. 
The commercial reality is that the basic price for this auction was set at 17c per potential receiver of this spectrum. Well with one large player exploiting the regulations or basically just walking through the side door of the regulations of the auction set-up—a set-up of about $10 million—it has taken control nationwide of a spectrum squeezing out local players totally destroying any competitive activity and absolutely nailing and basically cementing the status quo. It is absolute incompetence and naivety. 
There is further confusion around the communications sector at the moment: the total contradiction of the Television New Zealand charter. Members may ask: “What’s this got to do with this current bill?”. Well we are talking about radiocommunications and we are talking about telecommunications. No one has done any work on the threat to the charter of different digital mechanisms like Internet protocol television and high-definition television. Again these terms may not mean much to many people in the House but the people out there know that they have not even been considered and are waiting again for another knee-jerk reaction from a Government that is just totally incompetent. 
There is no direction. There is no delivery or consideration as I said of new platforms for television. Again taxpayers’ money is at stake. Data will be delivered down different channels. This legislation is all about simple data. Perhaps some of those reasons above are why New Zealand was rated down today from No. 16 to No. 22 in the world competitiveness index. Perhaps that is why Australia has gone from No. 9 to No. 6 in the same survey—16 places higher—and that was before the awesome Australian tax cuts. New Zealand needs a better competitive environment. New Zealand needs a more productive environment. New Zealand needs more productivity. New Zealand needs more reward for taking a risk and investing in our future. Some of the points I outlined earlier are totally why we are absolutely going nowhere under this current administration. 
Again I will go back to Project Probe—$34.3 million was given by this current administration to a company that it has just defected from and it has taken $1.5 billion from that company’s value. Well why did the Government give the $34.3 million in the first place? It has given about $4 million to another company in which about $100 million has been invested and there are questions about the survival of that I believe. 
Again as I said at the start National will support this bill going to the select committee but I have grave reservations about it in relation to its context and environment. Those who are supposed to be driving this country forward are totally inept totally incompetent and in charge of a country that is going downhill rapidly in the world’s competitiveness index. 
Bill read a first time.