Curran ClareParts 1 and 2 schedules 1 and 2 and clauses 1 to 3CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I begin my contribution on the Committee stage of the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill with reference to Part 1 of the bill which deals with Subpart 3 of Part 4 of the Act and Subpart 4 of Part 4 of the Act. I would like to start by going to the heart of the two major issues that this bill addresses and deals with. A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by the chairman of the management committee of a heritage-listed block of flats in Mount Victoria in Wellington. These 25 flats with six other properties are variously homes and flats. They are privately owned between all owners. The person who contacted me had been leading the charge on behalf of all owners for more than a year to get broadband fibre installed. The issue was that one of the owners in one of those 25 flats and six other properties was unwilling to consider having fibre installed and as a result the whole thing had ground to a complete halt. There appears to have been an impasse on how the rest of those people could get access to ultra-fast broadband. This bill addresses that particular issue.I also refer to a submission that was received by the select committee considering this bill—a submission by Ernie Newman who is a very well-known character in New Zealand formerly the chief executive of the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand and a long time activist I guess you could say in terms of better connectivity for New Zealanders. In August last year in our first round of submissions on this bill he asked the committee to consider adding a provision to the bill which was before the select committee to provide deemed access for fibre-optic cable within overhead electricity lines as had been floated in a Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment discussion paper. He cited that this would be a historic step change enabling large tracts of rural and provincial New Zealand to enjoy not just the rural broadband that they have been conditioned to expect but fully-fledged city-style ultra-fast broadband.This bill solves both of those really quite fundamental issues. If the members on this side of the Chamber during the course of this debate this afternoon sound quite effusive about a Government piece of legislation that is because they actually are. We heartily support this legislation and we are so effusive about it because it was our 2014 policy. Not only that but half of it the latter part which deals with fibre being strung out on electricity lines was actually crafted in the Commerce Committee and is not actually Government policy. In fact it goes way beyond Government policy in terms of helping to provide an opportunity for a true economic step change in rural New Zealand for rural New Zealand to get actual fibre—not the half-baked rural broadband measures that have been provided so far by the Government but real fibre strung out across properties throughout and providing a network across rural New Zealand should the electricity companies choose to take up that opportunity.Those are my opening remarks on this because it is actually new Subpart 3 in clause 10 that deals with the access issues access to shared driveways and multi-unit dwellings which take up an enormous number of connections which have been described by one provider as 60 percent of its work. Dealing with the roadblocks that exist for people to get connected if they live down shared driveways or if they live or work in apartment buildings or multi-unit dwellings—the access provisions are in new Subpart 3 of Part 4 of the Telecommunications Act inserted by clause 10 of the bill which says: The purpose of this subpart is to enable more people and businesses to obtain the benefits of fibre-to-the-premises and other technology within a shorter time frame by—(a) recognising that when more than 1 person's consent is required for [a fibre-to-the-premises] service provider or a network operator to access a property … and there are difficulties in obtaining those consents the process of installing infrastructure … is delayed and opportunities to realise the benefits of that technology are missed;". What this bill does is provide for a tiered system of statutory rights of access. That is dealing with one of the issues. Then in new Subpart 4 in clause 10 of the bill it deals with the substantial part which is the new part of the legislation which provides the right of access to use existing electricity works for telecommunications and deploying fibre-optic cable into rural New Zealand.Can I acknowledge the work of officials and the Parliamentary Counsel Office on this bill. An enormous amount of work and attention to detail has gone into this bill and I truly do acknowledge the effort and the attention and the commitment that that they made in order to get this bill before the House. Can I acknowledge the work of the Commerce Committee which really truly did work hard on this. We went through two rounds of submissions because once we had actually taken on board the fact that we needed to consider the new part of the bill we went through another round of submissions to ensure that we were doing it right and that we were dealing with any fish-hooks and unintended consequences. I acknowledge the chair Melissa Lee for being very open to this process going forward. It was truly a select committee doing the job that it should be doing in Parliament which is to get the best piece of legislation before the House.So I am very keen to get this passed and into law. In further comments that I will be making in this discussion this afternoon I note that the Minister has tabled the quite considerable Supplementary Order Paper 280 which ultimately does deal with technical changes making the bill even better than it was when it came back from the select committee ensuring that we have got it right. There will be more comments to be made on that but ultimately this is necessary. It should have been done ages ago. The Government trumpets its ultra-fast broadband (UFB) agenda. Well it is an important piece of infrastructure but there have been too many roadblocks—too many roadblocks. At least 17 percent of applications for ultra-fast broadband have been held up for months and in some cases years because of the difficulties in getting consents. There are a lot of people in New Zealand who live down shared driveways. There are a lot of people who live in apartment buildings. Sometimes they just simply give up trying to get UFB because it is just too hard. This legislation should have been before the House 3 years ago actually and why it has been held up—well I think it got held up because the previous Minister for Communications Amy Adams was all caught up in a property rights debate.Chris Bishop: Aw!CLARE CURRAN: Well let us have that discussion because why has it been held up? There have been reports by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment on it. The industry has been begging for it asking for it to be sorted and finally it is. We have also got that incredibly useful important economic opportunity for rural New Zealand that this includes which is not let us just remember Government policy. It goes way beyond Government policy. It is a really useful piece of legislation that comes out of a select committee. It shows that Parliament is actually working really well when Opposition members are motivated and the industry just keeps on pushing."