Falloon AndrewANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to be taking a call on the third reading of the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill. This bill has been progressing through the House for quite a long time but I do just have a few comments I'd like to make on the process that we've gone through in passing it. I do sit on the select committee that considered this bill—the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee. We are a split committee so we do have to act in a very collaborative and cohesive manner. We are represented by the three governing parties and also obviously by the National Opposition. We are very ably chaired I think by Jonathan Young. Also we've got some subject matter experts on issues like this in people like Gareth Hughes and I'd like to acknowledge his extensive knowledge in this area and thank him for the advice that he gave us throughout the process.I mentioned that there has been quite a long gestation to the bill so I just wanted to cover off some aspects of that. It's been quite adequately covered earlier in the debate by Clare Curran as well because this bill has quite a history and it does go back a long way. There are quite a few Ministers—in fact she mentioned Steven Joyce and that was quite a few years ago. The one I was going to start with was with Amy Adams who released the results of the telecommunications review back in 2016—so a couple of years ago now—and that set out a new direction for regulating broadband and phone services. Not long after that in 2017 the new communications Minister Simon Bridges set that new direction into a bill and introduced that piece of legislation on 1 June 2017—so nearly a year and a half ago now.I do just want to point out though that even though it has been a long gestation that is not a criticism of either the previous National Government or the Labour Government because as we found during the debate in the select committee on this bill this is something we do need to get right. Members on both sides of the House today have pointed out the reasons why that is. I would like to acknowledge as well the two Ministers that this bill has been under on the opposite side: Clare Curran—thank you Ms Curran for the advice that your officials gave the select committee during our proceedings; it was most appreciated—and of course Kris Faafoi who gets the good fortune I guess of having the bill passed in the final reading under his name. I'm sure that will put him in good stead when the next Cabinet reshuffle does occur.We had to consider a number of different aspects of the bill. There were two issues in particular that the select committee grappled with and I think they've been again fairly well covered on both sides of the House today. The first one is around the debate between new technologies and innovation on the one side and then on the other hand ensuring that people remain connected particularly in rural and isolated communities. That's something that we debated at length and it certainly came up in the submissions. We had 257 submissions on the bill and heard 31 of those in person. So there was quite a lot of debate around it. It got quite technical at some stages and again it was useful to have people like Gareth Hughes who has a long history in this area and also of course the officials who guided us through.So we had to have that debate around of course making sure that we're making the most of innovation as it develops and as new technologies emerge but also ensuring that when we embrace those new technologies we're not unfairly or unreasonably cutting off people's access to important telecommunications services or even just being connected to their local area. There's been some discussion earlier in the debate about the work that New Zealand First did on 111 services. I'd like to acknowledge their work on that as well because that of course was a particular area of concern for people in rural and isolated areas.The other issue that we grappled with at length on the committee was just in relation to the health impacts or potential impacts. Quite a number of those 257 submissions and certainly a number of the 31 oral submissions that came to us were concerned about the potential health impacts of moving away from copper fixed line to new innovative technologies around fibre. We certainly heard those out. I think it's fair to say that most members of the committee were a bit sceptical about some of the claims that were put forward and some of the dubious research that was quoted from offshore about the effect of these new technologies on health but we certainly looked into it. We sought advice from the Ministry of Health and they came in to brief us on the bill. If there were any concerns in the select committee they certainly satisfied those and said that there was next to no risk of these new technologies impacting negatively on people's health.I think it's fair to say that the people that submitted on the bill who were concerned about those aspects probably won't be satisfied by the Ministry of Health advice and certainly if they're not satisfied by that they won't be satisfied by what I'm saying in the House today. But I do think that they were heard. Jonathan Young as our chair was very respectful in the way that they were heard. Certainly it got a little bit interesting during some of the debates but he was very fair in making sure that they had the ability to have their say.My colleague Ian McKelvie earlier mentioned the fact that he comes from quite a rural area and he mentioned that he is not far from I think a reasonable-sized defence establishment in the central North Island and mentioned that he doesn't have fibre anywhere near his house. There is that debate I guess ongoing at the moment about where it is and where it isn't and certainly as a provincial member of Parliament I find the same thing where it's certainly present in some of our larger towns and I think of the likes of where I used to live in Ashburton—certainly it's fully fibre there. But then there are other communities where it's being rolled out like Pleasant Point where I live now—unfortunately even when it is rolled out it still won't come quite over the hill to my house.I'm conscious of the fact that we have Nicola Willis one of my colleagues—she has talked to me at length many times about Karori. Karori I understand is the largest suburb in the country and it doesn't have fibre yet. Small communities like Pleasant Point will probably end up with fibre before Karori does. So despite Nicola I think pushing very strongly on that issue in caucus unfortunately that's unlikely to occur for a couple of years yet and that of course comes back to the commercial reality of when the providers can install it.I just want to spend the final couple of minutes speaking in relation to the process again and that's about the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that was brought forward during the committee of the whole House stage. This has been a collegial debate and I don't wish to I guess insert a negative note to it but it did certainly leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth because we did consider a lot of these issues at length on the committee. It did disappoint me I guess that the Minister brought forward an SOP at the 11th hour to make changes. I do think they were positive changes—certainly with the elements I spoke about earlier with the 111 connectivity for rural and isolated areas. That makes absolute sense. But it did disappoint me that the select committee didn't have the opportunity to consider those amendments. The Minister could have quite easily sent a draft SOP to us while we were considering the bill and we could have considered those amendments alongside the legislation. Unfortunately that didn't happen so it was tabled at the 11th hour. As I say they are good changes but it was unfortunate that there wasn't that level of democratic oversight or certainly not the ability for submitters to make their feelings known on what those amendments were. I did mention during the committee of the whole House stage that we could consider sending it back to select committee for a short truncated period. That obviously didn't happen. I am conscious that this bill has been going through the House for a very long time so I don't wish to hold it up any longer. That was a suggestion that that would have obviously elongated the process by a couple of weeks but I think it would have provided a good opportunity for us to consider those amendments. So the only opportunity we had to do that was of course the committee of the whole House stage which we did at length and now during this third reading as well.So I don't wish to hold up the debate any longer. I'm very aware that there are a large number of particularly industry players out there who are very keen to see this legislation progress. So I commend it to the House.