McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Mr Deputy Speaker at the risk of I guess making too much of your position I just wanted to thank you for your contribution—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Knock yourself out.IAN McKELVIE: —both to my electorate as my neighbour and to this Parliament. I think you have done a fantastic job for both and so I thank you for that. I want to talk about this bill briefly because one or two issues have been raised tonight that I want to talk about. I will probably be going into a territory that no one will know about: 1-2-D. Does anyone remember what 1-2-D was? Long-short-long. So you used to dial the phone long-short-long.We have also been on about metadata today and we are hugely concerned about whether metadata is frightening for people or relevant to people. Of course in the days of long-short-long all the neighbours on the same line who were 1-2-D 1-2-C 1-2-A 1-2-B—they all knew when the neighbour rang up and if you were quick enough you could pick the phone up quietly and listen to what was going on down the road. So the metadata has been around for a long time. So that is one of the things that when you think about the copper network—because that was where I was getting to—the copper network of course was what drove metadata.Not only did the copper network drive it but when the line went down you went out with a piece of No. 8 fencing wire and joined it up just like you do with a fence and away she went again. That was simple was it not? Nowadays we need fibre and we need all this stuff in the air. It is way beyond the average person to hook up their telephone and make it work. That was the issue that I wanted to get to because the challenge—and one of the major reasons for this piece of legislation coming to the House—is actually to protect a piece of New Zealand society and a piece of New Zealand community that were it not for the copper network would not have any kind of communication. I guess that is going to change quite quickly now but none the less we need to regulate that sort of thing to ensure that it remains there until an alternative is in place.So throughout history in New Zealand we have had a great history really of ensuring that the most remote people had electricity and telecommunications. This legislation to some extent protects that.There was some talk from Mr Nash earlier on about the Government being a slow-moving Government. The point he has got to realise of course is that we are here for ever. This House is here for 3 years at a time but actually we are here for ever. So what we put in place is quite irrelevant to the current generation because while the copper network has been around for generations and generations what we put in place today will not be around for generations and generations because the world is changing so dramatically quickly that it will be usurped. That is another issue that I wanted to get to because if you think about some of the challenges that the Government has had over the years implementing rural broadband and things like that—which is that you pick a spot in the market and you take your choice on the spot in the market you have got to and all of a sudden technology goes way past the spot in the market that you chose. So it is quite challenging to implement new technology in any environment particularly in New Zealand—and the reason why it is particularly in New Zealand I will get on to in a minute—because when you pick a technology and you go with it before you know it it has been usurped by a more modern technology. That is the challenge of getting these types of things implemented throughout the country.The other big challenge that we have in New Zealand—and those of you who have ever been to the King Country will know there are thousands of kilometres of one-way metal roads and down every one of those one-way metal roads runs a power line and a telephone line. That is the real challenge that we have got in New Zealand—that it is not simple to match those kinds of environments to modern technologies. We have got to pick the technology that suits where we get to. Of course that is back to the reason why we are protecting the copper network with this legislation for those people. It is that it will take some time to replace that copper network with the new technology that will enable it to move on.I think this bill has a very important part to play in New Zealand but whenever we go down this path of quick change the more remote people are inevitably the ones whom we need to protect. We have seen this with electricity we have seen it with a lot of other things and we are going to see it with the internet and phone connections and things like that as well. So this bill hopefully will protect those people. As I talked about in terms of the technology earlier unforeseen events often turn up and even with the best intentions the level of service that we want to have into the future is not provided. So we are challenged by some of that sort of stuff. So I think this bill is a sound bill. All of the facts have been dealt with by people who know much more about factual stuff than I do but I do know what happens when you live out in rural New Zealand and you do not get a great connection. I live 3 kilometres from State Highway 1 and I do not even have any kind of connection in my house except for the telephone that Parliamentary Services has given me to use. That is because there is no broadband at my place 3 kilometres off State Highway 1.So that is the challenge that we face and that is not necessarily a fault of the Government. It is a challenge we face because of the geography of this country. We are unique we are good at what we do and we will get there in the end. So I have got a great deal of pleasure in commending this bill to the House. Hopefully it will get through in the next Parliament and no doubt this might well be my last contribution to this Parliament. It may—who knows—be the last contribution I make in here. Thank you.