Woods Megan: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3742. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my great pleasure to take a call on the widest-ranging part of this debate as you identified Mr Chairman on this Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill. This is a seemingly very short piece of legislation that we have before us of just four parts. But I as a number of my colleagues have done before me want to talk about the title of this bill in terms of the Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill. One of the objections that has been raised from Labour members who have spoken previously is that this is an increase in tax from a Government that purported that there would be no new taxes. What do we have here? A new tax and an increased tax. It is dressed up. We are trying to call it a levy trying to soften the blow but let us call this what it is.We have had the industry come out today and one of the questions we have had is why there is the need to use this process of urgency to go through this. I think that that is a real question that does need to be addressed. Why is it that we are not having the chance for the industry and the concerned players—the people who need this broadband in their small businesses and the rural families and families in our regions that need this access to broadband—to be able to come and speak to the people making the decision and to have that chance to have submissions at the select committee stage? Urgency should be used for real reasons not just as a way to ram through some legislation that you think might be a little bit unpopular and where you do not want to give people a chance to front up and have some objection to it.But this legislation is absolutely on message for the Government. Its Budget was one that was long on broken promises. It was from a Government that is short on vision. It is a Government that all round tried to scurry around the fact and get as close to reaching the non-surplus as it could—the non-surplus of course otherwise known as a deficit. What we do have here is a piece of legislation and a title that is quite misleading for people.Of course it goes without saying that Labour supports more people getting connected to broadband. We know that this is absolutely imperative for the future of New Zealand. We know it is important for education. We know that it is important for our businesses. We know that it is important for our industries. We know that it is absolutely vital. We have consistently focused on getting rural and regional New Zealand a plan for community-based fibre schemes. This is something that has occupied our minds and our actions when we have been in Government. However the existing rural broadband scheme has been a flop. It is a rural broadband scam. It is not working. Not only is it a waste of Government money but it lacks accountability and transparency.Once again what we are seeing here is economic mismanagement from a panicking and desperate Government. We can hear the shrieks from the other side that are serving only to underscore this point from the reaction that comment got over there. It is another example of how it is that National is neglecting the regions and treating them like the poor country cousins. Rural customers are going to end up paying more for this far from less.Dr David Clark: It’s shocking in Waitaki.Dr MEGAN WOODS: It is shocking in Waitaki—that is what I am told by my colleague Dr David Clark. He wants to know why the member Jacqui Dean barracking from the other side does not stand up for those constituents in Waitaki who are experiencing shocking internet and broadband connections and why it is that instead of taking a call and explaining to her constituents why she will not back them and stand up for them she chooses just to interject in an incomprehensible way from the benches opposite. So get on your feet take a call and stand up for the people who elected you to represent them. It would be great to hear from you. We are all holding our breath and would like nothing better at this time on a Friday night.The Rural Broadband Initiative was supposed to deliver speeds of 5 megabits to 86 percent of rural households and businesses. At the time Steven Joyce said that this was meant to mean 252000 customers in rural New Zealand getting access to high-speed broadband comparable to urban levels of services and prices.