Shaw James: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShaw James: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3723. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMES SHAW (Green): I am standing to speak on the second reading of the Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill. I just want to address the concern that this bill is a new tax on New Zealanders or on users of broadband services. Frankly the Minister of Finance over the last 7 years has introduced so many new taxes and raised so many other taxes that I have kind of become a little bit blasé about it.This is an incredibly important piece of economic infrastructure particularly for rural New Zealanders. We have a huge economic divide between our regions and our main centres especially Auckland. It is absolutely vital for the regions that we get them connected to broadband and that it is a really high-quality service. Only then will they be able to access the social connections the educational opportunities the health care and in particular the economic infrastructure of being able to participate in the digital economy which is a growing and increasingly critical part of New Zealand’s economy overall. It has to get paid for somehow. It is a huge and expensive project and somebody has got to pay for it. This seems to us to be the best available method of paying for it.I do want to speak very briefly to the Supplementary Order Papers that my colleague Gareth Hughes introduced earlier—sorry I just wanted to say before that that we have not heard anything yet in the debate that would have us change our vote on this bill. We recognise that there are some concerns from the industry. We also understand Labour’s concerns in relation to this being a new tax and so on but at the moment our support for the bill still stands.We are introducing two Supplementary Order Papers. The first Supplementary Order Paper 83 if you do not mind my reading them out is to insert a new section 90(4) into the Telecommunications Act 2001 where the telecommunications development levy is used for purposes specified in clause 90(1)(b) and 90(1)(d) and particular regard will be taken to promote “… (a) competition in non-urban telecommunications markets; and (b) the diversity of non-urban communities intended to be served by the levy; and (c) the range of different technological options that may best serve particular non-urban communities; and (d) the rapid pace of technological development.”I would just like to speak to that because we did have some concerns that in the previous phase of the roll-out I guess the beneficiaries primarily were Vodafone and Chorus; that they in essence received a really significant subsidy paid for by other industry players. We want to make sure that there is maximum competition and a diversity of providers in the market place and that it does not benefit just a couple of large companies too much.The second Supplementary Order Paper 82 is to insert a new section 90(4) into the Telecommunications Act 2001. Where the telecommunications development levy is used to promote cellular mobile coverage in rural areas—for example through a mobile black spots fund—the levy will not be used to fund any of the existing contractual requirements between the Crown and mobile network operators.There is a risk that the Government’s telecommunications development levy - funded mobile black spots fund could be used to fund these from cheaper requirements. This would essentially short-change the taxpayer and the rest of the industry. Again we just want to make sure that companies that have got these contracts already do not get two bites of the cherry. Again it is about ensuring that there is a maximum number of players in this and that the benefit is sort of spread through the economy.We think that those amendments are quite sensible that they aid diversity and competition in the market place and we hope that we can get support for them. In the meantime I commend this bill to the House.