Clark David: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3734. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I rise to speak in the Committee stage of this bill the Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill. I want to speak a little bit about the title of the bill because I think that there are some more fitting titles for this bill. I think it would be useful to consider them as sensible amendments to the bill to illustrate more clearly just what this bill is doing and to make it transparent to the public what will happen when this bill is passed—so that people are not surprised when their bills go up further down the track so that they are not surprised when a new tax is put on them so that they are not surprised when there is Government waste and so that they are not surprised when there is another broken promise from this Government.I want to address though a point that was first raised by Tracey Martin in her contribution earlier which was a good one I have to say. The issues are being debated here and although we may disagree on whether this bill should be supported or not at this stage part of the point of the Committee stage is of course to hammer out the ideas and to have a full debate and to ask whether this is a good idea or a bad idea. We are pretty firmly convinced that it is a bad idea but Ms Martin raised a very sensible question: how otherwise would this be funded? From this side of the House—from the Labour side—there are two things that we would say are obvious. The first is that it is not wise to fund something that is not working. And because there has been no evaluation of the existing programme it makes very little sense at all to continue to fund something that has not been proven to be effective or to be working.Let us put that to one side because we all want good rural broadband. I think that is the one point that everybody around the House is unanimous on. It is something that will take the country forward. The Government seems to have a somewhat limited vision of what might be possible but we would all agree that rural broadband needs to be better. I wonder whether the Government might consider investing its Future Investment Fund in such an activity. I mean what is that fund for if it is not for investing in future infrastructure? That the Government might choose to invest that money in it seems the most logical thing in the world.Let us put to one side the fact that it has promised to spend that money 10 or 15 times over. It talked about paying off debt at one stage; well it is $88 billion in debt. The $4.8 billion it got from flogging off the family silver will not cover that. But if we actually take the promises that it has owned up to and has put in ink in terms of the Future Investment Fund this would seem to be a sensible thing to fund that out of rather than by imposing a new tax on users. We have seen earlier this evening Spark come out and say that this is a tax that it will be transparently passing on to its customers. We have had the Telecommunications Carriers Forum come out and say that it has been bearing the cost in this industry and that it cannot continue to bear it any longer. It thought this tax was time limited but a new tax has been issued that takes it for ever into the future. This Government has promised not to introduce a new tax and now it is.So the first of the alternative titles that I suggest should be considered by the Government is—let us just call it what it is—the “Telecommunications (Development Tax) Amendment Bill”. This is a Government that is trying to introduce three new taxes despite having promised—crossed fingers behind its back—that it would introduce no new taxes if it was elected. In this Budget we have got three of them. This is a Government that is introducing a new tax and we have had the proof of that of course in the departmental disclosure statement which says quite clearly: “Does this bill create or amend a power to impose a fee levy or charge in the nature of a tax?”. And the department says in the biggest letters on the page “Yes”. This is in the nature of a tax. Bill English has tried to deny that but the public of New Zealand know a tax when they see one. It is an additional charge on top of what they are currently being charged—exactly what the industry now proposes to pass on transparently as an additional charge.So we have got that and it makes sense therefore to call this bill the “Telecommunications (Development Tax) Amendment) Bill”. That would be plainer. That would be clearer. More people know what a tax is than what a levy is. It is a nice clear way of saying what it is. This tax of course is going to be imposed on small businesses around the country.