Wong Pansy: Communications Legislation Bill — In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Communications Legislation Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:6033] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 Thank you for giving me the call Mr Chairperson because now that the Minister of Health has tabled the Hon David Cunliffe’s response to the Radio Frequency Users Association I would like to make further comments. 
First of all I am just wondering why we did not bring the Reserve Bank Amendment Bill into this debate because Part 2 of that bill talked about horse racing and I think we are now talking a lot about horse-trading in debating Part 2 of the Communications Legislation Bill. I was looking forward to Barbara Stewart of New Zealand First taking a call on her Supplementary Order Paper that seeks clarification of security of tenure for the Radio Frequency Users Association. I now understand that that Supplementary Order Paper has been withdrawn. 
Why I was particularly interested was that Mr Shane Jones a Labour member on the Commerce Committee went to great lengths at the select committee—and my very hard-working colleague can back me up on this—to try to resolve the longstanding uneasiness of the association. He actually went to discuss the matter with the Minister of Communications Mr Cunliffe. We had to seek leave to delay the deliberations until Mr Shane Jones could come back to the select committee members and assure us that a secure path could be resolved. Well after three attempts and a delay of about 3 weeks in our deliberation on the issue he came back empty-handed and we were left no clearer as to why. Well I have bad news for Mr Shane Jones the rising star of the Labour Party: his action unfortunately did not secure much and did not count for much with his Minister. I think he needs to learn to trade horses a little better. Maybe he should take a lesson from National’s senior whip Lindsay Tisch who is better at horse-trading and knowing how to secure a guarantee. 
It was interesting to find that the letter went further. The Minister stated in the letter that he understood that the association was seeking “a 5-year window after the announcement of changes to the use of a land mobile band during which time mobile licensees could not be compelled to relinquish radio licences … Further you want to be assured that licensees will have access to alternative spectrum that the frequencies provided for replacement licences are suitable and that there is consideration of compensation for the related conversion costs.” I congratulate the association on very successful horse-trading through New Zealand First. But it does raise an issue. I think in future members on the Commerce Committee will certainly make sure that we do not easily accept any advice in good faith from the officials without every assurance that we will not be ambushed. We are actually happy with the outcome but we are also disappointed that that clear assurance from the Minister could not have been communicated to us in the first place through the Labour member Shane Jones. 
It is interesting: one never knows what one can discover in the Committee stage—last-minute horse-trading could prove to be quite fruitful for the Radio Frequency Users Association. I want to refute what New Zealand First’s Brian Donnelly was saying about the Commerce Committee members. We were of one mind in seeking the assurance and we fought very strongly on behalf of the Radio Frequency Users Association. 
Part 2 agreed to.