Bond RiaRIA BOND (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and speak to the second reading of the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Before I get into the nitty-gritty of this bill I would like to congratulate Gareth Hughes' kids on sitting through this bill. Although they are jittery and actually quite clearly over it I just want to tell them that it is OK kids because you are going to need this bill in your future. I do want to say that Tracey Martin my colleague took the New Zealand First call in the first reading of this bill. Tracey is the spokesperson on broadcasting and communications and I kind of sat there and thought God I'm glad I'm not getting that bill." because the gobbly-gob technology to do with ultra-fast broadband and rolling it out was actually not something that I was all too familiar with at the time. But I have since learnt that I have to be careful what I wish for because I find myself today in the House taking a call in the second reading.I want to ask you Mr Assistant Speaker just to bear with me for a wee moment. Prior to being a member in this House I as a customer used to get absolutely frustrated with online services—the talk about megabytes gigabytes giggle town funky town—and many Kiwis who are watching this second reading tonight will also be nodding their heads in agreement. We in this country have faced a rapid growth in internet services. Even in my generation when I was at high school and I was taking computer studies I used to sit in front of a big clunky monitor with a wired-up keyboard and I had yellow font to work with. You know in those days we did not even have a mouse. Actually in those days a mouse was a mouse—four legs and a furry thing. These days a mouse is something we can navigate round our computers and we can have them wireless as well. Cellphones as well—I remember that you used to be able to identify who the rich people were from seeing the big clunky cellphones they held to their ears while they were walking down the street. Those cellphones had a massive big aerial. I am sure that those members who remember that will know that they noticed those people with those new technologies with those new devices and I think even in my generation "My how times have changed in terms of technology."I am sure that members in this House right now know that the advancement in technology has seen an absolutely phenomenal boom globally. Today I hold here in my hand everything that exists and I use it in my day-to-day structure and my life. In here is a TV a computer a stereo a camera a video—everything that we used to buy individually through shops is actually on this one device right here. In my life cycle—to go from that big ugly television to this cellphone—that in itself is making huge leaps into the future with what we are going to need to access in terms of our online services. I also would like to point out that for us here in the House today I can see members are already using their devices. Predominantly with this bill as members who have spoken before me have said we want to be able to open up access for ultra-fast broadband and faster services for other people in New Zealand. We want to be able to give schools access to better connectivity. We want to be able to provide farmers with internet connections so they can pay staff on their farms online. We want to be able to ensure that children at home can actually do their homework and do it at a rate so that unlike in my day they do not have to wait for a dial-up connection because it is rather annoying for the people in the rural areas who still face those issues today. So it is about being able to provide dwellings in our rural areas with the speed and the coverage that people actually need and require to do their business.I just want to touch on some of the comments that colleagues have actually spoken about previously. I know that in our farming area in Southland because of the issue of not having connectivity in some of our areas labourers on farms actually tick the box thinking that this is going to be a fantastic job but then they turn the job down because of the lack of internet. I hear it all the time. The lack of internet is absolutely not desirable to these young ones or even people in their 20s and 30s. They live so much of their lives on cellphones—like this one I am holding here—and on social media that they are actually turning down employment opportunities because of a lack of internet. Essentially when this bill came to the House for its first reading it was quite evident that it needed to go forward into the select committee process. I am really proud—as other members on all sides of the House have already said this evening we had some hard work to do on the Commerce Committee. There were some moments when literally you had to bite your tongue because we had differences of opinion. But as everyone has already said we had to find the common ground and the outcome of that common ground was to ensure that New Zealanders had ready connectivity to ultra-fast broadband and also the fibre roll-out. I can certainly say that the submissions we had from submitters—we actually had 33 who submitted to the Commerce Committee and from memory around about 13 or 14 who spoke to their submission. We were fortunate to get feedback from our submitters—particularly from Northpower which helped the committee by providing us with an amendment so that we could ultimately strengthen this bill—and by developing policy and taking the expertise from our officials and our advisers we could ensure that this bill was going to be fit for what we wanted and needed it to be for New Zealand now and into the future. I think that I was technically challenged by some of the gobbly-goo speak that went on throughout the select committee process—Chris Bishop: Gobbly-what? RIA BOND: Gobbly-gook. Chris Bishop: Oh gobbledegook—oh OK. RIA BOND: Gobbledegook. I have to say—Chris Bishop: That's in Hansard now.RIA BOND: Ha ha—thank you. I have to say that although we as members do not profoundly know everything there is about certain legislation-building it was certainly quite helpful for members of that committee that explanations were given so that you were able to identify that yes actually this amendment is a really good amendment and one that ultimately in the end is going to strengthen this bill and make a bill that we all as members can be quite proud of. There were a few situations where we were lucky enough to get submitters to come back and talk further to the evidence before us so that we could get better clarification as well. I felt that having access to that and having the submitters being really open-minded and trying to share their knowledge with us and being quite up front and honest too—I think that is a credit to the submitters. Some of the submitters were not big business. They were not councils. They were actually mums and dads and grandmothers who were at home and had to work with their children and help them with their homework. They wanted to be able to do a night's homework without the barriers that they currently have. So we had a wide range of submitters who submitted and I absolutely thank each one of them for taking the time to submit to the Commerce Committee. It certainly helped us to come to the position we have come to with this bill today. I am quite aware that there has already been a lot of technical jargon from both sides of the House and I do not want to add to that and bore you to tears this evening. I am looking forward to this bill taking its passage through the House. I am sure that in the Committee of the whole House each of us will stand up and talk to each one of these clauses and amendments and say why these amendments have been fantastic for this bill. I want to say that New Zealand First is supporting this bill. Once again I would like to thank all sides of the House for the fantastic work that we managed to collaborate on."