Faafoi KrisKRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you very much. It is interesting to see the Government taking such short calls on this piece of legislation but I might try to use the 10 minutes to canvass a number of issues around this piece of legislation. Connectivity is a very important issue. I think you only need to see what happens to consumers when they lose their connectivity—and lose their minds—to see how important it is to both businesses and the average Kiwi at home. Making sure that you do have connectivity to the internet is obviously extremely important. It is extremely important in an electorate like mine in Mana too. I have the pleasure of sitting on the local board of the Computers in Homes board for Porirua. At the moment because of the cost of broadband connections we are currently looking at different ways of being able to offer broadband connectivity or internet connectivity to communities like that of Waitangirua and Cannons Creek. We know that if those families in those areas and the children in those areas do not have the ability to connect to the internet they will be at a distinct disadvantage compared with other families and other children who do. So it is certainly an extremely important issue.This piece of legislation though is the kind of bill that you get when a Government does not use its taringas. It should have listened about 2 to 3 years ago when this issue first arose when the ultra-fast broadband (UFB) roll-out began and people started contacting their local MPs. They said to us: Hey we've got an issue with a right of way or a body corporate. We can't connect up to the internet because of this. There's one curmudgeon in amongst the lot who is not letting us connect to the internet so we can't connect." I am connected. I think most of us are connected and I think you can all agree just how frustrating it would be if you lived in an apartment and one person perhaps was holding this up. But as I say this issue is not new.This was around 2 to 3 potentially 4 years ago and I think that at the time when I was on the Commerce Committee we had a number of submitters come to us—and we were discussing a piece of broadband-related legislation—saying: "Hey we've got this issue around connectivity around rights of way around body corporates." So it was a live issue then and my colleague Clare Curran was extremely hot on this issue saying to the Government: "What are you going to do about this?". Because if you're talking about making sure that as many New Zealanders as possible can be connected to the UFB we could potentially have a big problem—and potentially in our biggest city of Auckland where we do have a lot of apartment living a lot of shared dwellings and rights of way—where you could have an enormous number of people not being able to connect. We had the likes of the telecommunications companies come to us and say: "Hey guys this is an issue. We can't do this. There are property rights at play and fair enough because this is where the legislation sits now but we might need to address this issue relatively quickly so we can make sure that people can get connected." To those people at home who are not connected because of this issue I would like you to see just how responsive this Government is to those needs that you had 2 to 3 to 4 years ago. You have waited not weeks not months but years for this issue to be addressed in this House. As I say this is not a new issue. Can I also have a little bit of sympathy for the Minister who is responsible for this piece of legislation. Who does not want more New Zealanders to be connected to the internet? That is what this piece of legislation does. But she was passed a huge hospital pass by Steven Joyce—and I acknowledge the contribution of Gareth Hughes that he made earlier. Steven Joyce sat on this problem for years and when election time came round and Amy Adams whom I have a lot of respect for took over the telecommunications portfolio there was a big issue here and she is the one who has to front the legislation. Steven Joyce did not have his eyes across the detail when the ultra-fast broadband roll-out was proposed. He did not have his eyes across the detail when this issue came across the table at the select committee. He ignored the thousands of people who I am sure have been affected by this who are saying "We can't get connected." and he left Amy Adams to pick up the pieces. So I do have a certain amount of sympathy for that Minister who is responsible for this legislation because Steven Joyce the previous Minister of telecommunications either ignored or wilfully ignored this issue or just said: "Hey I'm not going to be the Minister any more—not my problem." But we have got this piece of legislation that hopes to fix that issue and I guess that in some way we have to give some acknowledgement to the Government that it is actually doing something about this. It might be years later but that is the situation we are in. What does this piece of legislation actually do to solve the problem of people who are in a situation where because they have a body corporate or right of way or because someone else has a right to the carriageway or the land where you would hope to put the UFB cables down someone is either not responding or does not want it there? Well for homes down rights of way no consent will be required although 5 days' notice must be given if a fibre cable installation is non-invasive. I am told that that is if it is a shallow hole under grass—so if it is an easy job no consent is required though you have to give 5 days' notice of that. For apartments a UFB installer I am told will get deemed consent and be able to proceed if they have not heard from the body corporate within 15 days. So if you give notice and you do not get any feedback after 15 days for an apartment you should be good to go and there is the right for the UFB installer to go and get stuck in and put the cable in. If the installation is categorised as an invasive because it involves major work work will proceed if no neighbours on a shared right of way object. So it is slightly more complicated. Obviously there is a notification period but if no one says no on that right of way then again you can go and fill your boots and make sure that the cable is installed. That will create a solution for many people out there who have been frustrated at the lack of connection to UFB.The UFB is extremely important not just to the families who use it to watch Netflix or do whatever but also in terms of the economic growth that this Government puts so much weight on to the UFB roll-out. But I would like to stress again that it got all excited and said: "Here's the UFB." Some people put up their hands including the telecommunications companies and said "Hey guys there's a slight detail here with us being able to roll this out to everybody in terms of apartments rights of way and body corporates." but the Government did not listen and we are here doing another patch up on an extremely important piece of legislation that this Government has trumpeted since it came into office in 2008. It is trying to usher it through late on a Tuesday night with those members taking very few calls because they feel a bit guilty. They feel just a little bit guilty. They think: "We don't want to talk about it for very long because it is something that we should have done 4 years ago—4 years ago."I could go and find some of the emails that I had from constituents from right around the country who said "Hey why isn't the Government listening to us on this one?" and I do not think they are watching tonight because I think they have given up all hope of the Government doing anything about it. But help is on its way because the Labour Party will support this piece of legislation. It is late. It is bad because the Government should have done it much much earlier. Again I have some sympathy for Amy Adams. I do not expect Amy Adams to be sending a Christmas card to Steven Joyce this year because in terms of parliamentary hospital passes he has thrown her an absolute doozy."