Hughes Gareth: Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hughes Gareth: Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:673;Page:19691] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. It is great to be here discussing what is popularly known as the “Ultra-fast Broadband Bill” but what I have seen in the process through the Finance and Expenditure Committee through the debate in this House—throughout the whole process—is an “Ultra-farce Broadband Bill”. It is a privilege to be here today and to take a call on the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Bill. The Green Party supports better broadband. We know that it is vital for our economic and ecologic future. But we do not support and we will not be voting for this bill for the reasons I will elucidate in this speech. 
This bill has been rammed through in a poor process. We will see poor outcomes and Kiwis will be poorer because of it. UFB or ultra-fast broadband can transform our world. We have heard the Minister talk about the transformative benefits of broadband. Mr Bennett has argued that the Government has delivered it already but we are seeing a process that will take years to roll out. We have seen industry sector groups totally alienated and absolutely frustrated at the process and we still see a bill through which it will take almost a decade to finally roll out ultra-fast broadband. 
I think the tragedy of the bill and the way the Minister has gone about progressing it is that we are focused on the poor process we are focused on the monopoly and we are focused on the regulatory forbearance. Nowhere in the select committee and nowhere in the debate have we actually focused on the substantial benefits. Broadband can bring fundamental benefits to the medical sector to the educational sector and to the entertainment sector. It can even change our Parliament and our Government and make our democracy more inclusive transparent and engaged with our citizenry. I believe that the internet is a human right—or that access to information is a human right—and I wish we were having those discussions in Parliament. Instead because of the way the Minister has gone about it we have had to debate the poor process and the poor decisions he has made. 
I thank the select committee members committee chairman Mr Foss the officials and the submitters. I point out the good work and the great questions of David Cunliffe and Clare Curran in the House. In this call I will look at a few issues. I will look at the history and process of the bill. I will look at the forbearance issue and at the embarrassing backdown the Minister has been forced to undertake. I will look at the Kiwi share changes. I will look at Telecom which is ultimately the big winner of the “Ultra-farce Broadband Bill”. And lastly I will summarise why the Green Party will be opposing this bill. Fundamentally it is not because we are opposed to broadband; it is because we are opposed to this bill the poor process and the fundamentally missed opportunities this bill symbolises. 
Firstly this bill takes a great chunk of taxpayers’ cash—more than $1.35 billion—and essentially gives the lion’s share of the money to Telecom in order for it to achieve its goal of 75 percent coverage. But we can debate what high-speed broadband actually is especially in regard to upload speeds. We can say it is good that broadband is going out there. We support the Rural Broadband Initiative; we do not think there should be a gap in coverage between rural and urban Kiwis. The bill changes the telecommunications service obligation and the levy. The big change introduced in the Committee stage was to the Kiwi share which I will touch on. 
When we look at the history of the telecommunications sector we see that it has been characterised by monopoly poor services and an anti-competitive nature. Just a couple of weeks ago Telecom was fined $12 million for its anti-competitive processes from 2001 through to 2004; we have to ask ourselves why we are here throwing more than $1 billion at Telecom to deliver something. It is because of that company’s lack of investment and the lack of an investment-friendly environment for getting better broadband rolled out for Kiwis. The National Party took the issue of broadband to the election and made it one of its top priorities but for some reason Steven Joyce the Minister for Communications and Information Technology left it until 2½ years into the parliamentary term to finally get a bill through the House. Mr Bennett calls broadband delivered; we have not even passed the legislation. We have not seen any broadband rolled out so I think it is a bit premature to say it has been delivered. 
The Minister in his call on the third reading said that we had had wide support from industry and that those opposing the bill who were mostly just Opposition members were jumping at shadows. I do not know whether the Minister has seen the widespread advertising on television and in print the letters the select committee read the blogs and the newspaper articles. There has been huge fundamental opposition to this bill and this process. Only Telecom as Miss Curran said has supported it. An impressive number of telecommunications companies and industry watchdogs with very diverse interests came out together to oppose this bill. I think it is ridiculous to say that they were just jumping at shadows. 
We have seen a shocking process with Supplementary Order Paper 204 tabled during the select committee process—a Supplementary Order Paper bigger than the actual legislation it was amending. We have seen Supplementary Order Paper 247 tabled in the Committee stage with those fundamental changes to the Kiwi share. We have seen secretive backroom meetings a lack of consultation and an absolute arrogance on the part of the Minister. Every single question has been answered simply with: “You don’t understand it.” It has been the same from the Ministry of Economic Development with its legal advice: “You just don’t understand. Only we understand.” We have seen a great deal of arrogance from the Minister in his saying to people that they did not understand. There has been an absolute lack of cross-party consultation or consensus. When it comes to telecommunications the issue should not be a partisan issue. The different parties should work together because we all want better broadband for Kiwis. 
We have seen a good select committee process. It came up with some good changes along with the equivalence ruling which was not as high as we would have liked but we acknowledge that ground was given there. We saw the review brought forward; there were some good changes there. The main issue for submitters in the select committee was in relation to regulatory forbearance. I believe that the Minister was acting like a bit of a cowboy because regulatory forbearance was needed essentially because the Government would not put in adequate funds to develop the resource. The most apt analogy for trying to develop an infrastructure for broadband today is the Wild West of America with its railways in the 1860s and we have seen “Cowboy Joyce” set up a Wild West environment where there are no regulations so that private people can benefit. That is totally unprecedented in New Zealand legislation and probably worldwide as well. Yet we have seen absolute intransigence by the Minister who has been categorically and fundamentally opposed to changing his position on it. He was fundamentally opposed to letting his officials do extra work on it yet 2 days after the bill was tabled we saw the Minister have to back down because of the realpolitik played by the Maori Party. I say “Good on them”. It has been a shocking process but we had to see that change. Now the Minister has totally changed tune. He has said: “We somehow found”— 
Clare Curran 
: “We listened.” 
GARETH HUGHES 
: “We listened; we found the solution.” Yet this solution has not been put through a select committee process. It has not been consulted on with the public or the sector. We initially welcomed the backdown by the Minister but now we are opposed because he has replaced regulatory forbearance and the Wild West environment; he has actually— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: A blank cheque! 
GARETH HUGHES 
: He has given a blank cheque to the Wild West. The Wild West is still there but he is saying that if people set up camp or a city in the Wild West the Government will cover their risks and underwrite them. That is absolutely shocking. The Minister did have the good sense to back the regulatory holiday; I wish he would now back the holiday highway. 
The real winner of this bill is Telecom. It will be taking about $929 million of taxpayers’ funds and the vast bulk of that will simply flow offshore. We are still subject to the shareholder vote on the structural separation and there are huge questions about taxpayer money going to Telecom—maybe up to $900 million worth. 
In summary we have essentially seen a bill set up a monopoly that will be bad for consumers. We have seen a poor process poor outcomes and a poor deal for Kiwis. Telecommunications should not be partisan. The Greens would have worked with the Government to deal with a good policy. What we have now is increased policy uncertainty for the sector and Labour and the Green Party will look to reform it in the future. 
I have seen the Minister in his information and communications technology hat acting just like the Minister of Transport with his transport hat. Through poor process he is ramming motorways and other types of infrastructure through communities in Kapiti and Waterview and changing the Greater Wellington Regional Council’s water rules. We are seeing the Minister throw huge sums of money to motorways—$10.7 billion on just seven roads of significance to National—with bad benefit-cost ratios and with the main beneficiaries coming from corporate New Zealand. Ultimately just as in this broadband bill Government policy is locking us into an outdated concept. When it comes to roads of significance to National it is locking us into a car and oil-dependent future; with this bill it is locking us into an old-fashioned copper sector. We should have been looking to the future and that is the massive missed opportunity of this bill. In transport I call Steven Joyce the “Colossus of Roads” for building a monument in asphalt and concrete to folly; if I recall rightly the Colossus of Rhodes was actually made of copper.