Curran Clare: Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Curran Clare: Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:673;Page:19463] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I rise to speak to Part 1 of the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill and to express deep concerns about it. It is a dog’s breakfast of a bill and it contains serious flaws. It will promote anti-competitive behaviour on the part of Telecom with the new fibre monopoly that it creates. It is the result of a deeply flawed process—flawed advice and bad process—that is lacking in transparency and it will result in a law that promotes investors’ interests at the expense of quality services and affordability for Kiwis in broadband. 
Labour has introduced a number of amendments today to this bill and to the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister for Communications and Information Technology brought to the House yesterday in an attempt to address the core flaws in this bill. But before I mention them I tell members that there is an urgent issue that needs to be cleared up and I ask the Minister to address it as a matter of great urgency. The phone and internet bill is probably the third or fourth biggest bill that most New Zealanders pay every month behind their mortgage or their rent their electricity and their food. The phone and the internet are not only essential but also substantial in terms of the bills people must pay. It is important for New Zealanders that they know what they are paying for what the guarantees around it are and where it will come from. 
The Government and the Minister in the chair the Minister for Communications and Information Technology need to clarify urgently today that the structurally separated Telecom business delivering broadband fibre cannot be sold off to foreign interests and that its Kiwi share obligations will remain. I ask the Minister to address this issue urgently because last-minute amendments to this controversial telecommunications bill appear to indicate that the Kiwi share obligations will no longer be operative following the structural separation of Telecom. 
The Kiwi share obligation has protected New Zealand consumers for the last 21 years since Telecom was privatised. The provision has not been perfect and it has been updated several times but it has ensured that Kiwis have access to a phone line at a standard rental that they receive emergency services and that Telecom cannot be wholly sold to foreign interests. 
The Kiwi share is broader even than those performance standards those obligations and the foreign-ownership issue. It is the public’s symbolic ownership right in Telecom and I ask the Minister to address this issue urgently because the Supplementary Order Paper he introduced takes out the Kiwi share obligation from the Act. It was understood that the Kiwi share obligation placed on the privatised Telecom obliged it to maintain service to sparsely populated parts of the country and that would be transferred to the new Chorus company which would then continue to operate the existing copper networks as well as the new fibre network which was supposed to be available to 75 percent of consumers by 2019. 
The Kiwi share obligation includes a requirement for local free calling the ability for all residential users to receive a 111 service and a requirement that the Government must consent to a purchase of more than 10 percent in Telecom shares and to the purchase of more than 49.9 percent of Telecom shares by overseas interests. All references to that Kiwi share obligation have been removed from the bill in late amendments being tabled in the House. 
We have serious concerns that this leaves the way open for full overseas ownership. Does it leave the way open for full overseas ownership of the new strategic infrastructure asset to be called Chorus2 which would then build and own the broadband fibre network? The Minister needs to address that issue as a matter of urgency. I have had calls today from telecommunications companies who knew nothing about this amendment and do not know what it means and they have serious concerns that the Kiwi share obligation provisions are being removed from the Act. They do not know anything about it; they have not been consulted. There has been no opportunity for public consultation and discussion about the implications of this issue. 
The Kiwi share obligation is part of the fabric of New Zealand’s telecommunications. It is an absolutely critical guarantee to New Zealanders. Why is it being removed from the Act? Where is it going? How can New Zealanders be reassured as to where they will even get their telephone bill from? What organisation will it come from? What guarantees will come from it? 
Even if the Kiwi share obligation is maintained within the contractual arrangements with Chorus2 the removal of any mention of it from the Act raises significant issues of the watering down of the telecommunications companies’ obligations to the people of New Zealand. I think it is valid to be asking the Minister today whether free calling will become a thing a past whether residential telephone services will cease to be at a standard cost and importantly whether the new Chorus2 entity will be allowed to be wholly sold offshore. 
How can the Minister release a last-minute amendment on such an important issue to Kiwis without a proper consultation process with the industry and the public? Why have I been receiving calls on this issue today from telecommunications companies that have no idea what it means and what the implications are? The Minister must urgently clarify whether the Kiwi share will stay whether Chorus2 will be obligated to provide it and whether the Crown will prevent a full foreign sale of the infrastructure business.