Lee MelissaMELISSA LEE (National): Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I would like to thank the member who just took her seat Clare Curran. She has been a very active member. Before I go on with the bill I just want to thank her for the clarification she gave. When she first began her speech I was thinking that she was claiming that the Opposition had come up with the bill and given all the answers and that none of us had actually done any work. The Supplementary Order Paper she explained came from Northpower which was one of the submitters that seeded the idea into the select committee. I would like to thank them for that and for the hard work that the select committee did. I agree with Clare Curran that the Commerce Committee worked really well together. This is one that we need to be very proud of. It is us doing the job that we are supposed to do. When a bill is introduced into the House it is sent to a select committee we hear submissions from the public and it is our job to hear them and improve the bill if we can. I wish we could do that with other bills that the Opposition just simply ignores and opposes on the principle of its politics.The telecommunications legislation is designed to help the community in situations when there are shared driveways multiple occupancies or other factors where multiple consents may be required before the installation of ultra-fast broadband (UFB) can be achieved to a building or an area. There are a number of reasons why difficulties may come up whether it is an absentee owner who lives overseas or out of town who becomes unreachable or whether it is internal disputes between adjoining properties where owners or neighbours cannot come to an agreement and give permission for them to have ultra-fast broadband down the back of the driveway for example.The committee discussed this matter significantly during the past year with around 30 submissions having been received and 12 oral submissions were heard across the committee. We heard from a number of providers and stakeholders including the Electricity Networks Association Northpower which I mentioned before and Federated Farmers. We were put in a unique position as Ms Curran said. We were following hearing processes as one part of the bill as reported back was redrafted to incorporate means to support a deployment of fibre or broadband to rural areas where there is existing electricity infrastructure in place where currently it is not able to do so. This will allow providers using existing poles and pylons where it is appropriate to run UFB and supply people who are living in rural areas who currently do not have ultra-fast broadband.This also meant clarifying the relationship between the owner of existing works the landowner and the telecommunications provider that was required. A lot of conversations were had in the committee. This is to ensure that the issue would not limit the uptake of access to broadband and allow third parties to provide services where the existing owner of the infrastructure was unable to do so.One of the key discussions during the committee process was on the issue of lead-in requirements—for lines for example. The majority of the discussion was about a maximum distance of between 200 metres and 500 metres. I remember to-ing and fro-ing between the committee members to decide what in fact was the best option for the bill. We have to say that in the end the committee determined that where a connection is non-standard beyond 200 metres the owners of the existing work are to contribute 50 percent of the cost of aerially installing the fibre-optics cable up to a distance of 500 metres. I think that was actually a good compromise. I thank members for the discussions that we had in the committee.At the moment there are around 800 orders on the books of network providers that have been waiting for consents for up to 50 working days or more. In effect this is 2 or 3 months that a household or business has been waiting for their applications to go forth but has not been able to get what they want. It is important to balance the rights of landowners and rights holders with the needs of our nation's future. As someone who remembers what the internet and telecommunications were like in New Zealand 30 years ago where with mobile technology you could save only about five numbers I welcome the more than 320000 households businesses schools and hospitals that are now connected to UFB.This is a good bill. I thank the members for the hard work that we put in together and for the compromises that we have achieved. I commend the bill.