Tisch Lindsay: Communications Legislation Bill — In Committee 
Tisch Lindsay: Communications Legislation Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5599] 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 National has supported this bill right through. It disturbs me to know that tonight when National is prepared to support this bill right through the Committee stage we will be voting on Part 1 only. What about Part 2? What about the title and commencement? The reason is that the Government does not have the support of the other parties to be able to get this bill right through the Committee stage. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Part 1. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: I am coming back to Part 1. We are debating only Part 1 tonight because the Government does not have support from the other parties to have a Part 2 vote. We cannot discuss Part 2 or the title and commencement. 
Let us look at why we are talking about Part 1 only. It is because a Supplementary Order Paper in the name of New Zealand First has come up in relation to clause 6 in Part 2. Here is a Government that wants us to have confidence in the integrity of the process and to give that certainty we have talked about to all those consumers who are very dependent on communications and telecommunications yet it is not prepared tonight to allow us to finish the Committee stage which National is supporting. 
We will be able to vote on Part 1 only. The question I ask is why. It is because in my view the Government does not have the support of the other parties. When I look at this Supplementary Order Paper that New Zealand First has tabled I suggest that there is probably some question mark over this bill and that is why we will not be proceeding with Part 2 and the title and commencement. Of course the Minister has a Supplementary Order Paper as well. Maybe we will see when we look at the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper that those parties whose support the Government needs to get its legislation through have some doubts about it. 
So although National is supporting this legislation and has done so through all the stages it is very disconcerting to find that we will be able to talk tonight about Part 1 only. In Part 1 the principal Act is defined as the Telecommunications Act. Part 1 makes amendments to the Telecommunications Act and I needed to go back to the statute book to find out what changes are being contemplated here. There are only two clauses in Part 1—clauses 3 and 4. Clause 4 relates specifically to section 65 of the principal Act. I got out the principal Act to see what that clause actually means. Section 65(1A) inserted by clause 4 states that the 5-year period will be taken out to 7 years: “In subsection (1)(a) 5 years must be read as 7 years …”. There is an extension of 2 years so that is a change. There are a number of other changes made to subsection (1)(a) in the form of paragraphs (a) to (j). 
 But at the end of the day the confidence that subscribers around the country are expecting will be found short. We looked earlier at a piece of legislation called the Securities Legislation Bill which National supported and talked about confidence in the integrity of the system. That is what subscribers look for. That is what developers want when they are doing their subdivisions. Yet we see that this legislation is falling well short of the mark. This is an indictment on the Government. There is huge demand out there for telecommunications services and in the area I represent some areas and some subdivisions are just not being catered for.