Harawira Hone: Telecommunications Amendment Bill (No 2) Radiocommunications Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
Harawira Hone: Telecommunications Amendment Bill (No 2) Radiocommunications Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
[Volume:634;Page:6114] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tatou te Whare. I am always wary about rushing bills through the House just because some guru reckons to do so will put us into a bigger better and faster world. This stuff all sounds a bit like  
Star Trek 
 to me. “Captain James T Cunliffe-Kirk” wants to take us boldly where no man has been before by updating the spectrum regime tidying up the licensing rules and procedures and making sure that everybody pays their unpaid fees. 
The problem with the whole  
Star Trek 
 analogy though is that we have already been here before—on 10 March 1999 to be exact. On that day Rangiaho Everton registered Wai 776 at the Waitangi Tribunal. It was a claim concerning the part of the electromagnetic spectrum known as the radio spectrum which is used for telecommunications and information technology—the Internet mobile phones search and rescue operations video links videoconferencing and all that stuff. At the time the Crown was planning to hock off the rights to manage part of the radio spectrum for 20 years. Funnily enough the legislation we have today says exactly the same thing. It is hardly a matter for urgency and hardly next generation stuff. 
This legislation is supposed to amend the Telecommunications Act and Radiocommunications Act in order to improve the regulation of the communications sector. But a major issue at the heart of the debate is that of control and how that relates to the management of spectrum rights. In 1999 Piripi Walker said: “It was the Crown’s attempts to sell licences to operate portions of the spectrum into private ownership that had provoked Maori claims to the Waitangi Tribunal. Maori were concerned with the Crown’s ‘commercial approach’ which would see the alienation of the resource to powerful corporations.” 
If we fast track forward to today we see that the same question can be applied to steps being taken to enable the telecommunications sector to catch up with the OECD. The one essential difference between then and now is that the Waitangi Tribunal in summing up Wai 776 accepted the claimant’s argument that the spectrum was indeed known to Maori and was a taonga. The tribunal also said that Maori had a right under the Treaty to the use of that spectrum after 1840 and the right to a decent share of radio frequencies being offered by the Crown. Its finding followed the  
Report of the Waitangi Tribunal on the Te Reo Maori Claim 
 which also said that Maori language and culture were taonga which the Crown was bound by article 2 of the Treaty to preserve. 
The tribunal said: “We think that the two Treaty partners could then work out a long-term plan for the management of future allocations of spectrum rights. As we have suggested above the ownership and management of spectrum frequencies perhaps in joint-partnership operations could facilitate Maori participation in the telecommunications industry.” Yet here we are in 2006 still in the same virtual space and the same virtual time where getting access to frequencies and spectrum management rights is still blocked by the unwillingness of the Government and bigger industry players. 
We have also noted the advice of the Radio Frequency Users Association of New Zealand whose prime focus is protecting promoting and preserving the rights of organisations that need access to the spectrum. The association’s members collectively hold more licences than any group organisation or company in Aotearoa other than Telecom. So members can guess how surprised the association was that during the drafting of this legislation neither it nor its members were consulted. That is kind of like trying to pick the All Blacks without having any rugby players to pick from. One has to ask how the Government can put up legislation to improve the performance of our communications sector without including the players with the greatest expertise. 
The Commerce Committee report stated that the industry would be consulted before rules were made on allocation but given the Government’s history on the legislation itself and on its consultation with Maori on Maori issues we are not holding our breath. However the Maori Party will support this legislation because it extends the range of services subject to regulation it enhances the ability of the Telecommunications Commissioner to implement those services it empowers the commissioner to monitor and enforce compliance effectively and it provides greater certainty investment competition opportunity and consumer benefit. 
But the Maori Party is also aware of five other golden principles that we believe this legislation could have addressed. I refer to the Treaty principles of partnership rangatiratanga fiduciary duty mutual benefit and development. In the Waitangi Tribunal claim I mentioned earlier we note the statements supporting the Maori right to ongoing resource development as a Treaty right resulting from article 2. Those rights cannot be fossilised as at 1840 and limited to only the resources used back then. They are as current in 2006 as they were in 1999 and as they were in 1840. 
So in the ongoing development of the telecommunications and radiocommunications sectors the Maori Party would like to remind the Government of the need to involve the Treaty partner fully if our nation is ever to realise its aspirations to be a world leader in information and communications technology. Government plans to encourage the use of information and communications technology must include Maori shares in the spectrum and Maori participation in the industry as determined by the Waitangi Tribunal. The tribunal stated: “Maori must have hands-on ownership and management if they are to foot it in the ‘knowledge economy’ as we believe they must in the coming millennium.” 
The Maori Party will support the third reading of the telecommunications and radiocommunications legislation but we agree with the Radio Frequency Users Association that there needs to be a wider discussion about whether legislative change should be piecemeal with small but frequent changes or whether it should be less frequent and more substantial. We agree with the latter because major issues impacting on the principles of partnership rangatiratanga fiduciary duty mutual benefit and development still need further discussion and resolution. The Maori Party for one is keen to be there when those discussions are held. Kia ora tatou. 
Bills read a third time.