Faafoi Kris: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3724. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is a pleasure to take a call on the second reading of this Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill.There are a number of questions that we have of the Government which we will also ask in the Committee stage. The first one I will put to the Minister and that is why in her first reading speech did she say: “The industry will not need to put up their prices or explain to customers why their bill is changing.”? For then less than an hour later Spark put out a press release saying: “Now that the Government has confirmed the levy will continue rather than reduce as originally legislated for it has put upward pressure on future costs and we will have to pass that cost through to our broadband and on-account mobile customers.”So less than an hour after the Minister saying that this will have no effect on consumers and nothing will change Spark says that yes it will because it is going to make the consumers pay. Regardless of who was at fault—either the Minister’s wrong or Spark is playing silly buggers with this—someone is going to pay. It looks like it is going to be everyone who has a broadband account with Spark at this stage and potentially more because we have not heard from any other telecommunications companies at the moment. It further emphasises our point that this is a new tax.Further to that in the regulatory impact statement put out by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment on this bill point 50 talks about the level of consultation that the Government has had with the Telecommunications Forum. It says that “While formal consultation … has not been undertaken MBIE regularly engages with the telecommunications industry and as such the issues considered by this Regulatory Impact Statement have been widely canvassed … MBIE has monthly meetings with the New Zealand Telecommunications Forum (TCF) which represents levy payers and others in industry … ”. Point 51 says: “The intention to continue the levy at its current level was communicated openly during the election campaign …”.So from that regulatory impact statement you would think that the telecommunications companies know they are pretty OK with that. The Telecommunications Forum has been informed. It has got no problem with this bill and the implications of it but lo and behold not only has Spark put a press release out today the Telecommunications Forum has put a press release out this afternoon as this bill makes its way under urgency through this House. Geoff Thorn the chief executive of the Telecommunications Forum says: “This bill has been introduced under urgency and doing so avoids any public debate.” We agree with him on that. He also says: “This is a proposal which has not been the subject of any consultation …”—but the regulatory impact statement said there was consultation—“and which has avoided the usual scrutiny that would apply to Government spending.” which we do agree with.This bill is being pushed through under urgency and we would ask why. If as the Minister says this has been signposted and if as the Minister says there has been consultation with the Telecommunications Forum that does not necessarily look like it was the case.The press release from the Telecommunications Forum goes on to say: “The bill extends a tax which to date has not been explicitly recovered from consumers.” So the Telecommunications Forum itself says well in the past it had not got this money from consumers. So the assertion from the other side of the House is that this is not going to hit consumers. From this perspective Spark has said it is going to put up its prices. The Telecommunications Forum has said well it has not done this in the past. So someone is going to pay and it is not the Government. This Government said that there are no new taxes but when it continues this levy someone does have to pay and they are the broadband users of New Zealand.I would like to reiterate that we have no problem with rolling out broadband further into rural areas. It is a great idea but the $300 million that has been spent so far—we do not have any idea of how effective it was. And before we spend another $150 million—we do not think we should be rushing this through under urgency until we make sure we are going to get good value for money. That is why we are opposing this. This Government just wants to throw money around—another $150 million—without knowing how effective the first tranche of the Rural Broadband Initiative has been. We do not think that is on.