Nash StuartSTUART NASH (Labour—Napier): For anyone who is still awake after that speech it is time to hear a little bit of positivity. What we heard there was the difference between MPs on this side and MPs on that side. What you have got here is relentless positivity and what you have got there is—well I am sorry Mr Macindoe but even you have got to admit that that speech was downright boring and tired was it not? Was it not? Where is the positivity? Where is the enthusiasm? Mate you are about to go home and campaign. I mean we are out of our skins—ready to go.Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch what I would like to say is that it has been a pleasure being a member while you have been in the Chair. I wish you the very best of luck in your future endeavours and I know that your wife is probably looking forward to you being at home a little bit more. But just best of luck and thank you very much.Now back to the relentless positivity. Goodness me when you are doing something like this which is so important—it really is. I should say that we support this bill. I should say that this is the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill and there is one thing that Mr Macindoe said that I completely agree with which is that this is a fast-moving sector. It really is. It is a game-changer. In fact it changes not only education and business and connectivity; it changes the world and how we go to the world where businesses can locate. But this is not a fast-moving Government and that is part of the problem.This bill is the outcome of a 2-year consultation process from 2015 to this year. This is its first reading so of course the bill cannot pass until the 52nd Parliament—until the next Parliament—when I suppose we will be looking after the commerce portfolios and we will drive this through with vigour and positivity—Hon Louise Upston: Good luck with that.STUART NASH: —in a way that means a lot for provincial and rural New Zealand. I know that Louise Upston knows what I am talking about because she is from the provinces and she must be getting a whole lot of constituents who ask: When is it going to arrive on my doorstep? When is it going to happen?"—Peeni Henare: "Let's do this."STUART NASH: —"Let's do this." Absolutely—let's do this. So it does beg the question of what this Government has actually achieved in this Parliament for progressing the fibre agenda. I must admit that the cynic in me—the small cynic in me—says that we are here giving a first reading speech on this bill so that the Government can actually claim that legislation is in the House to reform the sector. Well what I would like to say is that a first reading speech on the second to last day of the parliamentary term is not progress.It is not progress and New Zealanders expected more. The reason I say that is that 3 years ago before the 2014 election there was a lot of hoopla made by this Government about the next phase of ultra-fast broadband (UFB). It called it UFB2 and the Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) or RBI2. Three years later it has only just got UFB2 or ultra-fast broadband 2 under way and we still do not have an announcement on rural broadband. Some of my communities—Meka Whaitiri: Oh our communities.STUART NASH: —our communities; Meka's and my communities—are rural. These are good hard-working farmers. They need to have rural broadband. It is part of what drives their business and they have not got it.I have been up at Matawai three times talking about this. This is a rural community that does well. These people are the backbone of the country and they are missing out. They are missing out. I have been working with Telecom actually—oh Spark—with some really innovative solutions to actually get them at least some form of—Peeni Henare: "Telecom"?STUART NASH: Yes I know. It shows my age does it not?Peeni Henare: No it was when the bill was introduced.STUART NASH: Yes it was. Good call—good call. That was to get them at least some form of ultra-fast broadband. But there is a practical application here. You know these guys are all part of a volunteer fire brigade which is the heart and the soul of the local community and as we well know in rural communities the fire brigade by and large puts out very few fires but it attends accidents. These are the first men and women on the scene when something goes wrong and most of the time they have not even got service anywhere. If they are out on the farm the phone does not work and the pager service is a little bit dodgy so if something is going down they are not aware of it. That is wrong. In fact not only is it wrong; it is just not safe.I know Mr Ian McKelvie will know what I am talking about. He is from the rural sector and he must have his constituents come up to him and say: "Come on Mr MP. What is taking your Government so long?".Tens of thousands of New Zealand homes are no better off than they were 3 years and even 6 years ago in terms of their connectivity. Rural New Zealand I believe in this sphere has really been let down by this Government. For those communities lucky enough to qualify to get the second phase of ultra-fast broadband 130000 of these people—New Zealanders; good hard-working New Zealanders in the regions and the provinces—will be waiting until 2022-24 to get it. I do not think that is good enough.Actually I suspect that if the Hon Chris Finlayson had anything to do with it it would be all over the country by now. He is a good hard-working Minister who gets things done. In fact it would not surprise me if the Chatham Islands probably has UFB before anyone else.Hon Christopher Finlayson: We've been looking—yeah the Chathams would be fine.STUART NASH: Exactly—exactly. And for some communities like the fringes of Auckland believe it or not and the fringes of Napier—so there might be Matawai up north but even around the fringes of Napier Ahipara in Northland Piopio in Waikato Edgecumbe in the Bay of Plenty Kaikōura and Waimate in Canterbury—the completion date for UFB2 is as late as 2024. That is 6 years from now. It is simply too long to wait for decent connectivity. I know there are challenges. I know we are a country of only 4.8 million people and we are long and we have a lot of isolated communities but that is no excuse to not get it out because it is holding us back.The communities that are affected are often small and geographically isolated. They are vulnerable to not being connected and 6 years is longer than it takes for a child to complete their secondary education. Businesses cannot benefit unless they have UFB2 and it is not until it reaches their area—in some cases 7 years from now. There was a report written where economists talked about some rural towns becoming ghost towns because their reasons for living were no longer there businesses were moving out or not relocating and the young were going away and not coming back. That will change only if they have decent infrastructure and in this case I am not talking about roads; I am talking about ultra-fast broadband. With ultra-fast broadband a company can work anywhere.We are doing a little bit of this in Wairoa at the moment. There is a film editing company there that needs to send massive files across to the other side of the world. Now with ultra-fast broadband they can do it. They can sell their million-dollar homes in Auckland and they can go to the outdoor capital of New Zealand old Wairoa—it is a fantastic spot. There are beautiful beaches lakes rivers hot pools Rocket Lab scenery and that sort of carry on. But do you know what? If we have not got the infrastructure there to support this then people have not got a reason to sell their million-dollar houses go down to Wairoa and buy a mansion for $400000.We have got to get this sorted and the thing for me is that great education I believe is a fundamental human right. If we are not delivering that then we are not giving the kids who live in rural and provincial New Zealand a fair chance to play on an even playing field. We have got to get this sorted—we really do—and it is taking too long.The digital divide in New Zealand like I said is very real. In 2014 the Government committed $150 million—good on it—for the second phase of rural broadband and improving mobile blackspots. We supported that. We were all for it. But do you know what? Now it is 3 years later—3 years later—and it has yet to announce how it will spend it. That is a long time when you are a community waiting for ultra-fast broadband when the money is actually there. It is not as if it has to come from another budget or be found somewhere else or dug up from the ground. It is there in the Budget for this project and it has not even been spent. That is a waste of money and a waste of potential and it is wrong. There is no time line for how the Government will spend it. I know this: the people of the communities who have not got this service are sick of waiting. They really are. It needs to be better.The regime proposed under the legislation we are talking about makes sense and Labour supports it—there is no doubt about that. It does three things. It introduces a predictable utility regulation model for ultra-fast broadband fibre. Where fibre is available copper lines will be deregulated from 2020. The bill includes measures to improve the quality of service for consumers by increasing regulatory oversight and all those other things the Minister spoke about. But there is one reality here: we have heard this before from this Government. I remember in election 2008 it made a whole lot of promises about ultra-fast broadband and rural connectivity. It has been 9 years and it just has not happened. It is not good enough.What we promise on this side is relentless positivity. It is about backing the regions it is going hard on the issues that are important and this is a very important issue for our rural and provincial communities around New Zealand that have not got this service. We need it now. Thank you very much."