Tanczos Nandor: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Tanczos Nandor: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1119] 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 As Mr Roy said we all like to take pride in our country. We like to think of Aotearoa as a place of innovation and creativity. We like to think of ourselves as an adaptable people who are able to meet the demands of the time. Of course all those qualities will be enormously important in meeting some of the very significant challenges that we face as we go into the 21st century. 
My co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons mentioned some of the very significant environmental and economic problems that we face right now and need to start preparing for. One of the most current I guess is peak oil the rise in the cost of fossil fuel for the foreseeable future as it becomes more expensive to extract and transport and of course the effects on transportation costs and the like. That is very significant for us as a country that relies significantly on exports. What we are likely to see is a physical localisation. 
But of course coupled with that and new in human history is that at the same time we are seeing an unprecedented ability to share information globally and that is what makes the difference. In fact perhaps the greatest leveller of New Zealand’s comparative disadvantage of our geographical distance from our markets will be a world-class information and communications technology infrastructure. That is why the current state of New Zealand’s broadband is so tragic. The Prime Minister drew attention to this problem in her speech and I will just highlight a couple of things. 
The Prime Minister talked about the need to get faster Internet access and at more competitive prices. She said that broadband is a critical enabler of productivity growth and economic transformation yet New Zealand is lagging behind. She indicated a number of ways in which that was the case. She said: “Although recent announcements of price reductions and other changes are welcome the Government will be addressing the relevant policy legislative and regulatory settings as a matter of urgency. We want to work with other parties on solutions that not only enable New Zealand to catch up with the rest of the world but also enable us to keep up as these technologies develop further.” 
I highlight that because the Greens as the only other political party that seems to have any opinion at all on this enormously important matter are very keen to participate in that discussion. We are very keen because it seems abundantly clear that the approach taken by the Government to date has been an abject failure—such a failure that the mainstream media has been headlining broadband and that is amazing. This subject is normally reserved for the geek sheets and the obscure pages of the information technology section in the business section of the  
New Zealand Herald 
. This is a technically complex matter—a matter that is difficult for journalists to understand. They will tell us that they do not report it because it is difficult for the public to understand but we know the real reason. 
So normally journalists avoid the subject matter but the other day we saw TV3 news headlining broadband. Now any MP who has tried to get the media to pay attention to an information technology matter knows how unlikely that is and that is just an indication of how bad the situation has become because New Zealand’s access to high-speed broadband has become a national scandal. First of all let us be clear: broadband is incredibly important because it could unleash enormous potential in New Zealand businesses and provide staggering new technologies for New Zealand households. Those of us in select committees who have made use of video conferencing to talk to submitters from sometimes the other side of the world in real time have got a small idea of the amazing possibilities on offer. The enormous growth internationally in things like Skype in peer-to-peer data sharing and the like and the trend towards the PC becoming the core of the home communication and entertainment centre are all things that give us today a very very small taste of where information technology is going and of what broadband can offer us over the next few years. 
The increasing dependence of New Zealand businesses on their information technology and on the ability to both download and upload enormous amounts of data is simply going to increase as new technologies unleash new possibilities. New Zealand could and should be at the forefront of that development. At the moment that is extremely unlikely. There is one very simple reason in my view why it is unlikely and that is because of the monopoly that Telecom currently holds over our information and communications technology infrastructure. That is my opinion and that is the opinion of many information technology commentators as well. 
What is that all about? We are talking about the copper wire—the telephone line network that was paid for by New Zealand taxpayers. When Telecom was privatised it was sold along with it and its monopoly was established. Well fair enough. In those days the Labour Government did not have the foresight to see what was coming. To be fair I have to say that not many people did. But let us hope that it has some hindsight because it now has an opportunity to break that monopoly just as it had an opportunity a couple of years ago when then Minister Swain took a recommendation to Cabinet for local loop unbundling which is the freeing up of the copper wire network and allowing Telecom’s broadband competitors direct access to the copper wires and the telephone exchanges so that they can go in put the gear in and unleash new possibilities for their customers. 
We are one of the very few countries in the world without local loop unbundling and New Zealanders face an enormous disadvantage as a result. Just prior to today Telecom has been trumpeting its new plans on broadband and it is being hailed as the saviour of the information technology infrastructure as a result. Of course it is no coincidence that the rolling out of its new pricing plans and the like has been timed clearly to pre-empt the Prime Minister’s statement today and the indication that the Government intends to take some regulatory action. As usual as has been displayed time and time again over the past few years Telecom has left it until the last moment and of course always displays great reluctance to meet even the goals it has set itself. 
What has Telecom actually done? Well it has done some useful things. It has brought business prices in line with residential prices. That is going to be of enormous benefit to New Zealand businesses some of which will save considerable amounts of money but I have to say that it was simply the timely end of an unjustifiable extortion of New Zealand businesses. I cannot see how Telecom could ever justify the kinds of prices it was setting in New Zealand for its business plans for broadband. 
The company has announced some new prices for residential customers and some new speeds. What it is talking about is entry level broadband at just under $30 a month with download speeds at 256 kilobits per second and upload speeds at 128 kilobits per second. In Australia for the same amount per month people get a download speed that is almost twice as much—512 kilobits per second—and an upload speed also of 128 kilobits per second. But people who live somewhere where they can get asymmetrical digital subscriber line 2 (ADSL2) for the same price—$30 a month—get a download speed of 24000 kilobits per second. That is 24000 kilobits per second compared with 256 kilobits per second in this country. They can also get uploads of 1000 kilobits per second compared with 128 kilobits per second in this country for the same price. Of course ADSL2 is not available everywhere but that is the point—it is not available anywhere in this country. It is not available in this country at all. In fact broadband is not available at all in parts of this country as the rural sector is very keen to tell us—it is constantly complaining about it and rightly so. In fact the greatest speed that Telecom is offering is 3.5 megabits per second for download speed and 512 kilobits per second for upload speed compared with 24 megabits per second for download speed in Australia and 1000 kilobits per second for upload speed. 
Telecom is manufacturing congestion on New Zealand’s information highway. Maybe it is not economic to introduce here but that should be a business decision. We should not allow Telecom to continue to deny access to its competitors. If IHUG wants to go into the exchange and put in the equipment as its sister company has done in Australia it should be allowed to do so if there is a business case for it. One thing we do know is that if Telecom maintains a monopoly ADSL2 will not happen in this country for a very long time. 
Finally let me just say that I hope the Prime Minister is serious about addressing this issue but I warn the Government that if it is planning anything less than local loop unbundling the Government will be short-changing New Zealanders.