Sio Hon Aupito WilliamAupito WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I recall that in the 1960s when we landed in Ōtāhuhu the outhouse of the house we lived in was outside. In order to use the bathroom you had to go outside. Things have changed since then of course. I recall also that for a number of years Manukau City Council talked about the underground infrastructure—being able to take your household wastage to be cleaned somewhere else and you would get fresh drinking water. In this day and age—I think from 2000—internet connections are now an essential for households and an essential for the workplace. It is an essential. It is an essential thing. Whether it is for business or personal usage or for our education for our young people internet connection—high ultra-fast broadband connection—is an essential for our communities.We proudly cheer ourselves for New Zealand being one of the more developed countries in this particular part of the region. Yet when I look at the information that is available as to who has connection in this country—which communities have connection and which communities do not—it is disturbing because in this day and age one would expect that we would invest sufficiently in this infrastructure because it is vital. It is critical for our business for our social interaction and for our children's education. If you look to Auckland only 17 percent of premises are connected; Waiheke Island 0.2 percent; Northland 20 percent; Pukekohe 5 percent; Waiuku 8 percent; Hamilton 14 percent; Cambridge 12 percent; Te Awamutu 12 percent; Tauranga 17 percent; Rotorua 14 percent; Tokoroa 9 percent; Taupō only 6 percent; Whakatāne 8 percent; Gisborne 6 percent New Plymouth 11 percent; Napier-Hastings 15 percent; Hāwera 8 percent; Whanganui 9 percent Palmerston North 17 percent; Feilding 6 percent; Masterton 11 percent; Kāpiti 3 percent; Levin 5 percent; Wellington surprised me 14 percent; Nelson 11 percent; Blenheim 19 percent; Greymouth 5 percent; Christchurch 16 percent; Ashburton 14 percent; Timaru 16 percent; Ōāmaru 11 percent; Dunedin 16 percent; Queenstown 9 percent; and Invercargill 12 percent.I thank the House for its patience but those numbers are critical. Actually if those numbers are now out there and shared by our communities this Government should hold its head down in shame.Rino Tirikatene: Run through them again?Aupito WILLIAM SIO: Yes I should run through them again.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!Aupito WILLIAM SIO: I am highlighting here in this House that in stage one stage two and the Committee of the whole House there has been no opposing party—am I right—or maybe just one but these guys are not going to matter in that boat. Every other party in this House has voted in support of this legislation and yet this Government has dragged its feet in getting us here. My colleague Clare Curran even helped write some of the legislation—facilitate it—so that the Commerce Committee would not hold it up.We are here in 2017. The list I read out—the percentage of people who have access to ultra-fast broadband—is a disgrace. Here is another disgrace. If I look to Māngere only 57 percent of people in Māngere have access to internet—57 percent. For the rest of New Zealand it is 72 percent. There is something not quite right here. In this day and age every community every school every church hall every factory and every household should have access to this infrastructure. It is essential and vital infrastructure if we are going to be able to compete with the rest of the world.The Government knows all that. We have supported that but it has dragged its feet on it. Why? Because it costs money to invest in this and instead of investing money it decided to do the tax cuts when it came into power. That is why we are in the hole at the moment. That is why. That just also reveals the type of Government that we have. Instead of prioritising things that would last long term and things that would benefit a whole bunch of people—in fact the whole country—it prioritises things that only a small select group would benefit from. That tax switch when it first came into power in 2009 has skewered the whole finances and the whole situation for this country and the gap of inequality has continued to grow and that is reflected in the numbers that I have just outlined for the information of this House. It is not just Māngere where only 50 percent of its population has access to internet; there are other working-class communities as reflected in the numbers and percentage of people who have premises connected.It is the third reading. This Government just needs to get on with the priority things. This is also an issue of leadership. Instead of following the polls it should be leading but that is not what it does. I want to commend my colleague Clare Curran for her leadership for her wanting to work collaboratively with the members of the Government on the Commerce Committee and I understand for all intents and purposes she was pushing along with other Opposition members to make sure that we get to this stage quickly. But we have not got to this stage quickly and it is worse now because even though we are at this point in facilitating access to many of the households as Clare read out earlier we still have significant numbers—in the hundreds of thousands—of people who do not have access to internet and do not have access to ultra-fast broadband. That is a shame. If I was this Government I would not be—this is a shame and a bad mark on it. But this is only one of the key fundamental pieces of infrastructure that this country needs. I am not going to talk about housing not going to talk about the situation with our health but they are all in the same vein—critical infrastructure that benefits the whole population. This Government does not make that a priority as reflected in the figures—and I would happily read these figures out again but I will not. I will not. I will save your ears Mr Assistant Speaker. But those figures are a blight on what has happened in the last 8 years.The ultra-fast broadband is important. It was raised that in many of the rural areas they are not getting any connection. In today's economic world you need ultra-fast broadband to be able to conduct your business not just in New Zealand but on an international level. I believe that many of our rural businesses including farmers should be outraged that this Government which has the means and the powers and the resources to have got this infrastructure out dragged its feet on it. So my contribution is that whilst we are supporting the bill shame on this Government for taking its time about it.