Ardern Shane: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Ardern Shane: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:661;Page:9452] 
6. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
 to the  
Minister for Communications and Information Technology 
: What improvements has the Government announced for rural broadband services? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Communications and Information Technology) 
: 
 Today the Government has confirmed its rural broadband plans which will provide much faster broadband services to rural people across the country. As a result of the Rural Broadband Initiative 97 percent of all households will have access to broadband services of at least 5 megabits per second within 6 years with the remainder receiving at least 1 megabit per second. For many remote and not-so-remote rural areas this will be light years ahead of where they are today. 
Shane Ardern 
: What benefits will this bring for rural schools? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Most rural schools will be connected directly to fibre. The rural and urban broadband policies together will mean that 97 percent of schools across the country reaching 99.7 percent of all students will be using a fibre connection. The remaining most remote schools will achieve speeds of at least 10 megabytes per second by other means. 
Clare Curran 
: Why is the Government not investing more money in rural broadband than it is investing in urban broadband so that it ensures that rural consumers receive a comparable service given his own comments that the different population densities and different economics of providing telecommunications in rural areas make it more expensive? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The differences between the urban and rural initiatives that the member points out reflect as I said the differing population densities of those communities which is why we are taking a different approach to improving each one. We cannot directly compare the amounts for the urban and rural policies because the urban amount is for an investment that the Government expects a return on—ultimately it expects to get its money back on behalf of taxpayers—versus the Rural Broadband Initiative which is about providing grants to assist companies in improving broadband coverage. 
Shane Ardern 
: How is the Rural Broadband Initiative being funded? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The Rural Broadband Initiative is expected to cost around $300 million over 6 years. It is being funded firstly by a $48 million direct Government grant plus $252 million from a new telecommunications development levy which will replace the telecommunications service obligation levy. The telecommunications service obligations will remain including local free-calling. There will be no extra costs to consumers. 
Clare Curran 
: Why should rural New Zealanders have to wait until next year at the earliest for even the first trench to be dug and the first millimetre of fibre to be laid for broadband despite all the promises from him and the Prime Minister that the broadband roll-out would start last year? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I would have thought that the answer to that question was reasonably obvious: because the previous Government did not get off its collective back legs over its 9-year period and do anything about providing rural broadband.