Cunliffe David: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3765. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): It is so disappointing to see a Government so out of ideas so vacant so desperate to hit the panic button that it has New Zealand’s Parliament in urgency after Budget night for a bill that from its point of view is simply a bill to roll over an existing tax. The Government cannot have it both ways; either this bill is a “nothing”—in which case the Government should not be taking Parliament’s time abrogating the select committee process and ramming the bill through under urgency—or it is actually an issue and it is actually a problem and it needs to be thoroughly debated. The Government cannot have it both ways. The Minister “Out of Breath” Amy is back here saying the oldest trick in the book: that Labour opposes broadband. We do not oppose broadband. Our whole history has shown leadership in the telecommunications sector without which this Government would have very little to play with. It does not have to lecture us about our commitment to rural broadband. We are absolutely secure in our commitment to broadband roll-out. Straw man arguments never work. They never work because in fact we know why we are opposing this bill.I am going to take you through the objectives of good policy. I am going to take you through the issues that arise with this bill and finally why we cannot support it on grounds of process. The objectives are quite simple: better connections for faster cheaper broadband everywhere in New Zealand—ubiquitous coverage. We want to see users with strong capability and the confidence to use the gear wherever they are in New Zealand. We want to close digital divides. And thirdly we want vibrant content competition wherever people are in New Zealand. That means having enough bandwidth so that terrestrial aerial and online providers can compete to deliver the best deals to consumers. We are firmly on the side of getting broadband into the regions. The issue is not “whether” but “how”. That is where the Government’s arguments run into fundamental trouble.Earlier we quoted from an extensive OECD study that showed the really wide range of issues that arise with rural broadband roll-out. It is necessary to evaluate the $300 million worth of investment that has already been made. It is necessary for a range of reasons. The technology is shifting and the frontiers between backhaul fibre copper extension mobile satellite and innovative disruptive technologies like Project Loon from Google—all of those things—are changing and we need to assess the best way to deploy the public’s money. The second issue is that this is a tax. The industry has made it clear that this is a tax. The Telecommunications Carriers Forum has made it clear that this is a tax. It is a tax; therefore it is a broken promise. It is a tax; therefore it should not be done under urgency without a generic tax policy process or proper select committee consideration.The Government in its attempt at a defence said: “No no it is just the rolling over of an existing programme.” No it is not. It is not because the existing law legislates for the sunsetting of the current telecommunications development levy. It legislates the sunset. That is why the Government has managed to enrage pretty much the whole industry with this seemingly simple piece of law because companies have had to disclose their profitability based on some certainty of contracts under the existing law. They certainly did not expect the Government to undermine that by pushing legislation through under urgency. This is a change it overturns preceding law it overturns preceding contracts and it is somewhat strange to see members opposite delving with some torture through the archaeology of Coase theorem to find some justification for standing on their liberal heads and saying that they are in favour of Parliament expropriating private property rights without so much as a by-your-leave or the “The Maestro” of the Northland by-election giving a decent explanation. Chris Bishop—back to strategy school.The other problem with this is—without evaluating the rural broadband programme that has currently been in place—that there could be very very few technology areas as dynamic as broadband roll-out over long distance. We have got 3G we have got 4G and we have got 5G coming which looks like it will deliver more broadband speed than you can get through a closed deployed copper wire. It is certainly going to be very disruptive for the industry. Any prudent Government would want to look very carefully at that technology frontier before putting a new obligation on the industry which is designed for the old world not the new—designed for the old world not the new.The bottom line is that we can have a whole lot of arguments about the technology about the construction of the tax about how good or bad the previous deployment has been but the fact that those issues are out there should be proof enough of the fact that we need a select committee process. The industry said that it wanted to have a say. It offered to co-design this legislation with the Government but it got a salute instead. The public wants to have its say. The public wants to say “No taxation without representation.” We do not think that ramming this stuff through under urgency is fair representation. Then of course we have got technical problems around the fact that the commencement date is not specified and that we are overriding with the stroke of a pen law that has been painstakingly developed through multiple public processes.In summary there are both very important substantive technology and policy problems and there are significant process issues as well. This is not simply an extension of an existing agreed industry position; this is a new tax. This is a broken promise. This is desperate government. This is desperate government because it does nothing to lift productivity it does nothing to create jobs and it does nothing to deliver a better future for New Zealanders. It is just a tax. Ask people in New Zealand’s regions whether they think National has a plan for them. Chris Bishop did you ask Northlanders? I think you did and I think you got the answer which was that Simon Bridges’ bridges convinced nobody. They convinced nobody that National had a plan for the region because 5 years of being ignored and then 5 weeks of random pork barrels—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: So here we are and you are rightly bringing me back to the point that this bill should be about regional New Zealand. Give regional New Zealand a say. Have a select committee process and call for submissions. Although we strongly support rural broadband we do not support abrogating the parliamentary process in this way. We cannot support this bill.