Joyce Steven: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Joyce Steven: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:656;Page:5640] 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Communications and Information Technology) 
: 
 Perhaps I could quote my good friend Paul Quinn whom I do not often quote to be fair but I should quote him more often. I think he summed it up when he said that there is a difference between 9 years and 9 months. I think he summed it up rather well. 
Clare Curran the member opposite who has just resumed her seat may not recall this but when the then National Opposition announced its broadband policy it said that it wanted to take the first year to finalise the plan because amongst other things it is such a huge sum of money. It is $1.5 billion to invest in ultra-fast broadband. As the member points out if it is matched by private sector contributions which is certainly the Government’s aim we will be talking about a $3 billion investment. I imagine that if we do not take the time to get it right then the criticism will be that we rushed it. It is one of those situations where the Opposition will not be happy as it will be too early too late not enough or too much. That is I suppose the lot of being in Opposition. 
The Government remains very strongly committed to its pre-election promise. To be clear we received 104 submissions on the proposal which was very encouraging. The submissions made a number of comments and added things to the proposal. That analysis has now been completed. Cabinet will address the final version of the plan shortly. It will address some of the key issues that have been raised in the submissions including the definition of the relevant coverage areas for the network the ability for local fibre companies to provide second-layer services as well as dark fibre and the need to provide regulatory certainty to the industry. It will address the issue of demand side or take-up risk and the need to retain flexibility over the funding model that the Crown Fibre Investment Co. will implement. These are all crunchy issues that Cabinet is about to address. 
The other really important part is the rural broadband side and related to that the telecommunications service obligation or TSO. Again there is a range of issues. The first and I think most important one is ensuring that rural schools have access to world-class broadband services. We cannot afford to have the digital divide between urban and rural education providers. The Government is very conscious of that and knows that it is very important. Once we have addressed the issue of rural education then we must maximise what one might call the spillover benefits to surrounding communities. Initially we allocated $48 million in the Budget this year and that will be supplemented from other revenue sources. Alongside that telecommunications service obligation arrangements are being reviewed in conjunction with these rural broadband issues. 
I stress that any question of relaxing the requirement for free local calls is not on the table. Also off the table are changes that would impact on the ownership of Telecom shares. 
These are the biggest issues but they are not the only issues. There is a number of other very important corollary issues in the portfolio one of them being of course international connectivity. I note that the member opposite did not mention it but it is a very important area in the broadband space. It is good to see that there are a couple of potentially viable commercial options for improving international broadband connectivity for New Zealand. That is exciting. The Government is prepared to play its part through the organisations it is involved with in the space to help facilitate activity there. 
Another area is that of complementary measures. If we can get complementary measures that reduce the cost of fibre roll-out then that is of benefit to all players in the industry. We are doing a lot of work in that area looking at the access to ducts and poles looking at access to land on which infrastructure is located and of course looking at the constraints imposed by our good friend the Resource Management Act. 
There are issues around mobile services which is an important part of both the telephone and broadband space. Members will be aware of the investigations into mobile termination services. The Commerce Commission’s final report is due to me in December of this year. Of course there is the issue of national roaming which remains in the hands of the Commerce Commission. It is good to see increasing competition in the mobile space with a third player coming into the market. It is also good to see the further investment and deployment of third generation services by both Telecom and Vodafone. It is a vibrant and exciting market and we are pleased to see it develop further. We will be making more comments on international roaming. 
There are a whole lot of other areas such as the readiness for digital literacy in the education and health sectors. We will address all those areas in the coming 12 months. 
Vote agreed to.