Martin Tracey: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3704. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Speaker. New Zealand First will be supporting the bill. Again we agree with the Green Party. We believe that it is an uncontroversial bill. To date there is only one part of the Labour Party’s contribution that we would agree with and that is the fact that this is actually a broken promise. It is a broken promise to the telecommunications companies however and that is something that the telecommunications companies will need to work out with the Government and the Minister.With regard to where this bill came from let us talk about the fact that much has been made of the possibility that there has not been any consultation on this. The reality is that this is an amendment to an amendment. The Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill—brought into this House in 2010 with the member responsible being the Hon Steven Joyce—actually set up this levy to start with. And in this case New Zealand First actually believes it is a levy under the dictionary meaning of the word “levy”—as opposed to the term “tax”. So therefore we believe this is a levy. However back in June 2011 when this bill was finally given Royal assent the agreement that was reached—and the table was put inside that amendment to the Telecommunications Act 2001—was that in 2016 the $50 million contribution which was spread over 22 telecommunications companies would then be dropped to $10 million only. And at that time way back in 2011 consultation was done.We understand that there were telecommunications companies that were not thrilled that they had become part of that process. We understand that Chorus took a case to the Commerce Commission and argued that it should not have to be part of this levy payment. We understand that other telecommunications companies took cases and sought that. Take Skycity for example—not Skycity I beg your pardon. The National Party and Skycity are normally so connected that sometimes I forget. They argued that Sky TV should actually be part of this levy payment because there is now so much content actually put out over those networks. Possibly—possibly—that is something that a review might pick up—that with the shift since 2011 around what is delivered in this digital environment there are maybe more people more corporations or more companies. Perhaps there are more companies that should be contributing into this levy pot.But the reality is that this levy needs to be extended for the continuation of the Rural Broadband Initiative. It needs to be extended and we are very pleased to see the establishment of a mobile black spot fund.We can only assume that as Mr Cunliffe said when driving through Northland on a bus or in any other mode of transportation you realise more often than not that you have just lost signal again. The reason why New Zealand First will be supporting the Green Party’s Supplementary Order Papers is that we want to make sure that that mobile black spot funding is tagged and that it can be used only for the delivery of that service to our consumers. We can only hope that if this fund is tagged and kept and spent exactly for that then people like Robyn Dixon will be able to stop going outside her house in the middle of the Dome Valley—again sitting in the super-city of Auckland—standing on one leg with her arm in the air on a hilltop to try to get a signal.I am just going to quote from an email sent to Prime Minister John Key by his neighbours in Ōmaha. Let us remember that Ōmaha sits in the super-city of Auckland. When we talk about the Rural Broadband Initiative Ōmaha is actually sitting in the super-city of Auckland. The email says: “Ōmaha is a part of a fast-growing area taking into account new subdivisions in Matakana Point Wells and further intensification of Ōmaha itself. We are close to Warkworth and know it of significant growth as a future satellite town for the Auckland Council. In simple terms we have very poor radio reception poor AM and virtually no FM capability at all. We cannot access free-to-air HD television signal. Terrestrial TV signals are too weak. We have extremely low internet speed a maximum of 5 MBs which slows by 90 percent on weekends and busy periods. Ōmaha and close are not included in the UFB rollout.” But Ōmaha is in the super-city of Auckland.We accept the fact that with this extension of what is an already consulted-on levy the industry may not be happy about the fact that it is going to continue; but it was consulted on. This extension is for up to 2020. It is not another $150 million in this coming financial year; it is $50 million in the pot and means extending that levy from 2016 all the way through to 2020. We can only hope that by using that money places like Ōmaha and Northland will be able to have these issues addressed. However we think that it is also a very fine suggestion by the member from the Green Party that the Commerce Committee pick up this topic of evaluation. I mean one cannot miss the point that the original amendment that this bill now extends was sponsored by Steven Joyce and the fact is that other contracts that Steven Joyce negotiated and other situations like this where there have been levies and so on with telecommunications companies have not gone that well. So it would not be untoward in our view if the Commerce Committee were to take this as an inquiry topic or as an evaluation topic and we will let it do the work. I understand that it is not necessarily doing a lot of legislation work at the moment so there is some space for it to do thisactually. It might even fit with some cabling inquiry work that it is doing right now.The only other thing I guess I would address in this first reading speech is the comment about New Zealanders’ wanting to know how many people are connected. I take on board $60 million divided by 8000 is $7500—Kris Faafoi: Ish.TRACEY MARTIN: —ish—but actually most of the New Zealanders I know do not care about that. What they want to do is connect. They want—Clare Curran: But they can’t.TRACEY MARTIN: Exactly. That is exactly what I am talking about Ms Curran. They want to connect. They want the Rural Broadband Initiative to actually work. They want to be able to get in there. They want to see their children able to do their homework at home. They want their schools to be connected. They want all that to happen. They want it to happen now because they are being held back. This will not put up the price. In our view this will not put up the current price for consumers. This has been in place since 2011. This is not an increase of a levy; this is an extension of a levy. Also the companies already knew it was coming. They were consulted in 2011. The Minister and the Government indicated this before the last election and they also indicated it again in March of this year.I can appreciate that those telecommunications companies may have projected their budgets and that they are going to have to do budget amendments. I can appreciate that their shareholders may actually have to take a cut. I can appreciate that. But I think it is a little bit of a stretch to suggest that the extension of the levy is going to mean that a huge amount of increased cost will now be placed on consumers when the levy has already been there. New Zealand First will support the bill because we want to see this finished but we will be supporting the Green members’ Supplementary Order Papers and we would certainly support the Commerce Committee working on an evaluation around what is going on now. Perhaps later we will talk about the dangers of changing course midstream to look at other technology because technology is always improving but you do not necessarily change to balloons just because balloons are there.