Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): I am a young man a young member of Parliament; a youngster in political terms. I have seen a little bit of Parliament and I have worked around politics for a while. I have not seen 2 weeks like we have seen in the last couple. It is just extraordinary the contortions in the Opposition benches the infighting and the—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is not in this debate. I must ask the member to focus on the contents of this appropriation debate. That is a general debate issue that you were talking about and that is not part of this.CHRIS BISHOP: Thank you Mr Chair. I was just making a couple of prefatory remarks. I want to focus my brief remarks on the Government's investment in ultra-fast broadband (UFB) which I think when they come to write the history of this Government—which has been in office for 9 years now and God willing another 3 years after 23 September—they will look back and they will say that it was the investment in ultra-fast broadband that was one of the defining achievements of this Government. It is hard to actually explain sometimes how the rest of the world looks with quite a degree of envy and admiration at what is going on in New Zealand with ultra-fast broadband. To give credit where credit is due some of that is due to the action of the Hon David Cunliffe when he was Minister of telecommunications with local loop unbundling. And then of course that public-private partnership model developed by Steven Joyce when he was Minister for Broadband" I guess you would say in the early days of this Government.I had the opportunity just a couple of weeks ago to visit a company in Upper Hutt called Strictly Savvy which is one of those companies that is taking advantage of the opportunities provided by ultra-fast broadband. It is a small unit in a very large development in Railway Avenue in Upper Hutt—a repurposed old factory—and they provide virtual assistant services. You might say: "Well what's that?". Well basically they have a team of people sitting there—and they are growing very rapidly; they are up to 20 staff—in Upper Hutt and they provide executive assistant services in graphic design website design and online book-keeping for Xero and MYOB and other things as well. It is all from Upper Hutt and their clients are in Wellington Auckland Southland and all around New Zealand. Basically they have a team of people there who are contracted to do the work that people all around the country want. It is possible only because of ultra-fast broadband. It started in the last 3 or 4 years; it is an award-winning business. It is growing very quickly and it is possible only because of ultra-fast broadband. It is an innovative company it is an example of Kiwi ingenuity and it is doing great things.That is what UFB can do. It can provide new businesses and new opportunities and new innovations and that is the whole point actually when you make investments in infrastructure like ultra-fast broadband; you sometimes do not know what is coming down the line. You do not know what people are going to do with it. In the same way when you build a road or you build a railway network it is not actually clear sometimes exactly what opportunities will be presented but you know that they will exist and that is why you do it. That is why this Government is making such a strong investment in infrastructure like we see in the appropriation bill that we are debating before the House. So I welcome the Government's investment in ultra-fast broadband—their ongoing investment including in this Budget.I also want to touch on the investment in the Rural Broadband Initiative and people might say: "Well Lower Hutt the Hutt South seat there is not much rural part of Lower Hutt." But they would be wrong. There are small pockets of rural idyllic lifestyle in the Hutt particularly in the great place of Wainuiōmata and they are crying out for a cellphone tower down Coast Road. Because the Rimutaka Forest Park which hundreds of thousands of people in New Zealand visit every year—and my good colleague who has just taken the chair Scott Simpson I am sure will be out there along with Maggie Barry who visited recently to visit the forest park in his new role as Associate Minister for the Environment—is a wonderful part of the valley. It is a wonderful part of Lower Hutt. It is a wonderful part of the lower North Island but there is no cellphone coverage. And every summer—well it seems like every summer anyway—people go missing in the Rimutaka Forest Park and it is a real hassle for the Department of Conservation rangers that go in and out and it is a hassle for people who work in and around the park and it needs and deserves cellphone coverage.That is the whole point of the Rural Broadband Initiative for major tourist hotspots for major areas that are missing out. You do a co-investment along with the ultra-fast broadband partners in the TELCOs in order to make a co-investment by the Crown in those companies to provide coverage that would not otherwise exist if things were done on a purely economic basis.So I am very hopeful that the result of the commercial negotiations between the TELCOs and the Crown will be that the Rimutaka Forest Park gets some cellphone coverage. That will be good for Wainuiōmata and it will be good for the Hutt Valley."