Joyce Steven: Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Joyce Steven: Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:16068] 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Communications and Information Technology) 
: 
 I move  
That the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Finance and Expenditure Committee that the committee report back on or before 6 May 2011 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House on Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
The Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative will make ultra-fast broadband available to three-quarters of New Zealanders through the deployment of fibre-optic cabling. The Rural Broadband Initiative will provide broadband services to 93 percent of rural schools and ensure that 97 percent of households have access to broadband with download speeds of 5 megabits per second or better. This bill provides the framework for the Government’s broadband policies. The bill ensures that the networks under both initiatives are open through new binding open-access undertakings ensuring that the networks are made available in accordance with non-discrimination and equivalence rules. 
Under the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative for the first 10 years pricing is set through the competitive tender process. As members will be aware that competitive process has resulted in prices for fibre services that are competitive with those for other services currently in the market. Therefore before 31 December 2019 the Commerce Commission may not recommend to the Minister regulation of access to the providers network. The commission will have the ability to monitor and enforce the undertakings regime with penalties for non-compliance and the ability to require the local fibre companies to disclose capital and operational costs and the characteristics of their network. 
This bill also implements the Government’s telecommunications service obligation reforms. The telecommunications service obligation framework ensures the ongoing supply of basic residential telephone services at a fixed price that would not otherwise be likely to be supplied on a commercial basis plus the telecommunications relay services for the hearing impaired. The bill amends the definition of “net cost” of a deemed telecommunications service obligation instrument to require the commission to offset the costs and revenues from providing services to all end-users who had a residential connection on 20 December 2001. The bill amends the process for initiating a telecommunications service obligation cost calculation determination providing that the commission will calculate the cost to the local service telecommunications service obligation only where the telecommunications service obligation provider requires a determination for that financial year. 
The bill amends payment of compensation to a telecommunications service obligation provider by requiring the Crown to pay compensation due to telecommunications service obligation providers as assessed by the commission. That compensation is funded from a new levy called the telecommunications development levy. The annual amount to be collected for the telecommunications development levy is specified in the bill and the money collected will first pay for any telecommunications service obligation charges and then rural telecommunications infrastructure development and upgrades to the emergency-calling services. 
The Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative and Rural Broadband Initiative processes are ongoing. As a result of discussions and outcomes between Crown Fibre Holdings and bidders some additional legislative amendments may be needed. These may extend to measures to assist with the deployment of fibre and in the event that Telecom was selected as the preferred supplier in the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative amendments to enable structural separation. Should changes be required the Government will introduce a Supplementary Order Paper containing any legislative amendments during Parliament’s consideration of the bill. 
I commend this very important bill for the future of New Zealand’s telecommunications sector to the House.