Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. There are few countries in the world where connectivity is more important than it is for New Zealand. We are a nation of 4.5 million people, and a country situated at the last bus stop on the planet, spread across three islands with plenty of mountains, lakes, and rivers in between. The tyranny of distance from the rest of the world, and our unique geography, make rolling out high-speed connectivity all the more difficult and all the more important. Broadband is critical to our future because it creates opportunities of untapped potential. It connects New Zealanders with one another, and with new markets across the world. It allows our best and our brightest to export new ideas, services, and products. It is a vital part of the Government’s plan in developing a productive, competitive economy and creating more jobs for Kiwis and their families.

Over the past 6 years the Government has been rolling out its Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative and Rural Broadband Initiative programmes to lift the connectivity of 97.8 percent of New Zealanders. The first stage of that roll-out is going well. We are ahead of schedule and we are within budget. The Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative build is 46 percent complete, and we have completed more than 75 percent of the Rural Broadband Initiative stage one programme. Almost 325,000 households are now covered by the Rural Broadband Initiative, with 80 percent uptake of the main fixed line component of the programme. We have upgraded almost 80 percent of towers, and installed 113 new ones. In the March quarter alone, there were nearly 1.8 million unique Vodafone mobile customers using these towers. In addition, we have completed the auction and allocation of the 700 megahertz spectrum, which will enable the widespread roll-out of 4G cellular networks across more than 90 percent of New Zealand.

But although all of that is an outstanding achievement, this Government is not resting on its laurels; we are already looking ahead to the next stage. Last August we announced that, if re-elected, the National Government would look to use the telecommunications development levy to extend the rural broadband programme by $100 million, and establish a fund of $50 million to provide mobile coverage to the most remote parts of New Zealand. In March I confirmed that this extension was going ahead. With the success of the first stages of the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative and Rural Broadband Initiative behind us, this Government is looking further forward. We want to push on and extend coverage even further. We want more homes connected to better broadband. We want more businesses participating in the digital economy. We want more remote communities being able to tap into the internet’s potential.

The Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill is a vital part of this plan. The bill itself is incredibly straightforward, but let me set out a little bit about the levy. The telecommunications development levy is an industry levy that is collected from telecommunications companies to fund open access infrastructure in areas where it would otherwise be unlikely to be commercially viable for them to build that infrastructure. The levy payers can then use the funded infrastructure to provide services for their customers. So the key factor worth noting is that the levy is used to fund infrastructure that all of the telecommunications companies can then use—so they are, essentially, funding their own communal infrastructure, which they then use to sell products over. The levy to provide Rural Broadband Initiative facilities is paid back to providers through contestable processes. It funds non-economic aspects of infrastructure so that the industry giants cannot just cherry-pick the profitable areas, such as high-density urban areas, and leave rural New Zealand in the dark ages.

The levy was first introduced in the Telecommunications Amendment Act 2011, and has been applied since the 2010-11 financial year. It replaced the existing telecommunications service obligations liability allocation process, which had been in place much longer. This bill does not change any operational aspects of the levy, nor does it determine the parameters for how the second phase of the Rural Broadband Initiative will be rolled out. It simply resets the levy amounts for the 2016-17 to 2018-19 years to keep the levy amount at its current level. The telecommunications development levy is currently set at $50 million a year. This is about 1 percent of industry telecommunication services’ revenue. The levy amount is not going up. It is staying exactly the same, so the industry will not need to put its prices up or explain to its customers why the bill is changing.

It is worth noting that the levy we are proposing to extend is substantially less than the levies that were funded under the previous telecommunications service obligation arrangement, which was an average of about $65 million a year. The levy makes up a very small portion of an average monthly bill and, as this is an extension of an existing levy, it will not increase costs to consumers in any way. Because the levy has been in place for a number of years now, we do not expect consumer bills to change. The telecommunications companies already incorporate the levy at this level into their pricing, and so there is no reason to change. Let me put this in context in terms of the impact to the average New Zealander. For a consumer on a $19 basic prepaid mobile phone package, their contribution to the telecommunications development levy is around 22c a month. This is the equivalent of the cost of a single text message. For a comprehensive broadband package, it is around 80c a month. The consumer impact is so low that even if the bill did not pass, it is completely implausible to think that consumer prices would be dropped by the few cents a month that are involved.

Although the impact of the levy on consumers is tiny, the impact is hugely significant for reaching rural communities. It is available to fund charges relating to the telecommunications service obligation—that is, the obligation that Spark gave to provide a telephone connection to every household, options for free-calling, and the 111 service. It funds improvement to the rural telecommunications infrastructure, including, as we are discussing today, the Rural Broadband Initiative. It funds upgrades to the 111 emergency calling system, and it is already being used to fund the relay service for the deaf and the hearing impaired. These are essential services that New Zealanders need and use.

The $150 million extra that this bill will provide will mean that we can set aside $100 million for the extension of the second phase of the Rural Broadband Initiative to the regions, meaning that almost every New Zealander will get access to better broadband, and another $50 million to establish a contestable Mobile Black Spot Fund to enhance network coverage in black spot areas as, increasingly, mobile coverage is expected to be almost universally available.

The changes in this bill should come as no surprise. We initially proposed these changes in our election manifesto last year, and announced in March that our intention was to follow through. We have been very upfront and transparent about our ambitions to extend rural connectivity, and how we are going to go about funding it. Passing this bill in all stages is part of Budget legislation, it provides certainty and stability to the telecommunications industry, but, even more important, it allows the Government to get on with the job of rolling out the extension of the Rural Broadband Initiative and better mobile coverage to areas that desperately need it, as the legislative mandate must be in place before contracts can be negotiated, and this Government wants to get better broadband to New Zealanders as fast as we can.

The Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative and Rural Broadband Initiative programmes that this Government initiated are key components to ensuring critical communication services are available to New Zealanders. Now more than ever it is important that businesses and communities right across New Zealand, and into our rural and remote areas, have access to the information and communications technology capabilities that they require to operate effectively in a competitive global economy. This bill enables us to put the funding mandate in place so we can get on with providing that connectivity. We will continue to look for opportunities to enable New Zealanders to realise the benefits of our investment in connectivity, and to ensure that New Zealand is digitally competitive on the world stage. It is with great pleasure that I commend the bill to the House.

Let us just be clear: a levy is a tax. You cannot dress it up. Levies are not intrinsically bad, but this Government said there would be no new taxes. That is my first point. If you are going to introduce a new $150 million broadband tax on an industry under urgency, with no consultation and no evidence that your proposal is sound, then it will immediately flow on to consumers. This bill imposes an immediate tax on consumers for their internet, for their landline phone, for their mobile phone.

Prices are going to go up, and it is Amy Adams who is to blame. What this Minister is doing is one of the biggest scams this Government has tried on. It warrants examination by the Auditor-General, it warrants an inquiry, and I am surprised that Treasury has not commented on this legislation. But on closer examination of the departmental disclosure statement at 2.3.1, the regulatory impact statement was identified as not meeting the threshold for receiving an independent opinion on its quality from the team based in Treasury. So Treasury never even got the legislation in front of it to comment on. There is an unpleasant smell about this legislation that smacks of a Government covering up massive, wasteful spending, with very little to show for it. The bill needs a select committee. The whole scheme needs to be scrutinised. It was a Government election promise and it did not need urgency. There has been no consultation on the levy being increased or on the passing of it under urgency.

Again, I refer you to the departmental disclosure statement, where it was asked whether or not there had been any external consultation on the policy to be given effect by this bill or on a draft of this bill, and the answer was no. There is huge disappointment and anger about this bill being passed under urgency and with no consultation. The regulatory impact statement is misleading. All it does is reflect the Government’s decision back to itself. There is no free and frank advice.

Labour absolutely recognises the educational, social, and economic benefits to New Zealand of better rural broadband. It was our policy that all New Zealanders deserve connectivity opportunities. Labour took comprehensive policy into the election last year in respect of extending rural and urban connectivity and addressing the digital divides that exist. No other party did the work that we did.

Amy Adams’ contribution was to announce spending $150 million of the industry’s money, which she knows will be passed on as a tax to consumers. Either she is too lazy or not bright enough—or she is trying to cover up the failure of the Rural Broadband Initiative—to know that you should not spend money unless you have done your homework first. Why should we care about this? Well, maybe we should not care, if this was a sound policy. But it is not. This legislation fast tracks Government spending, and it is more money after bad. It is Government waste. It is economic mismanagement. Who is going to pay? The consumers are going to pay. To all consumers listening to this this afternoon who have got internet and phone connections, your prices are going to go up.

Rural New Zealand will continue to receive crap broadband. It is a flop, it is a failure, it is a disaster, and it is a scandal. There is no proof that the Rural Broadband Initiative, as it is now, has worked. There are three parts to this scheme. There is the building of new towers, which the Government insists is on track, and I am hearing that there are issues with the capital that Vodafone requires to complete the job. The Government, however, insists that it is on track. However, as I understand it, all the easy ones have been built and the harder ones are still to be built.

The second part of this scheme was a Chorus upgrade of broadband to 85,000 lines, which go to households and businesses. That has never been evaluated. But the biggest scam of all in the Rural Broadband Initiative is the fixed wireless component of it. That is the biggest scam. Vodafone’s role was the provision of fixed wireless broadband, capable of peak speeds of at least five megabits. So how has that worked out? Well, there are no figures. There has been no evaluation. We do not even know for sure how many people have actually been connected through this part of the scheme.

Mysteriously, into my in-box yesterday afternoon came the response from a written question from the Minister. It was the first time there has ever been any indication of numbers of people who have been connected through the fixed wireless scheme. Guess how many it was? It was 8,500 people. Guess how much money was committed to that part of the scheme? It was $60 million. If you divide 8,500 connections by $60 million, guess how much that is? It is $7,000 per connection. If that does not sound like a scam, and a big scandal that warrants the Auditor-General getting involved in evaluating it, I do not know what is. There are no reports. We were told by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment yesterday morning at a select committee that it had done no evaluation of the Rural Broadband Initiative, and now the Minister is about to commit another $150 million to it.

There is no business case. There is no real data. There has been no consultation. But there already is data—and it has not worked, and if you do not believe me, maybe you might believe the research that—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is not me you are trying to convince; it is the House.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; my apologies. If the other side of the House does not believe me, there is unpublished research that I have come across from Colmar Brunton, which was done for Chorus just before the election and which shows that of 600 rural businesses and 300 rural households, 68 percent are frustrated and angry with their internet connections, and feel restricted and left behind. That is a pretty high figure. I am pretty sure that the Minister and her Government knew that this was an issue in rural New Zealand, and miraculously, 3 weeks before the election, we got a new policy whereby $150 million was committed to rural broadband, out of the blue, with no consultation—and no consultation since—and no business case to support it.

How do we know there is no evidence? Because the regulatory impact statement says so—it actually says so on its first page. The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment has failed. It has failed big time to provide an analysis for the Minister. It is just doing the Minister’s bidding. So how do we know there has been no consultation? Because everyone in the industry says so, and because the departmental report says so. How do we know it is going to be a tax on the industry? Because when any levy is imposed on an industry, it is passed on.

There is another issue, a final issue. Rural New Zealand is standing still on broadband, and it is about to get more of the same. The digital divide between rural New Zealand and urban New Zealand is being entrenched under this Government. The 5 megabits that is being provided in rural New Zealand under the existing scheme is going to be provided under the new scheme. This is treating rural New Zealand like second-class citizens or poor cousins. It is treating them with disdain. Even the US has announced a few months ago a new standard of broadband of 25 megabits per second. If we stick with 5 megabits per second, then rural New Zealand is never going to go ahead. There is going to be no economic development, and it is an absolute travesty and a demonstration of regional neglect and treating rural New Zealand as if it really does not matter.

I am just a tad surprised by the member, Clare Curran, who has just sat down. I was slightly confused as to whether she was in fact for rural broadband or against rural broadband—I guess that is just like the Labour Party. This is actually Budget-related legislation that has been brought to the House, and yesterday when the Budget speech was read, I think the Labour Opposition was absolutely gobsmacked that we, for the first time in more than 40 years, are delivering for the poorest people in this country and increasing benefits. There has been nothing from previous Labour Governments.

We live in a world where it no longer takes ages to deliver mail. It used to be that people used to write a longhand letter, put a stamp on it, and put it in the post. It might have taken weeks before it was actually delivered. With the advancement of modern-day technology it is almost instant. Somebody could write an email from Korea or America and it will be here within a couple of seconds. Technology advancement has made our lives easier in some instances, and sometimes in rural areas it has not actually caught up. This is what we are trying to do—to provide faster internet technology for the rural areas.

I know that some other countries that Ms Clare Curran talked about have different speeds they are going for, and some have managed to achieve some elements of their target. Korea has been a major leader in technology and even in Korean rural sectors, where there is difficult terrain and small groupings of houses, the target is only 2 megabits per second. In New Zealand this National Government is targeting 5 megabits per second. Tech advancements are fabulous, but sometimes I lament the bygone days when we had to send letters. There are times when I wish I could disappear from the reach of the telephone calls I get.

But I digress. The Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill is a great bill. It provides further stability and certainty to the telecommunications industry and consumers. This bill will benefit businesses, families, and New Zealand as a whole. I commend this bill.

I rise to take a call on the Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill, which is being rushed through the House during Budget urgency, setting aside the normal processes of Parliament—to have a select committee hearing and a report back from stakeholders.

Why is this happening? I can only imagine the picture in the Cabinet room when this legislation was mooted, and there was Nathan Guy, bright as a button, poking his eager little eyes up above the Cabinet table, and realising that this sounded like free broadband for farmers. How wonderful! The Minister for agriculture could announce—

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: No; primary industries.

Primary industries. He wants a bigger title. It happens in the third term of a Government. The Minister for Primary Industries—not primary schools but primary industries—wanted to be able to say in a press release “Free broadband for farmers.” National is the farmer’s friend. But nobody told him—

💬 David Bennett: Who’s your friend? You’ve got no friends.

Oh, there is another farmer. He is still alive, David Bennett. I have not heard from him for months and months, but he is still alive. He moves—proof of life! But nobody told Nathan Guy PhD that if they impose a levy on telecommunications companies, which is a new tax, it will simply be passed on to consumers, and in the end the farmers will pay. I can see the look on his face now. The camera can zoom in on the crease in his brow as he realises that it ain’t as good as it sounded.

What is the ostensible purpose of this bill? It is supposedly to fix things call black spots. That is when you are driving through the country and your mobile phone drops out.

💬 David Bennett: The Labour Party.

Well, we are law-abiding citizens. We do not often use mobile phones when we are driving, and if we do—which is a rare exception—we always have them on hands-free.

But there is a thing about Northland. Occasionally, members of Parliament were in Northland for the by-election. There was a traffic jam as ministerial LTDs, BMWs, were backed up trying to get into Northland on their shabby rural roads, and it suddenly dawned on Ministers that you cannot actually use a mobile phone through most of Northland because there is almost no coverage at all, even on the main road. So you can imagine their haste as they scampered back to Wellington and realised that Simon Bridges was a bridge too far, and that the good people of Northland would not be fooled by umpty-dumpty years of neglect followed by 10 bridges in 10 days, but they could tell the difference between that and a regional development strategy, and there was a black spot all over Northland. So this bill got rushed through.

This is yet another example of the National Party hitting the policy panic button. [Interruption] “Who cares?”, says the member at the back. I cannot remember his name, but he sometimes speaks in the House. He says “Who cares?”. Who cares whether it is good policy? Who cares whether it is a good investment of taxpayers’ money, because it was a bloody good press release? It sounded really good on the news, and that is all that matters, right? Postmodernism got the narrative right. Who gives a toss about the facts? That is the Government for you in its third term. Here is the issue. Have you heard of Google’s Project Loon? Have you heard about that? Do you know what Project Loon is? What is it? He is nodding.

💬 Brett Hudson: Balloons, my friend.

Very good, you get a starter for 1.

Project Loon is a new way of getting broadband to the rural regions by a mesh network of balloons that can broadcast, and that way you do not need expensive lines in the ground or on power poles. It may or may not work at scale around the world, but the point is this: before you go spending another $150 million of New Zealanders’ hard-earned cash, you had better look at things like that.

💬 Brett Hudson: You’ll wait for years. Mr Cunliffe suggests you wait for years. Let rural New Zealand suffer for years, he says.

There are two ways, I say to the noisy backbencher on the far side, that that can happen. The first is a thing called a regulatory impact statement that tests a whole bunch of options. But the department here in its disclosure has said that it really did not have time for any options analysis because this was a panic-button measure, as my colleague Clare Curran has pointed out. So there goes option one.

Option two is to have a select committee process and hear from the industry: hear from Vodafone, Chorus, Spark, 2degrees—hear from the experts—about how they think they can get the most broadband possible to the most people possible in rural New Zealand at the least possible cost. Oops—the Government did not do that either. That is why we are here on the dead of Friday, passing this legislation through all stages under urgency, which denies the sector and the public the opportunity to comment. Why on earth would you do that when you are spending $150 million? I will tell you what: the industry is hopping mad. The Government may be the farmers’ friend, but it is certainly not the friend of the telecommunications companies right now because they know it is a muddle waiting to get worse—a muddle waiting to get worse, let alone that it is a broken promise—

💬 David Bennett: Sounds like the Labour Party.

—let alone that members like Mr Bennett could not give a toss about the facts—they are interested only in the media—and let alone the fact that this measure has not been justified in terms of evidence or a select committee process. This is bad lawmaking and it is a bad process.

The broadband obligation that is contained in this bill will be passed on to consumers. There is no such thing as a free lunch. A telecommunications levy can be levied on the phone company, but of course it will pass it through and it will be Mr Guy’s farmers whom he will have to face when their phone bills and their broadband bills go up because nobody has done the analysis to find the cheapest way to get them the bandwidth. But let us just assume that all of those problems were not there. Let us just assume that the Government had done its homework, it had done options analysis, it was having a select committee process, it had consulted the industry, the industry was onside, and that consumers were going to get a good deal. Just assume for a moment that was all true.

Ah—the other big problem every time the Government goes near broadband telecommunications is that nobody hooks up. The Government set an objective of 80 percent coverage for its ultra-fast broadband. Well, nobody was ultra-fast to hook up to the thing. The last time I looked there was about 3 percent usage. Three percent of New Zealanders have actually ponied up the connection costs to hook themselves to the so-called ultra-fast broadband network, and that was in the cities, where it was easy. Spend another $150 million of taxpayers’ money with no select committee process, no data analysis, and no consultation with the sector, and guess what is likely to happen—sweet nothing, because people cannot see the reason to spend $2,000 or $3,000 of their hard-earned savings to hook up to a system that may or may not work. That is why there has been a knock-on effect through the sector from this Government’s incompetence.

Here is the sad story, although it is mainly about urban not rural areas, but it is relevant. Chorus pressed the panic button. It rang up Steven Joyce and his sidekick Amy Adams and said: “Hell, we’re going to go bankrupt because you put us over a barrel with the ultra-fast broadband roll-out costs. It looked OK, but as nobody is actually joining up and no one is using it, we are losing money. Please write us a big fat cheque.”, or words to that effect. So what did the Government do? The so-called economic managers, who are zero for seven on running a surplus, said: “Sure.” They rang up Mark Ratcliffe and said: “Mark, how big a cheque do you want?”. He said: “Oh, well, look, it’ll look better if you just let us renegotiate our ultra-fast broadband contracts.” So they did. Chorus shares rose faster than just about any other share on the stock market last year because the deal that it got out of this brain-dead Government was just so sweet that they were rolling in shareholders’ funds, and the Government got duped.

Well, here we are again. The Government has obviously learnt from its mistakes because it would never again spend taxpayers’ money without consulting the sector or having a rigorous select committee process. Oops—except here we are on a Friday passing this $150 million new tax through all stages without a select committee hearing. Can New Zealanders see the problem with this process? Well, I will tell you what—the telecommunications company sector can see the problem, and even Nathan Guy’s favourite farmers will when they pick up the bill. Mr Guy’s smiling face, as he lifts himself up to the Cabinet table, will not be smiling quite so much. Thank you.

I am not sure who that member was at the backbench of the Labour Party who was just speaking but there were two interesting themes. One was about Project Loon from Google, and Labour would know all about that—hot air and balloons floating around in the stratosphere, and it is like the balloon in Missouri that crashed to the ground recently. The Labour members were also, I see, talking about black spots, and I think the Labour Party knows all about black spots because most of them would have loved to be in a black spot yesterday when they heard their leader’s speech falling on deaf ears and collapsing and crashing to the ground.

This is a good bill. It seeks to increase an existing levy in order to roll out services that our people want. I was on a select committee yesterday where we were hearing evidence from people who were saying that they want more broadband, be it in the rural or urban areas. They want it faster as well—that was one of the things they said. This is a Government responding to that. You are hearing very positive thoughts from this side, but, unfortunately, all it is from the other side is ad hominem. With that, I take my seat.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora. I rise to support the Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill. This is a pretty uncontroversial bill, and it should be. It is simply keeping the telecommunications development levy where it is. You could argue it is marginally increasing it but, look, it is keeping it where it was—at $50 million. This increase is for $100 million to spend on Rural Broadband Initiative 2, and then $50 million on a contestable mobile black spot. It is fulfilling a governmental election policy. We are disappointed with the process. We think it could have gone through a select committee. There is no reason to pass this bill through all stages today on a Friday afternoon or early evening. The fact is that the Government has sat on its hands when it comes to this issue since that election promise. When it comes to actual industry involvement, the Government’s own officials advise that no one in the industry was consulted and, in fact, the officials then go on to say that at least they will get a parliamentary process to give their input, which we will not see given this bill is passing through all stages. It is unfortunate that we are seeing this pass in the way that it is. The second unfortunate aspect of this is that this is an area that the Government is currently consulting on—it is currently consulting on it. So at the same time it is passing legislation through all stages in a single day under urgency, it is asking the public and the industry to consult on the process for spending. It seems a bit like the horse after the cart.

I raise these issues because I think that a critical question this Parliament needs to ask itself is: given the questions around the original Rural Broadband Initiative, what we do not want to see is simply a cut-and-paste job with this extra $150 million for Rural Broadband Initiative 2. That is why I support greater industry and public input and a better process. But I am supporting this bill because of the importance of the internet to our rural communities in terms of social cohesiveness, in terms of health outcomes, and in terms of regional economic development. We know that the internet plays a critical role for our communities and we have been hearing about those communities on the Commerce Committee—from Outram, from Mosgiel, and from a host of communities that have not been able to access ultra-fast internet to date—and how it is holding their communities back. I have a vision that kids in rural schools can access the world’s best educators via the internet. Our farmers who are using data to increase their productivity can do so more and sell their products around the world.

When it comes to the internet, it breaks down some of the strategic challenges our country faces. There is a limit to how much milk powder we can export around the world. In fact, we are seeing it in our streams and rivers at the moment. There is no limit to the amount of intellectual property, services, new ideas, and entrepreneurialism that we can be exporting across the internet cables. As the Government is now, with this legislation, set to spend more than $2 billion on internet access over the course of its term, we have to ask ourselves whether we are simply just building an ultra-fast intranet. We also need to focus on those international conventions, which is something the Green Party has pushed. So rural broadband is good for farmers, it is good for kids, and it is good for our rural communities. It lessens that digital divide, which we know is based both on income but also on region.

Disappointingly, when you look at the original Rural Broadband Initiative though, the Government cannot point to a comprehensive economic evaluation of its outputs. This is important because we know that a lot of our communities are not able to access ultra-fast internet, particularly in rural regions. The Government is able to point on paper to the amount of potential connections, but I think for many communities that sounds and rings hollow. They want to know how many people are actually connected. We can do this for the ultra-fast broadband project but not for the Rural Broadband Initiative. We should be measuring this stuff. We should be getting value for money for spending $300 million to date and the additional $150 billion the Government is now wanting to spend. It is important to invest this money. We saw from the report by Hayden Glass and others from the Sapere Research Group that providing greater internet access and use of the internet by our businesses could deliver $34 billion in economic benefits. We can see our regional economies thrive. I will not name the person but I know someone down south who literally is managing a network of global satellites for climate change research and managing assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars, yet this person is able to live in picturesque central Otago. We know that there are a lot of people who would love to come to live in New Zealand, and we need to attract the quality of those who want to live here by our quality of life. So let us build up our regional communities. Let us offer them good internet access.

I would like to touch on some of the questions and concerns. We have heard some of them from the Labour Party members. I think there are three big concerns around the evaluation of the reporting, around the role that Vodafone has played to date, but also around an expectation gap. So let us look at the effectiveness of the original Rural Broadband Initiative. It was a $300 million investment. It is incredible that the Government cannot point to a comprehensive evaluation. I think when you are spending such significant sums of taxpayers’ money it is prudent and reasonable to be able to ask those questions. We are seeing a market failure in our regions. Obviously, the big telecommunications companies are not rolling out ultra-fast broadband to the level they are in our cities, and you can understand that. That is why everyone, I believe, in this House thinks it is eminently reasonable for public subsidies to rectify this market imbalance to provide internet access to our communities. So a subsidy is valid but, look, taxpayers want to know whether their money has been spent in a cost-effective manner. They want to see the benefit-cost ratios.

The Government does not ask these questions, basically, because the asset infrastructure it is installing is open access and anyone can use it. But I think that rings hollow. I think that the Government—and I place the blame squarely at Steven Joyce’s feet—should have made this a requirement of the contract. Look, if the Government is going to spend $300 million of the money of telecommunications companies’ customers, ultimately, it should be able to at least say how many people are connecting, as they can for the ultra-fast broadband. Do not just take my word for it; we have seen Chris O’Connell of the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand write in August last year around some of the questionable Rural Broadband Initiative spends. He writes: “my recent travels have shown me that the RBI has yet to make a real impact and even when it is available it’s is decidedly average in its performance, because it is basically delivering last decade’s broadband at best and often less than our innovative regional wireless ISP’s have been doing for years.” So we have got to question this. We have got to have that evaluation and I will be pushing through the Commerce Committee for us to actually show some leadership, step up, and do that evaluation.

The second key concern is around Vodafone’s role in the original Rural Broadband Initiative. It received $60 million of telecommunications development levy funding for the wireless Rural Broadband Initiative stage. It has been estimated that only 8,000 people have connected to Vodafone’s wireless system—8,000 people from a $60 million investment. If you do the simple maths $60 million divided by the 8,000 customers is $7,500 per connection. Let us have that debate as to whether that is a worthwhile use of taxpayers’ money or not—but let us have the facts and have that debate. I am concerned to read in the officials’ advice to the Government in section 17 of the regulatory impact statement that they do anticipate that the majority of funding will go to the larger telecommunications development levy players. This is concerning because there are questions around Vodafone’s wireless versus the Chorus copper upgrades and cabinet upgrades. So let us have those questions.

We have also heard, thirdly, that there is an expectation gap arising from our regional communities versus our urban communities over what they can expect. The Government has really got to step up here and show some leadership. It needs to improve its communication. It needs to actively communicate the time lines to these communities. To address some of these concerns around further telecommunications companies and customers subsidising particularly large players—and I am thinking of Vodafone here—I have got Supplementary Order Paper 83 in front of the House that will request the Minister to take regard in her decision making to ensure the use of the telecommunications development levy to promote competition, to promote diversity in non-urban telecommunication markets, and to look at the range of different technological solutions. We have heard of the Project Loon balloons, and it is true that technology is changing fast, so I think it is prudent and eminently reasonable that the Minister should have regard to new technology.

Secondly, the Government also, as part of the 700 megahertz spectrum auction, has achieved at discount for the successful auction winners around 75 mobile towers to eliminate some of the regional black spots. That is a good thing. That is why I have got another reasonable Supplementary Order Paper in front of the House to make sure that those existing telecommunications companies who have received a discount from the spectrum auction are not going to be able to access telecommunications development levy funds and, essentially, get a second bite of the cherry. These are two issues I think that Government members should be able to agree with and, if they do, they should support them, and there is no reason not to. There is the Green Party position. We stand for good regional internet access. We have got some concerns around the process, some suggestions, and some solutions to make it better, and that is why we are supporting the bill today. Kia ora.

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 this, actually. 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 8,000 is $7,500—

💬 Kris Faafoi: Ish.

—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.

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.

What a joy to be able to contribute on the Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill. Having listened to all of the previous speakers, I think we are in danger of peace breaking out. Fantastic! I never thought I would say that I agreed with almost everything that Tracey Martin from New Zealand First said. I never thought—ever, ever, ever—and not in my wildest nightmares believed, that I would ever say that I agree with almost everything that Mr Gareth Hughes from the Green Party said. I have to say that that was spectacular, except for the nonsense about the inquiry and attacking my dear colleague the Hon Steven Joyce. I do not think we want to do that.

What I am really pleased about—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: She’s having to cast a wide net for Cabinet votes now. She’s even asking the Greens for votes.

Oh, Mr Cunliffe is upset because I have not mentioned him. All right. I really liked the part where Mr Cunliffe said: “It looked OK but no one signed up.” He was talking about his own leadership, of course.

But apart from all that, to hear that we have 73 percent of rural homes now with the Rural Broadband Initiative—that roll-out has happened—that is fantastic. But the Green Party is dead right. Not having broadband, particularly in rural areas, is not only really disadvantageous for homes and for people in businesses but also it is a danger now. In so many places along the roads, in various parts, there are black spots—it is now a danger. We have mobile phones not just because we like to but actually because it is a safety measure. I think we need to sort this out in the 21st century, and I fully support this bill.

A 5-minute call—James Shaw.

I rise to speak to the Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill and to agree with virtually all of the previous speakers on this bill. What does the bill do? It increases the existing levy, it extends the Rural Broadband Initiative, and it creates a mobile black spots fund.

The ultra-fast broadband roll-out around New Zealand has not been smooth over the last few years, but it is critical. Although it has had its rough spots, it is incredibly important that it continues and that it gets completed. That is because ultra-fast broadband is an absolutely critical piece of New Zealand’s economic infrastructure.

I have just spent most of the last 10 weeks travelling around places like Northland, Gisborne, New Plymouth, Whakatāne, the Coromandel, Whanganui, and down to Invercargill—incredibly remote places around New Zealand. The divide between our rural and provincial towns and our main urban centres is enormous. If they do not have access to broadband, it is going to get worse and worse and worse. As my colleague Gareth Hughes said, that is because the internet provides us not just with economic infrastructure but with access to educational opportunities, to health care opportunities, and with the ability to connect with one another.

In terms of the economy, of course, the digital economy is how we are going to get to a sustainable, smart Green economy, which the Green Party has been talking about for years and years and years, and the idea of weightless exports, where we can earn huge amounts of revenue without having to transport heavy goods or pollute or degrade the environment. Given the tyranny of distance that New Zealand has historically been subjected to, this is an absolutely critical piece of infrastructure for us.

I will also just say something about the mobile black spots. In addition to the safety component to it, this is a really significant tourism issue. An increasing portion of our tourism dollars are coming from, particularly, China and East Asia and South Asia where the expectation is that you are connected all the time. It is actually not meeting our tourists’ expectations that they are travelling around parts of New Zealand and they cannot connect to the internet and to Facebook to be able to post their photos, and so on. Of course, that word of mouth gets back to their home countries, and it weakens our reputation in the tourism sector. Most significantly, as I was saying before, this is about the rural economy and our ability to develop in areas where we currently have a massive divide. Not getting this piece of infrastructure in place will make it even worse.

As my colleague Gareth Hughes said, we do have some concerns about the bill. It does seem odd to us that the Government is currently consulting on how it will spend the money and is passing a bill under urgency for raising the money that it is currently trying to work out how to spend. That does seem like putting the cart before the horse, but we can work with that because we do believe that this is so important to get through. Having said that, it does seem odd that this bill is being passed under urgency. There does not seem to be any real need for it to get passed tonight. It could go through a proper process of evaluation through the select committee process, and so on.

We will be putting forward two Supplementary Order Papers later on during the debate, which are about promoting competition, promoting diversity in the system, and exploring new technologies as well. The second Supplementary Order Paper is to prevent telecommunications companies from having two bites of the cherry. We do hope that they will get accepted and that they will improve the bill, given that it is passing through under urgency so quickly after the Budget. Overall, we do support this bill, and I commend it to the House.

It is my pleasure to take a call on this Telecommunications (Development Levy) Amendment Bill. One hundred and fifty million dollars is a lot of money. It is a lot of money for this House to expend, so if we are going to do that, we want to make sure that it is going to be an effective use of money. When it comes to the Rural Broadband Initiative 2 and the $150 million of funding that this bill is basically going to create, we want to make sure that the Rural Broadband Initiative 1 has been effective. For those at home who do not know what the Rural Broadband Initiative 1 is, that is roughly about $300 million—$250 million of which has come from the telecommunications development levy—that has helped some of our remote areas in our rural sector become more connected. There are many, many reasons why that is good for our country—and they have been said on both sides of the House—like, obviously, the primary sector, the health and well-being of our remote areas, and, of course, economic development.

The reason why we have a problem with this piece of legislation is that we have not had enough of an assessment of the Rural Broadband Initiative 1—the first $300 million of this programme—to see whether or not it has been effective. At the Commerce Committee—a select committee that would have loved to have seen this bill, by the way; I will come back to that later—we heard from a number of submitters just, I think—

💬 Clare Curran: Yesterday.

—yesterday morning. Oh, it seems so long ago! Yesterday morning we heard about the lack of assessment that has been done about the spending and the effectiveness of the Rural Broadband Initiative 1. We do have an issue with this piece of legislation: with it being a new tax, of course, but also because we have not seen enough evidence of the effectiveness of the Rural Broadband Initiative 1.

I do want to point to a submission given to us yesterday by InternetNZ at the Commerce Committee, if I may, where it pointed out its concern around the lack of assessment of the Rural Broadband Initiative 1. This came about via three areas of Otago that have petitioned the Commerce Committee about the lack of effectiveness, in their experience, of the Rural Broadband Initiative. Basically, they do not think that this initiative has served their communities well and that it has not made them as connected as was promised by the Government. InternetNZ said in its submission: “These petitioners are motivated not by a lack of clarity but by a lack of satisfaction, and we see a different requirement. This could call for a verification of commitments made as part of the RBI delivery to ensure that whichever provider responsible is delivering the expectations that were set. Have the committed time frames for the Rural Broadband Initiatives been met? Is the minimum speed commitment of 5 megabits per second also being met?”.

So there is concern out there in those rural communities. They were promised a service of 5 megabits per second, but that has not been their experience. For us to sit here and say that that is the experience of $300 million of investment and we are about to say here is another $150 million for the second phase of the Rural Broadband Initiative, then we on this side of the House think we need a better assessment of whether that $300 million that has been spent on the Rural Broadband Initiative 1 has been spent effectively.

There are some good things in this bill, I believe, especially around the black spots. I think that is a good development in terms of State Highway 1—if someone can look at the Ngauranga Gorge, that would be quite useful—and also for tourism as well. If we can get the Government to look at those black spot areas, that will be useful.

This piece of legislation does not meet the test for us to support it because, as I said, $150 million is the commitment here. That is $50 million for each year that we are continuing this levy—a levy that was not necessarily promised. We want to know, if we are going to be spending $150 million more, whether the first $300 million was spent effectively. Communities in small, remote, rural areas around this country do not think that is the case. InternetNZ—a bit of a watchdog for these kinds of issues—does not believe that is the case. Because of that, we share those concerns, and we are not going to support this piece of legislation.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute on this bill. I would like to share something with this House. Last month we visited Spark and it shared a very interesting fact with us about how the internet has changed the whole scenario in New Zealand. Spark mentioned that 15 years ago the total internet traffic from New Zealand was 40 gigabytes—the total traffic from New Zealand was only 40 gigabytes—and today the average household has got a connection of 40 gigabytes.

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: How much?

Forty gigabytes on average.

💬 Kris Faafoi: Who told you that?

Spark told us. You were there, I think, Kris.

💬 Kris Faafoi: No, no, no.

Ah! You heard that.

💬 Kris Faafoi: I was at the Porirua McDonalds.

OK. Ha, ha! Technology is changing, as we heard from a lot of members. This is a very good bill, which will make the difference. I commend the Minister, the Hon Amy Adams, for her thoughtfulness and I commend this bill to the House.

It is not often that I rise as speaker No. 11 on a bill with some breaking news, but today I have some breaking news. It is interesting that the member opposite who has just taken a seat, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, mentioned a visit to Spark, because Spark has just put out a press release in the last hour explaining very clearly that this bill is going to cost customers across their whole user base. This is a new tax. Spark is saying that it is going to pass it on to its users and it is going to be transparent about that. It has just put out a press release—and the members opposite might like to think about the cannon fodder they are going to be when they get back to their electorate offices—saying that it is going to pass it on to every single user in New Zealand. This is a new tax. It is going to cost New Zealanders, and that is another broken promise from this Government.

I will read out what it says in the press release, for the benefit of this House: “ ‘Now that the Government has confirmed the levy will continue, rather than reduce as originally legislated for, it has put upward pressure on future costs and we will have to pass that cost through to our broadband and on-account mobile customers. We are exploring options for adding this cost in a transparent way to our customers’ monthly statements so they understand the contribution they are making to the Government’s Telecommunications Development Levy fund,’ says Mr Moutter.” That is a clear picture of a new cost to customers. That is what Amy Adams said would not happen in her speech in slot No. 1. By slot No. 11, the news is out: it is happening, New Zealand.

This Government has broken another promise. It is introducing a new tax. Government members should have known this—they should have known this. This is also new and has not been covered in the previous speeches. Perhaps they have not read the departmental disclosure statement. Perhaps it was too rushed for them to get to. But I believe that the Minister will have read this. If members in the House turn to page 8 of the departmental disclosure statement I will read it out to them. It is headed “Charges in the nature of a tax” in the departmental disclosure statement and asks: “4.2 Does this Bill create or amend a power to impose a fee, levy or charge in the nature of a tax?”. The department says, and I will hold the statement up for those at home—they probably cannot read it. It is highlighted, but it is on the website if anyone wants to go and have a look. The answer the department has given is “Yes”.

This is a new tax. It is in the nature of a new tax. We heard yesterday Paddy Gower on TV3 ask the Minister of Finance: “Is this another broken promise? Is this a new tax, Mr English?”. He said: “Well, um, mm, ah, you can call it what you like.”, and so on. He would not admit that this was another broken promise from this Government. Well, now we know that it is going to be an additional cost to customers, and different from what Amy Adams said in speech No. 1 in the first reading of this bill. Now, in speech No. 11, we know that there is an additional cost to New Zealand broadband users.

This is a Government that is determined to charge more people for the use of rural broadband. It has not even measured the effectiveness of this scheme. That is the great shame. My colleague Kris Faafoi drew attention to this, and so did my colleague Clare Curran earlier on. We have heard from InternetNZ that it believes that it would be in the interests of the select committee to take leadership on this issue. We do not know whether the Rural Broadband Initiative has worked. We do not know whether it is a successful scheme because there is no data to measure it. The Government has not measured the success of the scheme, but it is about to give another $150 million in the area. Current spending on the scheme amounts to about $7,000—my colleague Clare Curran has calculated—for each and every household that has taken up this scheme. It is hardly value for money.

This is a Government that is failing. It is scratching around. It does not have a long-term plan. It is trying to make it look like it is doing something, but we learnt today that there is a new charge, a new tax. The Government had been warned about it in the disclosure statement. The Government knew this was a new tax and it did nothing to stop it, despite promising to the electorate before the election that it would introduce no new taxes. It reminds us, of course, of the GST increase. John Key said he would not increase GST, and then, fast forward, in Government, and it went up to 15 percent.

It reminds us of the wage rise promise. By the end of next year employees should expect a wage increase of about $7,000. Well, in this Budget we heard the Minister of Finance kick that promise out 3 years. We were promised that exports as a percentage of GDP would rise to 40 percent under this Government, and then we have heard since that Bill English says they would need to double the rate of improvement that they currently have in order to achieve the target. It is out of reach.

The final biggest promise that the Government has broken, the promise that was central to its election campaign, was that it would get to a surplus. It is broken promise after broken promise after broken promise after broken promise after broken promise. That is five I have gone through—five broken promises in this Budget alone.

This is a Government that is out of touch with New Zealand. It is now so arrogant that it thinks it can say to the electorate “We will not introduce new taxes.”, and then put them in straight away, in its first Budget after the election. This is a Government that is out of touch and out of ideas. We will hold it to account on this side of the House.

There has been a review called for. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment says that there is no way it can measure whether this has been good value for money. The Government does not care what happens with New Zealanders’ money any more. It does not want the criticism. It does not want to know if it is not working. We are being told by the companies using the system that it is not working. We are being told by the department that it cannot measure it. It is not good enough. Taxpayers deserve better.

Then, of course, the point has been made that this bill is being passed under urgency without the opportunity, for example, for those telecommunications companies to tell the Government that this tax is going to increase costs for customers, that this tax is going hurt ordinary New Zealanders, that it is a broken promise, that the Government should not go through with it, and that it should indeed review the system to make sure that the money is being well spent.

I know why the Government is hiding this. I know why the Government is rushing this through under urgency. It is because the programme is failing. I know that from my own electorate. The people out at Karitane, a rural area, put up a petition to this House because they were so concerned about the internet speeds they were experiencing. People were telling me they could not run businesses from home—they simply could not run businesses from home, as things were so bad.

Then there were letters to the providers and there were letters to the Minister. Nothing happened, but following a petition to the select committee and other petitions to the select committee, lo and behold the problem was fixed. Well, I urge all of those rural communities around New Zealand—if you are unhappy with a new tax and unhappy with the slow progress on rural broadband and unhappy with the broken promises of this Government, please start a petition yourselves. Please ask for proper rural broadband in your areas.

This is a Government that is failing to diversify the economy. It is failing to deliver on its export targets. If the Government does not actually review what it is doing, and increase rural broadband and broaden the base of our economy so people can run other new industries, then it will continue to fail and we will slip further and further behind. A Government that is prepared to manage decline is not a Government that we need. We need a Government with a plan. We need a Government that will keep its promise and actually stick to what it says it is going to do.

This broken promise is not acceptable, and New Zealanders will not roll over and take it without a fight. This tax is just another broken promise. The broken promises mount up. A Government with so many broken promises is losing the confidence of New Zealanders. So I ask New Zealanders to start their own petitions in those rural areas, to petition any committee. Ask your local MP how you at home can start a petition that will be acceptable to Parliament and passed on to a select committee for consideration.

This Government needs to hear it. It is so out of touch that it does not even know what is going on, and it does not want to know what is going on. The Government will not launch an inquiry into what has happened. It is determined to spend more money, without asking what is happening, without consulting stakeholders, and to ram legislation through this House. We have heard it today, we have heard it now, in the last hour, that this levy, which the department says is in the nature of a tax—another broken promise—is going to be passed on directly to customers who are users of broadband. Broadband is the very thing we need to be happening for our economy to broaden and get ahead.

The Government has broken its promise to grow jobs, it has broken its promise to lift wages, it has broken its promise not to introduce new taxes, and it has broken its promise to get to surplus. This is a Government that is out of ideas, and a new tax seems to be what passes for a big idea under National. It will not do.

It is an absolute joy to rise and speak in this first reading. It is incredible—twice incredible. Yesterday the Minister of Finance delivered an incredibly good Budget, one that helps those in most in need by increasing real benefits for the first time in 43 years. Those members over there should hang their heads in shame at the two previous Labour administrations—absolutely shocking—and today it is incredibly bad that the same Labour members are opposed to our helping people in rural New Zealand by expanding the rural broadband coverage. Dr Clark just said that he thought that communities should encourage us to give faster broadband, although he is going to vote down this measure that is going to expand the coverage.

This is a great bill. I commend it to the House.