Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

E Te Mana Whakawā, tēnā koe. I move, That the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Commerce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by a date that is 4 months and 1 day from the date that the bill receives its first reading. The amendments in this bill will make it easier for people to connect to ultra-fast broadband (UFB), as well as make more minor changes to improve the liability allocations process for the telecommunications development levy and, ultimately, extend the regulatory requirements to the second phase of the UFB contracts. This bill creates a new consenting process that telecommunications companies must follow when installing modern telecommunications networks such as UFB.

At least 80 percent of New Zealanders will have access to UFB by 2022. Already at least 50 percent of our population has that access. Demand in New Zealand for faster, better broadband is huge and continues to grow, fuelled by the Government’s UFB roll-out. However, not all of those with access are able to connect easily. Around 225,000 UFB orders will need permission for access to property shared between neighbours, such as shared driveways or in apartment buildings. The current process also creates delays. As of April this year, there were almost 800 orders on the books where the consenting process had been running for 50 working days or longer without resolution. The bill aims to reduce delays in cancelled orders for UFB, to result in better outcomes for those ready to connect.

A tiered consenting regime will allow installation methods to be prescribed into two categories according to the impacts those methods are considered to have on shared property. Installation methods with the lowest impacts will no longer need consent from other parties. Under a category 1 installation, the UFB connection is determined to have no lasting impacts on property. In these cases, a statutory right will be provided for a network operator to continue with the installation after providing 5 working days’ notice. This is estimated to cover about a third of installations in shared driveways. A category 2 installation means that the connection will have some lasting minor impact on a property. This could include drilling a cable underground or leaving small potholes to access cable networks. Under these installations, neighbours will be provided with a high-level design and given 15 working days to object on a number of limited grounds. This is estimated to cover off about half of all installations in shared driveways.

For multi-unit complexes governed by a body corporate, the consenting process will vary slightly from this tiered regime, to better fit in with these existing governance structures. Installation methods that do not fit into the new categories will continue to be subject to existing consenting requirements. A disputes resolution process will also be created to ensure that any disputes that arise as a result of the new consenting regime are dealt with fairly and efficiently.

The bill extends the regulatory requirements relating to the first phase of UFB to the extension of the programme. These minor technical changes are consistent with what Parliament has already enacted for the first phase once commercial negotiations for the second phase are concluded. Two statutory authorisations are provided under the Commerce Act for potential partnering arrangements between Chorus and the Crown that may emerge from the UFB extension tender process. The proposal to provide statutory authorisations should not be viewed as predetermining the outcome of the tendering process. It is, instead, a pre-emptive action consistent with the first phase of the programme to allow the Government to have a full set of options available to it for the tender process. I commend the bill to the House.

The Labour Party is pleased to support this bill, basically because it makes good common sense. We have an ultra-fast broadband (UFB) roll-out that needs to access private property. There are obviously some complications that occur when that is attempted, in many cases. What this bill is aiming to do is to try to iron out some of those complications by which there could be delays in getting the ultra-fast broadband from the street, if you like, into the homes.

Right at the moment, what happens is that the network operators have the consent of the legal owners of the property through which they run the fibre connection, but this could be complicated if the end-user is not the sole owner of the property—for example, if you have got a unit title, some sort of company share arrangement, perhaps, or Māori freehold land, or maybe if there is an easement. There is a whole range of different complications that can create problems in getting the connection through to the owner who wants the ultra-fast broadband.

As a result of that, this legislation breaks the installations, effectively, into two different categories. Category 1 installations are those installations that have no lasting impact on properties. They might disturb the grass or soft surfaces, or something like that—perhaps a narrow trench through a garden or whatever—but they create no real physical problems other than that. That is what the legislation calls “category 1”. For those installations, a statutory right will be provided for the network operator to get on and install UFB after providing 5 days’ notice. So the notice time is pretty minimal. People get 5 days’ notice in terms of the fact that this is going to go through the area. That is estimated to cover around about 37 percent of the connections that are made with the UFB roll-out.

Category 2 installations are a little more complicated. They have more of a lasting impact on property, such as drilling a cable underground, leaving potholes, having to cut through, say, concrete, or having to access a metre every 10 metres or so. For these installations, neighbours will be provided with, basically, a high-level design of what is going to happen, and they get 15 days to object on a limited number of grounds. If they do not object, then they are deemed to have consented. So it effectively eliminates a lot of the time delays and problems that are being created at the moment. As the Minister for Communications said, a number of cases right now have been waiting over 50 days to be connected, because of disputes between different parties that the ultra-fast broadband consent has to go through.

It is estimated that category 2, that more difficult installation, is going to be about 51 percent of all installations. The balance—the 12 percent of installations left from the 37 percent in category 1 and 51 percent in category 2—is more invasive than even those two categories and will be subject to the existing requirement where all parties have to provide their consent. So, in effect, it will mean either bigger earthworks or bigger concrete works, or whatever.

There are some complications, obviously, as well, around apartment blocks where there are multiple dwellings and owners, and the law will clarify this as well so that once a single-unit owner has placed an order for UFB, the network operator will have an automatic right to the common areas of that property to best determine the right way or the most appropriate way to install UFB. It means that an apartment owner who wants UFB will not be stymied from getting it by a whole lot of other people in that apartment block.

We are looking forward to hearing what is going to happen in the select committee. I am sure there will be submissions on this, and I am sure there will be other issues that perhaps we have not been able to consider or think about in the course of this first reading. Nevertheless, those issues can come forward at the select committee. We can hear those, and we can tweak and adjust, hopefully, if the Hon Amy Adams will allow us to be able to do that in the interests of good natural justice and in order that we are able to get the best bill and the best law that will be able to be rolled out.

As I say, the Labour Party is pleased to support this. We notice that ultra-fast broadband is going out at a reasonable rate. There were about 24,000 requests for UFB in April and 16,000 connections. You do the maths on that and somehow along the line 8,000 people requested it but did not get it. What I would assume that means is that we are running a little behind what people would want, but, nevertheless, it is being rolled out at a reasonable pace. I have to say, I was one of those people in April who made that request and actually got their UFB connected, so who am I to complain?

However, I do note that with the excitement around our UFB roll-out we should remember that there are a number of people in our society who are not even connected to the internet, let alone able to connect to UFB. For example, Peeni Henare was just telling me that 68 percent of Māori do not have access to the internet. That is a lot of Māori people who are not connected to the internet, compared with 86 percent connected, the average across New Zealand. The biggest non-connections are in the areas where there is the greatest level of deprivation, which is perhaps in Northland and Gisborne. Perhaps in some of the rural areas it is more difficult, but, nevertheless, it puts these people at an extraordinary disadvantage.

At a time when we are rolling out various computing devices—iPads, etc.—in schools, the fact that kids in those areas, in those groups, are unable to go home and do their homework using the internet, as so many people across New Zealand are so accustomed to doing now, puts them at a distinct disadvantage. It really does show up what people are calling the digital divide. Likewise in Auckland: 70 percent of Māori in Auckland have access to the internet, but that means 30 percent do not. That is a very significant number of people.

Not only that, if you look at Māori in terms of their connections, if you like, to the industry, again, Mr Henare was telling me that only 1 percent of Māori are seeking study in the information and technology area. I think that is a real shame, because obviously this is an area that is growing. Although we can get very excited about the fact that we are having ultra-fast broadband rolled out at the pace that the Minister has laid out, we do need to think very, very seriously about those people who are being missed, those people who do not have the access, those people who are likely to fall even further behind as a result of not being able to be connected to something that we have come to see almost as a right, as in water or electricity or whatever. We need to make sure that those people are connected and that we have some means of being able to roll that out in a much more universal way. Thank you.

E Te Mana Whakawā, tēnā koe. I listened very carefully to the member who just took his seat, David Shearer, and also to the Minister Amy Adams. I am very excited about this bill coming to the Commerce Committee, and I look forward to the submissions when we actually deal with them.

One of the comments that the Minister made was that as of April this year there were almost 800 orders on the book where the consenting process had been running for about 50 working days or longer without resolution. This is one of the issues that we are trying to resolve with this bill. As Mr Shearer said, a situation where houses are sharing a driveway or people live in a high-rise complex where they actually need the permission of their neighbours, who may not necessarily be present, is something that we are trying to resolve here.

The comment that the Minister made, in terms of 50 days of no resolution, reminded me of the times when we did not actually have the internet. I am obviously going to be ageing myself, but, going back to university when the internet was not available, I think we all went to university with typewriters. Nowadays more and more people are wanting faster, cheaper internet services. This is one way of making sure that we deliver the service better and faster. I commend the bill.

Can I thank the Minister for Communications for bringing forward this bill. I think it is great that in New Zealand we have got cross-party agreement about the importance of fibre connection. It really is not an issue that should be too political. We have had successive Governments running some pretty good telecommunications policy in New Zealand for well over a decade now—it is about 15 years since we saw the deregulatory moves and the structural separation of what was Telecom, which was split into what is now Chorus and Spark. We have had the Government intervention to advance the speed at which fibre is rolled out in New Zealand. There is cross-party agreement that this is a good thing to do. I do not think there are many, if any, parties in this Parliament that disagree that it is a good thing to do.

The reason we agree is that it enables improvements in a lot of aspects of society. The one that is most common for people—the ability to get, through the internet, things that used to come through the television—is, in some ways, less important than some of the other advantages, but it enables things like more efficient delivery of Government services to people. It enables telemedicine, so that people in rural areas can get a better quality of medical care. It enables improvements in education—again, particularly relevant to rural schools, where they can, through fibre, deliver more specialised subjects to their pupils, particularly in secondary schools, that might not otherwise be able to be delivered to a small area school.

But most important of all, it seems to me—or, equally important, I should say, rather than necessarily more important—are the commercial benefits that arise from ultra-fast broadband (UFB). We are now at a stage in the world where we have a lot of enabling technologies that have been matured and that are important to New Zealand, improving the economy, which we share the fruits of. We have the necessary telecommunications capability in our telecommunications companies. We have got ubiquitous mobile technology. We have got increasingly common UFB capability. We have affordable computing power. We have sensor technologies that are affordable. These things combine through the internet of things, and as a consequence there is a myriad of new commercial opportunities that are made possible by these new technologies, whether it is in precision agriculture—or selling precision agriculture products to the world—or whether it is new software verticals where clever New Zealand software companies can develop services that not only are relevant to New Zealand but also have a global reach and can be sold internationally in a way that lifts the value of our economy. Fibre is an important ingredient of that, so I am pleased that we are making progress in the installation of fibre. It is true that the Auditor-General recently produced a report that was complimentary of the way in which fibre is now being rolled out in New Zealand—and long may that continue.

I would say that sometimes the media cycle is a little bit unkind to Ministers, and I would not be doing my duty as an Opposition member of Parliament if I did not actually hold up today’s New Zealand Herald with the front-page story—instead of ultra-fast broadband, it has “ultra-shoddy broadband”. There is a litany of problems here. On the front page here, there is a photo of someone who “has been left with an infrastructure timebomb after fibre-optic cables were installed at his Howick home.” It turns out that these problems are not isolated, because if there was only one problem, then you would not see this on the front of the New Zealand Herald today. There is a litany of similar problems where shoddy levels of installation service have resulted in these cables being left in places where they are, obviously, not going to last: the weather is going to get into them, people will kick them or drive over them, or in any other number of ways these things are going to be problematic into the future. There are examples where two neighbours have got fibre-optic cables on their fences held up by duct tape. Duct tape is the installation method that is being used by Chorus, in respect of some.

Chorus admits, to its credit, that this is substandard. But it does appear that, according to the people in the paper, Chorus had dismissed requests to bury the cables rather than hang them off fences with duct tape. Of course the people who are in receipt of these services are worried that if the fibre fails, they will not only suffer the loss of service but also get a bill to fix it. So they think that more should be done to make sure that broadband is installed properly. These exposed cables worry residents—in fact, that is the heading on page 3. The litany of complaints does not just cover half of it; actually, it is the only front-page story. It does not just cover the whole of the front page; it is also continued on page 3 of the newspaper. Although it is true that there is cross-party support for this, and although it is true that it is very important to the development of our economy and to society more generally, it is also true that it is not without problems.

Can I also mention a couple of other issues. One of the tensions that we now have in New Zealand is that over time, as New Zealand transitions, effectively, from copper-based services to a combination of mobile broadband and ultra-fast broadband—both of which can deliver telephone services as well—there is a question of how much money you spend on copper maintenance, and for how long. I know that the Minister does not think that we should have advanced planning of this; she thinks that we should leave it all to the industry. I am not sure that that is right, because, in the end, someone is going to have to make a call eventually as to what is the right signal to have as to when we should be turning off the old technology and moving to the new. The Minister is not even prepared to contemplate having that conversation. But if she is not going to have that conversation, then we need to pay particular care as to whether there is going to be enough money spent on maintaining copper in the meantime.

We know another complaint that we have had in the last couple of weeks is that with the big rain events throughout New Zealand, we have had more complaints about water getting into the old copper-based system, which means that there is a lot of static in, and inferior performance of, the old copper-based services for those who use them. Those copper-based services remain essential still for the majority of people in their homes, because most people still have a landline, and most people now still use landline-based broadband for their internet. It is not as good as UFB. It is better than it was, but unless it is properly maintained, we are going to have problems there.

One other issue that is raised by this legislation—I will not go again through the land access issues that my colleague David Shearer has explained very well, with the cascading level of approval you need depending on the seriousness of the intervention. I agree that those proposals look sound, and I am sure that the select committee will look into the detail of them. But there are also some changes made to the telecommunications development levy. This is a matter that has not got universal support within the industry. The industry does question it, and I think that submissions will be made to the select committee by participants, not just to the changes that are being made that are said to reduce some of the complexity and compliance costs associated with the telecommunications development levy but I expect that there will be some submissions made as to the levy itself.

Finally, one of the challenges we have in New Zealand is in rural areas. I am not yet convinced that we have got the balance right in terms of the push into rural areas. There have been a lot of complaints from councils around the country complaining that their residents cannot get decent broadband and that the rural broadband services that have been pushed by the Government have not been up to the mark. I know I have had complaints from some of the telecommunications providers that there is some anti-competitive behaviour, they think, in respect of the two dominant players, who are reluctant to share aerials. If you have got to have more than one tower, that is more expensive. We have got to the point where the providers seem to agree that they will have one tower but they insist on more than one aerial, despite the fact that there are technological solutions that would enable them to share one aerial and, therefore, allow for broadband to be pushed into rural areas more cost-effectively. That is not UFB; that is mobile-based broadband, but it is a necessary substitute in some rural areas.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the first reading of the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. This is an important bill because, as we know, day by day the demand for ultra-fast broadband is increasing. It is very important for our businesses, educational institutions, community, and others that opportunities are available because of this.

Thousands of New Zealanders involved in shared properties or living in apartments experience delays in connecting to ultra-fast broadband, and they need permission for access to the property shared between the neighbours. In 2000 we had only 22 percent of our population with access to broadband. In 2003 we had 51 percent, and in 2012 we had 86 percent of our population with access to broadband. Fifteen years ago the total usage of the internet was 40 gigabytes. Today, monthly usage of the internet is almost 80 terabytes. These are the things that are required for ultra-fast broadband, and this bill will help that availability to the end-users. I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Nga mihi nui o Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori ki a tātou katoa. I rise to support this common-sense, non-controversial, technical bill. The Green Party supports ultra-fast broadband. We see it as a key plank in modern 21st century infrastructure for a modern digital economy. This is the key platform from which digital companies can be exporting, we can be having videoconferencing around the world, and game creators in their garages can be exporting their products around the world. We believe in a digital nation. This is like how our ancestors used to invest in ports and railways. This is what our generation invests in as we try to deliver prosperity for future generations.

I believe we can be a digital nation. In fact, it is important that we embrace this opportunity. There is a limit to how many tourists we can cram into Fiordland. There is a limit to how many cows we can cram into our paddocks. There is no limit to the software, the services, the intellectual property, and the new products that we could be exporting around the world. There is simply no limit, and that is our future if we want a richer country.

On this note, I would like to acknowledge the small tinkering we saw from Minister Hekia Parata—one step towards that today with the tinkering of the curriculum around technology. And, look, I could not put it better than the chief executive officer of Orion Health, who today said in response: “After 6 years of waiting, a 12 month review process … seven months of deliberation by Minister Hekia Parata and her Ministry, all there is to show for it are some minor changes, including a pledge for more consultation.”

We are light years away from the digital nation that we could be, where we are growing those high-value jobs, delivering those higher-value exports. Instead, we are cramming tourists into Fiordland and we are cramming cows into paddocks. And on the ultra-fast broadband, although it is something we have seen unanimity across this House in supporting, I will not be as charitable as some of the previous speakers have been on the Government’s responsibility.

It is pretty hard to oppose the Government investing $1.35 billion in broadband, but you only have to see the front page of the New Zealand Herald today to see the shoddy process of Steven Joyce in rolling out ultra-fast broadband. I feel sorry for Minister Adams. This is not the only time that Steven Joyce has left a mess for some other Minister to clean up. He was quite happy to get the headlines, as he always does, with the initial investment, but the actual details, the technical process, is left for another Minister to clean up. You only have to go on to Geekzone or PropertyTalk or Reddit to see it is not just a litany; it is pages and pages of problems that people have with actually connecting to this critical piece of national infrastructure. It is great that we are finally getting around to dealing with a small segment of the problem, which is shared access in multi-unit dwellings, but we all know it is larger than that.

I grew up in New Zealand in the eighties, when there was this constant myth that it took 6 weeks to get a telephone connected, and how horrible and, you know, Polish shipyard it was to take 6 weeks. You know how long ultra-fast broadband connections are taking? Longer than that. I have had someone in the internet service provider sector saying that at the end of this year, as the connections ramp up, we could be looking at 3 months for someone to get connected, because of the roundabouts, the to-ing and fro-ing, and the days off work people have to take to finally get connected. And the Government is deluding itself if it thinks it is simply a problem of shared access in multi-unit dwellings.

But this is the problem we have before us in this bill. We support it because there are some pretty common-sense changes, and this is exactly what I mean: some pretty common-sense changes that Steven Joyce could not have considered years ago. There are some pretty common-sense changes, like a disputes resolution body that Steven Joyce could have included in that bill, but instead he decided to ram it through the Parliament as fast as he could, and now Minister Adams is having to clean it up.

As we talk about cleaning up the mess, I would actually like to question the current Minister because I know that this is something that has been on the table for more than 4 years. Why has it taken more than 4 years to finally get this issue resolved? It was entirely foreseeable that we would see problems with shared access in multi-unit dwellings. With having no disputes resolution process, it was patently clear we would have these problems down the line, and, sure, although we support these pretty common-sense, pragmatic solutions, why on earth has it taken so long? For those people on the front page of the paper, for those people who have to vent that they have taken days off work, that the person has not come round, and that the official application form has been lost somewhere in the Byzantine bureaucratic internal dwellings of Chorus, why has it taken so long? Why has it taken 4 years to get to the point where we are finally putting a first reading of a bill there?

We support the technical changes around the telecommunications development levy, and we support the changes around UFB2—pretty uncontroversial. We think the mix the Minister has reached in terms of category 1 and category 2 in apartments is pragmatic. It is hard to find the most elegant solution that will not annoy someone, but I think she has found the mix. Our criticism is that it has taken so long. It was not foreseen, and once again we are debating the problems.

I remember the “Ultra-fast Broadband Amendment Amendment Bill”. We are debating the problems, trying to retrospectively fix problems that could have been foreseen. We are not taking the opportunities to build a digital nation—to make sure that we are teaching our kids the right skills in school, that we are actually finally now teaching our trainee teachers to use digital technology, that we are encouraging coding in our schools, and that we are encouraging familiarisation and experimentation in the new products to be created in new technologies, like manufacturing 3-D printing. We are not debating the huge opportunities we have in the space industry, for example, with Rocket Lab. No, once again the New Zealand Parliament, late at night, is trying to fix up a mess that was entirely foreseeable. So I will not be as charitable as the Labour Party members tonight. We support the bill, but let us do better as a country. Let us build that digital nation.

Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you very much. Before I begin my contribution on the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, can I just acknowledge, please, the Chamber support staff who are going to be finishing at the end of this week. This is likely to be the only contribution I give in this House this week, and so I want to acknowledge those who are leaving us, the time that they have given us, and the care that they have given us over the years. We hope to see you again as friends, perhaps even occasionally at the Back Bencher, and we can buy you a beer.

To move on to the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, New Zealand First will support this bill to select committee only at this stage. We have some concerns, and I think those concerns are based generally around the respect of property rights. I think they have been the concerns that have been articulated and why it has actually taken the Minister the time to get to this point, because there is a balance between moving forward with progress and, at the same time, being respectful of each individual’s property rights in this sort of an area.

I personally believe that the two-tiered system that the Minister has set up is a very positive one. I think that having category 1, for example, installations that use existing equipment, aerial installations, and installations that only disturb soft surfaces where those surfaces can be easily restored, are reasonable. They sound reasonable, but, again, we want to just say that we are going to support this bill to the select committee only, because we want to hear from the public.

I think Mr Parker has already referred to an example of cords wired by Chorus, subcontractors, or whomever, being laid across gardens and so on. One cannot underestimate the passion that some people create in their gardens. A garden may be a soft surface, but is it going to be able to be easily restored? I think it is about making sure that we have a reasonable understanding of what those parameters are going to be. The Minister has done a—a job on working to make sure those parameters are in place. The fact that we have a disputes resolution mechanism in here, also—it is a tried and true process. We have used it in other formats. It is going to now be placed inside this environment. Again, it gives us some hope that this is something that will sort out this disorder.

Category 2 concerns the fact that installations are the width of the micro-trenching—that it is not more than a prescribed width—and that installations are predominantly below the surface, such as directional drilling, open trenching, and those sorts of things. Again, I think it is interesting, though, to look at the clauses that have actually been placed inside the bill, like new section 155ZO(3), in clause 10: “Before recommending regulations prescribing a method of installation as a category 1 installation under subsection (1)(e), the Minister must be satisfied that the installation will not have any lasting, substantial, physical impact on the property.”

One of the ways that a person with those property rights is going to be able to protect them is the 5 working days for a category 1 and the 15 working days for a category 2. So they are going to be able to lodge a complaint, and no work—according to the information that we have at the moment through the regulatory impact statement and other documents—can be done on the property until it has been through the disputes resolution process. Then if there is still no agreement, we understand that it can then go to the District Court. So there is still that process of protection for property rights, and we are hopeful that it is going to be flexible enough and substantial enough to actually alleviate the fears of those people who are concerned about that. But we will hear about that at the select committee. I have no doubt that we will hear about that at the select committee.

We are interested in what we believe to be a slight increase in the levy that is going to take place. It will be interesting to hear the service providers’ perspective on that, because I understand that there is an expectation that that will not be passed on to the consumer, but we will be listening to hear how that is going to impact on the consumer and how this legislation is going to roll out.

I just want to pick up on a couple of things that have already been said. I will be interested to have my peer who is sitting nearby, Ria Bond, sitting on the Commerce Committee, because I understand that that is where this is going. I will be interested in whether this might affect the right to occupy and whether that affects those who are sitting inside the villages and so on and have rights to occupy as opposed to actually being on a cross-lease or in a body corporate situation.

💬 Chris Bishop: I’m sure Ria will be right on it.

It may not touch them at all, but considering, Mr Bishop, that everyone has the right to this technology no matter where they live or what age they are, that is something that needs to be considered. I pick up on Mr Parker’s conversation around the technologies that are available using ultra-fast broadband. I think of some of the advances in nanotechnology that may actually assist this nation to keep people in their homes for longer, thereby meaning that they are less of a financial burden in their old age inside institutions when they can stay in their home if we can actually create these technological leaps.

I also take a little bit of an issue with regard to Mr Parker’s conversation around copper and when the moment is to turn off the spend on copper. Doing a lot of work in my portfolio area for the member for Northland around the delivery of broadband and internet up in Northland, with many, many, many of those people being reliant upon copper, we would hope that until there has been a suitable solution for those communities, and that nobody turns the tap off on upgrading the copper cabinets and actually doing the copper-fibre blend that is being talked about and delivered, possibly through Northpower, down power lines.

I think, also, that it is interesting, part of the reason—I think, with regard to the contribution by the member from the Green Party—around the delay for Chorus, for example, being able to get ultra-fast broadband into homes. Agreeably, the Minister pointed out that some of those delays are around this access issue, but there is also a massive delay with regard to Chorus, and there is a skills shortage—the inability of them to actually hire the number of people whom they can then train to deliver this service. So we have some other areas of inflexibility there that we also need to address.

Lastly, just to cap up, New Zealand First will actually support this bill to select committee at this stage. We will be listening to the contributions of the submitters. The balance between property rights and access is the largest issue for us as infill housing takes a larger and larger place, particularly inside of Auckland, as we go forward. This could become a larger and larger issue. We can appreciate that. There needs to be an answer, but it must be an answer that is balanced with the property rights of the existing population. Kia ora.

I am delighted to take a call on this bill. I think I might speak in analogy. Look, 10-minute speeches are akin to dial-up.

💬 Hon Member: It’s a metaphor.

It is sort of more of a metaphor, but there is an analogous element to this. Long 10-minute speeches are akin to dial-up. Those that are a bit shorter may be ADSL. Three or 4-minute speeches may be VDSL speed, but this speech is an ultra-fast broadband speech—it is completed seconds after it started.

I have not had a chance to look through the bill given the amount of time that member spent on his speech. I am happy to take a call on this. I note that the bill has two parts. Part 1 contains amendments to the Telecommunications Act 2001, and Part 2 is simply the introduction of new schedules. That begs the question: it seems like this is something very, very easy that could have been done quite some time ago and we are only now coming around to it. But then I am asking myself, as there are only two parts to this, what is missing from this bill?

You have to consider the timing of this—when the country is awash with a national housing crisis, we are trying to deal with this issue here. I will tell you at a later stage why I raise that issue.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: While sticking to the bill, you will do that.

In terms of the bill, my colleague David Shearer has said that this bill is really timely. It is something that needs to happen, and therefore we do not have a problem with it if it goes to the select committee. But I think I would be keen, like many I have heard in this House, to listen to the submitters. Although the papers that have been made available talk about category 1—methods that have no lasting impacts on property, such as those that disturb only grass or other soft surfaces—for these installations a statutory right will be provided for network operators to get on with the installation after providing 5 working days’ notice. This is estimated to cover about one-third of installations in shared driveways.

The second category of installation that this information provides for concerns methods that have some lasting impact on property, and I suspect that would be drilling a cable underground, leaving small potholes to access the network every 10 metres or so. Neighbours will be provided with a high-level design and given 15 working days to object, on a limited number of grounds. I am not sure what that limited number of grounds is, but it appears that for 15 working days you have that opportunity to do so—“If they do not object, they will be deemed to have consented. Category two is estimated to cover off approximately 51 percent of installations in shared driveway rights of way.”

Then, at the last part of this information, we have unprescribed installations—“The remaining 12 percent of installation methods that are more invasive than these new categories will continue to be subject to the existing requirement whereby all parties need to provide their consent.” This is information provided by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

I was looking through the bill to see whether there is information available in terms of people living in cars or garages—whether they will have access to this—and I will tell you why. Regarding internet access to the home, this is a report released in 2014, which states: “While 86 per cent of the European population had access to the internet at home in 2012, only 68 per cent of Māori people and 65 per cent of Pacific people had internet access in the home.” Then it goes further: “In 2001, the gap between Europeans and Māori was 8 percentage points. This had increased to 18 percentage points by 2012, an increase of 125 per cent. Similarly, the gap between Europeans and Pacific people was 12 percentage points in 2001. This had increased to 21 percentage points by 2012, an increase of 75 per cent.”

The point is that you have got a significant proportion of the New Zealand population that has no access to the internet in the first place, which I thought would also be something that the Government ought to look at. In my own electorate, internet access is 57.9 percent, compared with 72.8 percent in the rest of New Zealand. A significant proportion not only of my electorate but also of New Zealanders will not be able to benefit from this, and I cannot find anything in the bill that suggests the roll-out of internet access to the rest of the New Zealand population.

Given the situation that we currently have, will people living in cars, garages, and emergency homes have the benefit of this? The point of this whole report is to suggest that one of the signs of poverty and one of the signs of growing inequality is the lack of access to the internet and the lack of access, I suspect, for many to broadband.

My colleague David Parker highlighted a newspaper article this morning in the New Zealand Herald—in Howick this occurred—where it showed some holes that had been dug between not just one but a number of neighbours, with duct tape being used to attach cables. I hope that as part of this bill and part of the public consultation process, the members of the general public who have had some experience so far in being able to access the internet or services that they receive will come forward. My fear, or the concern I have, is that the power that is given to the network operators to simply come through and determine—I do not know whether they will give that notice to the neighbours by way of a letter or by a card. I suspect that there will be a lot of people in various neighbourhoods who do not even pick up the mail in their letterboxes anymore; they have become dependent on email. I would be interested in hearing from the general public how they would prefer to receive that notice, whether it be a letter, a card, or through their internet service.

I do not really have anything further to add to this debate. The explanatory note says that “the Bill will allow prospective liable persons to select their chosen financial year end date rather than mandating the year-ending-30-June format; the Bill will update terminology by replacing the term ‘consolidated statement of financial …’ ”—it seems to be a lot of waffle when we are only trying to do something very, very simple, and that is: enable people to access fibre.

What I am saying is that what is lacking from this bill is what this Government intends to ensure, which is that access to internet communication is available for all New Zealanders. For as long as the figures that I quoted earlier remain, where a significant proportion of New Zealanders and a significant proportion of the Māori electorate do not have access to the internet, the finger-pointing towards this Government that is happening will continue, because lack of access to internet is a sign of poverty. Particularly in this day and age, in the 21st century, if families do not have access to that, then they would be classified as poor—but that is only one of the signs. Thank you very much.

It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, a bill that has a very simple purpose, which is to make it easier for people to connect to ultra-fast broadband (UFB)—easier and quicker. So the last thing they need from me is to take up more time in this House—that could slow down their connections. So I would like to commend them for their interest in connecting to UFB, and I would like to commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you very much. It is interesting to see the Government taking such short calls on this piece of legislation, but I might try to use the 10 minutes to canvass a number of issues around this piece of legislation. Connectivity is a very important issue. I think you only need to see what happens to consumers when they lose their connectivity—and lose their minds—to see how important it is to both businesses and the average Kiwi at home. Making sure that you do have connectivity to the internet is obviously extremely important. It is extremely important in an electorate like mine, in Mana, too. I have the pleasure of sitting on the local board of the Computers in Homes board for Porirua. At the moment, because of the cost of broadband connections, we are currently looking at different ways of being able to offer broadband connectivity, or internet connectivity, to communities like that of Waitangirua and Cannons Creek. We know that if those families in those areas, and the children in those areas, do not have the ability to connect to the internet, they will be at a distinct disadvantage compared with other families and other children who do. So it is certainly an extremely important issue.

This piece of legislation, though, is the kind of bill that you get when a Government does not use its taringas. It should have listened about 2 to 3 years ago when this issue first arose, when the ultra-fast broadband (UFB) roll-out began and people started contacting their local MPs. They said to us: “Hey, we’ve got an issue with a right of way or a body corporate. We can’t connect up to the internet because of this. There’s one curmudgeon in amongst the lot who is not letting us connect to the internet, so we can’t connect.” I am connected. I think most of us are connected, and I think you can all agree just how frustrating it would be if you lived in an apartment and one person, perhaps, was holding this up. But, as I say, this issue is not new.

This was around 2 to 3, potentially 4, years ago, and I think that at the time when I was on the Commerce Committee, we had a number of submitters come to us—and we were discussing a piece of broadband-related legislation—saying: “Hey, we’ve got this issue around connectivity, around rights of way, around body corporates.” So it was a live issue then, and my colleague Clare Curran was extremely hot on this issue, saying to the Government: “What are you going to do about this?”. Because if you’re talking about making sure that as many New Zealanders as possible can be connected to the UFB, we could potentially have a big problem—and potentially in our biggest city of Auckland, where we do have a lot of apartment living, a lot of shared dwellings, and rights of way—where you could have an enormous number of people not being able to connect. We had the likes of the telecommunications companies come to us and say: “Hey guys, this is an issue. We can’t do this. There are property rights at play, and, fair enough, because this is where the legislation sits now, but we might need to address this issue relatively quickly so we can make sure that people can get connected.” To those people at home who are not connected because of this issue, I would like you to see just how responsive this Government is to those needs that you had 2 to 3 to 4 years ago. You have waited not weeks, not months, but years for this issue to be addressed in this House. As I say, this is not a new issue.

Can I also have a little bit of sympathy for the Minister who is responsible for this piece of legislation. Who does not want more New Zealanders to be connected to the internet? That is what this piece of legislation does. But she was passed a huge hospital pass by Steven Joyce—and I acknowledge the contribution of Gareth Hughes that he made earlier. Steven Joyce sat on this problem for years, and when election time came round and Amy Adams, whom I have a lot of respect for, took over the telecommunications portfolio, there was a big issue here, and she is the one who has to front the legislation. Steven Joyce did not have his eyes across the detail when the ultra-fast broadband roll-out was proposed. He did not have his eyes across the detail when this issue came across the table at the select committee. He ignored the thousands of people who, I am sure, have been affected by this, who are saying “We can’t get connected.”, and he left Amy Adams to pick up the pieces. So I do have a certain amount of sympathy for that Minister, who is responsible for this legislation because Steven Joyce, the previous Minister of telecommunications either ignored or wilfully ignored this issue or just said: “Hey, I’m not going to be the Minister any more—not my problem.” But we have got this piece of legislation that hopes to fix that issue, and I guess that in some way we have to give some acknowledgement to the Government that it is actually doing something about this. It might be years later, but that is the situation we are in.

What does this piece of legislation actually do to solve the problem of people who are in a situation where because they have a body corporate or right of way or because someone else has a right to the carriageway or the land where you would hope to put the UFB cables down, someone is either not responding or does not want it there? Well, for homes down rights of way, no consent will be required, although 5 days’ notice must be given if a fibre cable installation is non-invasive. I am told that that is if it is a shallow hole under grass—so if it is an easy job, no consent is required, though you have to give 5 days’ notice of that. For apartments, a UFB installer, I am told, will get deemed consent and be able to proceed if they have not heard from the body corporate within 15 days. So if you give notice and you do not get any feedback after 15 days, for an apartment, you should be good to go, and there is the right for the UFB installer to go and get stuck in and put the cable in. If the installation is categorised as an invasive, because it involves major work, work will proceed if no neighbours on a shared right of way object. So it is slightly more complicated. Obviously, there is a notification period, but if no one says no on that right of way, then, again, you can go and fill your boots and make sure that the cable is installed. That will create a solution for many people out there who have been frustrated at the lack of connection to UFB.

The UFB is extremely important not just to the families who use it to watch Netflix or do whatever but also, in terms of the economic growth that this Government puts so much weight on, to the UFB roll-out. But I would like to stress again that it got all excited and said: “Here’s the UFB.” Some people put up their hands, including the telecommunications companies, and said “Hey guys, there’s a slight detail here with us being able to roll this out to everybody in terms of apartments, rights of way, and body corporates.”, but the Government did not listen, and we are here doing another patch up on an extremely important piece of legislation that this Government has trumpeted since it came into office in 2008. It is trying to usher it through late on a Tuesday night, with those members taking very few calls, because they feel a bit guilty. They feel just a little bit guilty. They think: “We don’t want to talk about it for very long, because it is something that we should have done 4 years ago—4 years ago.”

I could go and find some of the emails that I had from constituents from right around the country who said “Hey, why isn’t the Government listening to us on this one?”, and I do not think they are watching tonight, because I think they have given up all hope of the Government doing anything about it. But help is on its way, because the Labour Party will support this piece of legislation. It is late. It is bad because the Government should have done it much, much earlier. Again, I have some sympathy for Amy Adams. I do not expect Amy Adams to be sending a Christmas card to Steven Joyce this year, because, in terms of parliamentary hospital passes, he has thrown her an absolute doozy.

I rise to take just a brief call on the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. This bill is about connectivity. So in the first part of connectivity—e Te Mana e Te Whakawā, tēnā koe; in Māori Language Week, Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori—we connect with our Māori whānau and iwi who are out there as well. In the second piece of connectivity, can I also acknowledge our Chamber stewards, the ones whom I have come to know over this period of time. There is Trevor, Thomas, Sue, Bob, Judy, Pat, Euan, and Philip. Can I just acknowledge their service to us in this House and their warm smiles and their friendliness as well.

The last part of connectivity is just the fact that what this bill does do—and it has been laboured on a number of occasions in regard to property access—is ensure that there is a consenting process that is tiered and allows for a regime that allows for quicker installation. We think that is good. I am looking forward to being on the Commerce Committee, which will receive submissions and work this bill through the House. There is not an ounce of guilt in here; instead, there is a sense of wanting to do the work that is necessary to get the job done. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Commerce Committee.

I move, That the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be reported to the House by a date that is 4 months and 1 day from the day that the bill receives its first reading.

Motion agreed to.