Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

I begin my contribution on the Committee stage of the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill with reference to Part 1 of the bill, which deals with Subpart 3 of Part 4 of the Act, and Subpart 4 of Part 4 of the Act. I would like to start by going to the heart of the two major issues that this bill addresses and deals with. A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by the chairman of the management committee of a heritage-listed block of flats in Mount Victoria in Wellington. These 25 flats, with six other properties, are variously homes and flats. They are privately owned between all owners. The person who contacted me had been leading the charge on behalf of all owners for more than a year to get broadband fibre installed. The issue was that one of the owners in one of those 25 flats and six other properties was unwilling to consider having fibre installed and, as a result, the whole thing had ground to a complete halt. There appears to have been an impasse on how the rest of those people could get access to ultra-fast broadband. This bill addresses that particular issue.

I also refer to a submission that was received by the select committee considering this bill—a submission by Ernie Newman, who is a very well-known character in New Zealand, formerly the chief executive of the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand, and a long time activist, I guess you could say, in terms of better connectivity for New Zealanders. In August last year, in our first round of submissions on this bill, he asked the committee to consider adding a provision to the bill, which was before the select committee, to provide deemed access for fibre-optic cable within overhead electricity lines as had been floated in a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment discussion paper. He cited that this would be a historic step change, enabling large tracts of rural and provincial New Zealand to enjoy not just the rural broadband that they have been conditioned to expect but fully-fledged city-style ultra-fast broadband.

This bill solves both of those really quite fundamental issues. If the members on this side of the Chamber during the course of this debate this afternoon sound quite effusive about a Government piece of legislation, that is because they actually are. We heartily support this legislation, and we are so effusive about it because it was our 2014 policy. Not only that, but half of it, the latter part, which deals with fibre being strung out on electricity lines, was actually crafted in the Commerce Committee and is not actually Government policy. In fact, it goes way beyond Government policy in terms of helping to provide an opportunity for a true economic step change in rural New Zealand, for rural New Zealand to get actual fibre—not the half-baked rural broadband measures that have been provided so far by the Government but real fibre, strung out across properties throughout, and providing a network across rural New Zealand should the electricity companies choose to take up that opportunity.

Those are my opening remarks on this, because it is actually new Subpart 3, in clause 10, that deals with the access issues, access to shared driveways and multi-unit dwellings, which take up an enormous number of connections, which have been described by one provider as 60 percent of its work. Dealing with the roadblocks that exist for people to get connected if they live down shared driveways or if they live or work in apartment buildings or multi-unit dwellings—the access provisions are in new Subpart 3 of Part 4 of the Telecommunications Act, inserted by clause 10 of the bill, which says: “The purpose of this subpart is to enable more people and businesses to obtain the benefits of fibre-to-the-premises and other technology, within a shorter time frame, by—(a) recognising that, when more than 1 person’s consent is required for [a fibre-to-the-premises] service provider or a network operator to access a property … and there are difficulties in obtaining those consents, the process of installing infrastructure … is delayed and opportunities to realise the benefits of that technology are missed;”. What this bill does is provide for a tiered system of statutory rights of access. That is dealing with one of the issues. Then, in new Subpart 4, in clause 10 of the bill, it deals with the substantial part, which is the new part of the legislation, which provides the right of access to use existing electricity works for telecommunications and deploying fibre-optic cable into rural New Zealand.

Can I acknowledge the work of officials and the Parliamentary Counsel Office on this bill. An enormous amount of work and attention to detail has gone into this bill, and I truly do acknowledge the effort and the attention and the commitment that that they made in order to get this bill before the House. Can I acknowledge the work of the Commerce Committee, which really, truly did work hard on this. We went through two rounds of submissions because once we had actually taken on board the fact that we needed to consider the new part of the bill, we went through another round of submissions to ensure that we were doing it right and that we were dealing with any fish-hooks and unintended consequences. I acknowledge the chair, Melissa Lee, for being very open to this process going forward. It was truly a select committee doing the job that it should be doing in Parliament, which is to get the best piece of legislation before the House.

So I am very keen to get this passed and into law. In further comments that I will be making in this discussion this afternoon, I note that the Minister has tabled the quite considerable Supplementary Order Paper 280, which ultimately does deal with technical changes, making the bill even better than it was when it came back from the select committee, ensuring that we have got it right. There will be more comments to be made on that, but ultimately this is necessary. It should have been done ages ago. The Government trumpets its ultra-fast broadband (UFB) agenda. Well, it is an important piece of infrastructure, but there have been too many roadblocks—too many roadblocks. At least 17 percent of applications for ultra-fast broadband have been held up for months, and in some cases years, because of the difficulties in getting consents. There are a lot of people in New Zealand who live down shared driveways. There are a lot of people who live in apartment buildings. Sometimes they just simply give up trying to get UFB, because it is just too hard. This legislation should have been before the House 3 years ago, actually, and why it has been held up—well, I think it got held up because the previous Minister for Communications, Amy Adams, was all caught up in a property rights debate.

💬 Chris Bishop: Aw!

Well, let us have that discussion, because why has it been held up? There have been reports by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment on it. The industry has been begging for it, asking for it to be sorted, and finally it is. We have also got that incredibly useful, important economic opportunity for rural New Zealand that this includes, which is not, let us just remember, Government policy. It goes way beyond Government policy. It is a really useful piece of legislation that comes out of a select committee. It shows that Parliament is actually working really well when Opposition members are motivated and the industry just keeps on pushing.

It is really good to take a call on this bill. I agree with the member Clare Curran that it is an important, fundamental bill. The reason for that is that whilst at first glance it might seem like it deals with some relatively neat issues, such as consenting property access around some easements and a few driveways, actually, she is dead right that it fundamentally means much more than that. It means that ultra-fast broadband (UFB)—the gold standard in internet connectivity, not just in New Zealand but around the world—is coming to many more New Zealanders. I want to come back to that shortly.

Can I also just say, the member said she is effusive about this bill, and she should be—she should be—because it really is a good piece of work by the Commerce Committee. Whilst I do not agree with her about it not being a matter of Government policy—it has gone through a Cabinet process, a very substantive Cabinet process, and has come out the other side as the policy of the National-led Government—what I will say to the member is this: credit where credit is due. The select committee has done a fine job. I want to thank Melissa Lee, the chair, for her work on this bill, and I also want to thank the member Clare Curran for taking a very diligent and constructive approach to this. I know she is—it is an overused word—passionate about these issues and dedicated to them, so, as I say, once again, I thank her for that.

She has mentioned the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in this area. There is one particularly large SOP that, as she rightly says, is very technical in nature. I think, as a measure of our sense that she is acutely interested in and passionate about these issues, and of the Government’s desire to play with an open bat on this, I have given her literally all of our advice on this SOP so that she can go through the technical details and can see what it is and where it is that the Government’s advice is coming from on this. I am very gratified by that approach from the Government and the Opposition and, as I understand, the support of the Opposition for that SOP.

Can I just come back to this bill. It is about much more than just streamlining the process for installing UFB. It is so much more than that. It is connecting tens of thousands more New Zealanders to high-speed internet. We were told, through the select committee process and through the Government’s homework in this area, that there are 71,000 households that at the moment cannot obtain active consent from the other property owner concerned. That is not, in many cases, because they are actively opposed. It is just because they are, I do not know, too busy watching Netflix or are preoccupied with something else, and have not got, can I say, their “a” into “g” to do the consenting in this area.

This bill deals with that. It means it will be faster to get through those issues. That is incredibly important. It does not just mean it will be a bit faster for households; it means that where they could not, fundamentally, get the broadband—the UFB fibre—to their homes because they could not work through those issues, now they will. It does that by having, effectively, a tiered consenting regime, a very simple process to step through—firstly, at category 1, where there is no substantial enduring impact on shared properties. So the UFB is not going to cause, as I say, a lasting substantial, physical impact on the property. Then you get to walk through the steps, with 5 working days’ notice, in general terms.

In other cases it is slightly more complex than this, but for the vast run of cases, if it is not category 1, it is category 2, where there is a greater level of impact. But where the impact is still considered justifiable, in support of the mass-market roll-out of the next-generation telecommunications network, then it is a 15 working days’ process, with some specific grounds for objecting.

That is, in many ways, I would suggest—there are other parts and other things in the bill—the guts of it. I say again that I agree with the previous speaker. This fundamental bill will make a great difference.

I thank the Minister for taking that call. Can I start with some acknowledgments—first of all, I guess, to my colleague Clare Curran, who I think even the Minister may have suggested has been dogged with this issue. I do remember many, many moons ago when I used to be a member of the Commerce Committee, when my colleague Clare Curran was chasing up this issue in the infancy of broadband roll-out. So I would like to acknowledge her and her unwavering commitment to make sure that these issues are dealt with. Secondly, there is an acknowledgment, obviously, to the Commerce Committee for being open enough to make the very technical and, I guess, particular changes that are within this piece of legislation, to ensure that people who want to get connected to broadband can do so.

The third acknowledgment I want to make is to a man who passed away about this time last year, Rob Neru. He used to operate a business in my electorate. He was the chief executive of the Pacific Business Trust, but before he took over that role he was the operator of a business called Advantage4me. It was run out of Porirua. It was an online rugby coaching tool. So they used high-definition video to help coaches out in the community better coach their teams. He had an issue with an office he was in, back in 2013 I believe it was. He came to me for some assistance with some delays that he was having with getting his, I guess, quite high-width broadband installed into his location. He was having issues because he was in a multi-dwelling unit.

So a lot of the issues that Mr Neru raised with me back in 2013 around continued access, because of maintenance and upgrading, are being dealt with in this piece of legislation. I think if he were still here today he would be very happy with what is going on. I think he would be, to some extent, frustrated that it took so long to get here, but I guess it goes to the doggedness of my colleague sitting behind me that these issues are being taken up.

This piece of legislation, as I said, is quite particular. One of the issues that he raised at the time, being in a multi-dwelling unit—I believe it was Chorus at the time that was having some difficulty meeting the requirements of what he wanted in his business. He had to get the consent of the other businesses that were, essentially, his neighbours, and he was having some trouble getting to that. This is going to make that a lot easier. I think, having been shown around by Rob at the time, it was not an issue of having to go in and put holes in the walls of his neighbours; it was the access to common areas within the building to be able to do some of the planning and to do the outfitting of the cabling into his building that was at the nub of his frustrations. I guess there are a number of clauses within this piece of legislation that carry out that.

One of the questions that I had for the Minister—and I know that there is a disputes resolution system built into this legislation—is: how will that work? As someone who was not on the select committee at that stage, while this sets out a framework where business owners in Mr Neru’s situation might be happy that things can happen, there is still the potential for things to not go to plan if someone were to put up a protest. My question is—and sorry for not being able to figure it out within the legislation—how responsive is the disputes resolution system; not only how responsive, but how fast can it act? Because when we are talking about 15 days for a category 2 application for work, that is what I would call quite a tight time frame. And how quickly can a disputes resolution complaint be sorted out to make sure that someone who is in that situation might not have to wait months—it might just be weeks—to make sure that that issue might be sorted out?

There is of course an onus on people who are installing the system to put the property back into the shape that they found it in. I think that is certainly one of the issues that I have found in—not just in the case that I am quoting here but also other constituents have come to me with issues around access. That is why the Commerce Committee has done great work and been very particular about what they are asking and the obligations of those who are installing the broadband.

So I would like to just finish by congratulating the select committee. They have done fantastic work. Again, I acknowledge my colleague behind me because she has not let this one go. I think this piece of legislation is all the better for the doggedness and determination and passion that Clare Curran has had for many years around this issue. I think people in and around the country who are sick of the delays, quite rightly, will still be sick of the delays, but now they will have a piece of legislation, when it is passed soon, that will cut a lot of the time and waiting and frustration out of their lives to make sure they can get access to broadband. Thank you.

I am feeling somewhat a little bit sorry for you this afternoon, Mr Chairperson, because you are going to hear a lot of repetition from this side of the Chamber today. I want to reiterate the fact that the Commerce Committee did, in fact, work very hard. We had quite a big look actually into our current situation—how out there our rural and our urban areas struggle with issues—and this bill, as presented to the House in the first reading, actually was looking at changing that. One of the biggest things—I think we are all going to say this, actually, at some stage today—is that I was quite surprised, but not actually surprised at the same time, that Supplementary Order Paper 280 arrived in my hot little hands at 10.30 this morning. I have gone through this and looked at all the amendments in the Supplementary Order Paper, and I do want to congratulate the Minister for Communications and this Government on making those changes.

I want to add though that what I was quite—what is the word I can use—curious about, in terms of New Zealand First, was the fact that the note from the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) on the back of the Supplementary Order Paper states that it is not necessary for a departmental disclosure statement and that it is actually not required. I want to ask: why is that? Because, yes, this bill fixes glitches and technical errors and improves the drafting, but it has a massive change in clause 10, which is significant and addresses a lot of the issues that our submitters spoke to us about when we held one round of submissions and then we went back again to check ourselves to make sure that we were making good choices in round two of the submissions, which Clare Curran has actually spoken about earlier. So I was quite surprised by that, and I wondered whether the Minister in the chair, the Hon Jacqui Dean, could answer that question: why is it that MBIE has actually said that there is no need for a departmental disclosure statement?

Like previous speakers, we have also spoken about the units that are individually owned and the issue of complexity when it comes to owners wanting to have ultra-fast broadband (UFB) and also fibre—quite rightfully so. This consent process has dragged its feet quite significantly, and it is good that this bill actually addresses that. The minority of people in that situation do not hold the power over the majority, and tend to miss out on good core services that they would like to have access to.

One of the areas that I do want to talk about as well is that this bill, significantly, will actually close the digital division between the urban and rural areas. I think that that is absolutely significant in the sense that this bill will bring an enormous benefit to telecommunications and the connectivity in rural New Zealand, and it also allows for UFB services to reach our rural community. These are our farms. It is important because the technical ability to have enhanced wireless services will actually pay benefits to our farming community. Rural Women New Zealand actually put a submission forward saying that it would require an enabler for it to have access to this. We looked at this further and the issues that actually also spun out of this.

I want to also add that for Southland—you know, we have issues trying to attract a young workforce for our rural area and on our farms. I think we are sitting somewhere at about 24 percent, percentage-wise, of Southlanders struggling to actually fulfil employment areas for employees. Some of the feedback from mums and dads who submitted was the fact that the young ones were going out to apply for a position on a farm, but they kind of walked away really quickly because there was no connectivity. There was no ability for them to live after hours and have a bit of a social life through social media. That was a major detraction. So I see that the Supplementary Order Paper and the significant changes through the input that the Opposition put into this bill have been, for us anyway, quite rewarding.

We are quite thankful that this bill is fit for purpose, that this bill has been rigorously scrutinised, and we are very happy with all the amendments in the Supplementary Order Paper. Thank you.

I think this would have been the fourth or fifth time that we are debating this bill at the select committee stage, and I am not quite sure as to what the hold-up is, because we have given our full support to this. In fact, you have heard from my colleague Clare Curran that we have practically written this bill. We are in the new millennium—the information and communications technology age—yet this Government seems to be dragging its feet to take this into the future.

I also understand that there were a number of submitters who supported the right to deploy fibre on existing power poles. Not being a member of that committee, I would like to ask the Minister whether those submissions were considered and whether those submissions were integrated into the changes that are required, as submitted by Rural Women New Zealand, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Northland, the Whangarei District Council, the Central Otago District Council, Steve Macmillan, Telecommunications Solutions working group, Energy Trust of New Zealand, Rural Health Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand, and Telecommunication Users Association of New Zealand. I think those are significant individuals who know a thing or two about our telecommunications industry, who have given quality advice, in my view, to the committee. I do not know whether the Minister has taken on board what was asked by that group. They supported the right to deploy fibre on existing power poles.

You see, the reason why I am asking the Minister is that it seems that, despite all the hard work and effort by committee members—and mainly my colleague Clare Curran, who has been driving this, it seems—we do not know why the Minister is, sort of, taking our time about getting this out. I would have thought that the rural industries, particularly the farmers, who are trying to be innovative and who are dealing with selling their meat and other products on an international level, would want to have UFB readily available to them immediately. It just does not seem to click as to why the Government is taking its time on ushering this piece of legislation through the appropriate passages.

As I said, this will be the fourth or fifth time that we are now debating the parts—and there are only two parts—so that is the concerning thing. Why is the Government not ready or willing or able to pass this legislation? Is it because, in effect, they are approving Labour Party policy when they pass this legislation? Is that the reason why? Because I think that if that is the real reason, it is petty. It is really petty. The country needs us to move forward as an industrialised nation, and we need to get this off the ground immediately. And so I do not see any reason—I do not know whether there is any other party in this House that is opposing this particular bill. See, even my friends from New Zealand First are saying they support this bill. So what is the hold-up with this Government?

I am hoping that the Minister will be able to take some time and address that, because some of us who are speaking on this are not members of that select committee but yet we are passionate about the need to upgrade our fibre system. And, really, if you have got people living at the end of the same driveway, or having businesses in the same facility, I would expect that nobody would put up a fuss. No one would oppose having these fibres linking them up directly to the World Wide Web, which nowadays every business, every individual is so dependent upon.

See, that member is a farmer. He knows what it is like out in the rural areas. And he is laughing his head off because this Government—his Government—is dragging its feet. That is probably why he has left Parliament. He is sick and tired of this. That is probably why he has left Parliament. Either he has left Parliament because he is sick and tired of this Government dragging its feet on those things that are important, or the National Party just wants to get rid of him. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to speak to the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. This is a bill, as was reflected on by my colleagues—notably, Clare Curran, who has worked so hard for many years on this bill and the concepts that underlie it—that the Labour Party is supporting. But there are a few issues that are worth reflecting upon that have arisen during the select committee stage. I want to focus my comments in that direction.

The first thing I want to say is that, in reading through the notes from the Commerce Committee on this bill, the part of the bill that I was really excited about, in terms of the work that the select committee has done, has been around the point that was touched upon by my colleague Aupito William Sio around where we have fibre that is crossing farmland and the way that we practically manage the impact on property rights.

One of the major conceptual matters that the select committee considered when it looked at this bill was, effectively, that trade-off, because what this bill is attempting to achieve is a breakthrough in terms of ultra-fast broadband delivery—and everyone would agree that that is a good thing—but what we have practically found, since we started going down this track several years ago, is that people’s natural property rights sometimes get in the way. That is the brute reality of the matter. Sometimes you need to cross someone else’s land in order to get an ultra-fast broadband connection to your property. That is the core problem, and it is the duty of this House and all of its processes to consider that stuff seriously, because although we support ultra-fast broadband and its wider roll-out, we also need to take care to ensure that when we do disrupt people’s property rights, we do so in an appropriate and balanced and reasonable fashion, given the benefits that we are trying to achieve.

And so one of the things that drew my attention in the select committee’s consideration is amended sections 155ZS and ZT, and these amended sections provide that when the owner of the existing works, in other words, the provider, is going over someone’s land, particularly in a rural situation—how do we effectively offset for the fact that we are impinging on that landowner’s property rights? And I think the solution that has been arrived at here is actually very elegant, which is that, effectively, we provide that landowner with the connection. And, to me, that is an example of some smart thinking in terms of balancing rights with things that we want to achieve at a public policy level.

There were some good comments around this in the submissions. We had them being weighed up. We had groups like InternetNZ, which was concerned that providing this obligation potentially makes it less likely that we will get roll-out. We had other service providers that were not so keen. We had what looks to me like the honest farmers of various parts of New Zealand saying that we should supply to a certain length—potentially up to 500 metres—at no cost to the landowner. And where the select committee has settled is a distance of 200 metres free, with, effectively, a 50 percent cost offset if it goes over 200 metres. To me, that is a good balance that we have struck there, and shows the select committee and the process working very well and balancing up the different rights of people with the public policy that we are wanting to achieve in this process.

Some other points that I think are just worth reflecting on in the bill, particularly in the select committee’s considerations, is amended section 155Q, which relates to the ability of rights to access being able to be withheld. In properties where there are, potentially, multiple owners, this is a key issue that the bill considers. And I think of my own apartment not too far from this House, where there are probably something like 80 property owners in the one apartment building. How do you deal with access to common areas? Is there an ability for one person to unreasonably frustrate what would otherwise be reasonable access for the purposes of getting ultra-fast broadband to one or a number of the units in that apartment building? What this amended sections says, and it has been clarified by the select committee, is, simply, that that cannot be unreasonably withheld. So, again, I think that the select committee has done good work in this area in really going through with a fine-tooth comb and pick out the problems where we might not be getting the outcome that we want.

Some other areas where I think some good work was done in that area was amended section 155TA, which limits the right of people to object when there is an ultra-fast broadband connection on the grounds that it would interrupt telecommunications during the period of installation. It says that that objection is reasonable only if it is within business hours. I think there are some very sensible changes that have been made by select committee, and we are certainly supportive of the bill.

Kia ora, Mr Chair. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou, kia ora. Look, it is 2017. I do not need to tell the Committee how important this year is, but I think it is important to stop and reflect that it was only 10 years ago, in 2007, that we really saw the transformational power of technology, which is what we are dealing with in this legislation. It was only 10 years ago that the iPhone was launched, 10 years ago that Airbnb was conceived, 10 years ago that Twitter was spun off, 10 years ago that IBM started work on its Watson supercomputer, and 10 years ago that Facebook opened up. It is incredible to stop and think how much change we have seen from all those different devices and technologies in the last 10 years.

The problem this bill is dealing with is how we empower and unleash the empowering technology to help New Zealanders, New Zealand businesses, and New Zealand communities. We have seen how the world has changed and how New Zealand has changed, but too much of New Zealand is stuck in the past, with old-fashioned, slow copper lines. This legislation is trying to deal with two problems. The first is that the Government is spending an awful lot of money on ultra-fast broadband, something that all parties in Parliament support. We want to see more New Zealanders connected, taking up the opportunities of fibre to work at home, to upload, and to create. But under some problems with the provisions relating to third-party access to shared driveways or apartments—for example, we know that maybe 44,000 installs could have failed as a result of needing a complex negotiation through an apartment, or the ability of neighbours to block access to a driveway needed so someone could install fibre. This was something identified many years ago by both the Labour and Green parties, and it is good that we are finally, many years on, seeing action.

But I want to talk about another problem, which is that we have got tens of thousands of kilometres of wires providing electricity to all corners of the country, a great transmission method to get internet—high-quality internet—to people, no matter where they live in the country. This was an area that was not in the bill originally, but the Commerce Committee was able to come together—and I want to acknowledge the chair, Melissa Lee, and the other members of the committee—to come up with an innovative solution to deal with that problem. The original legislation was dealing with the access issues. The second part of the solution was that the committee came together to find a solution to allow electricity distributors—lines companies—to string fibre up on their existing works. What this means is that for a farmer who is out in rural New Zealand, who has got electricity access, they can now, through their lines companies, see internet access on that same pole. The committee grappled with some of the tricky issues: in terms of land access, in terms of who has got the contractual obligations, and who has got the communication responsibilities with that landowner.

An area I thought was particularly important and was working on was new section 155ZZF. What happens if you do have a lines company—of course, we have got 29 regional electricity distribution monopolies across New Zealand. What if one of them said: “Look, our core business is electricity provision. We are not particularly fussed about internet provision.” The catalyst for getting this pioneering Subpart 4 through this legislation was Northpower, which I really want to acknowledge and thank for its excellent work and submissions. But what about the other 28, if they choose not to? A compromise that was reached on the committee was that we have delegated those powers to the Minister, through Order in Council, to make a regulation.

I would have preferred a more positive empowering obligation in this primary legislation so that third parties—an internet service provider, for example, or regional fibre provider—could go to a lines company and say: “Look, you’ve got thousands of customers out there. They don’t have high-quality internet access at the moment. We would like to use your electricity lines to make it possible, given you are a regional monopoly with public benefit.” However, we did not see consensus on that point in the committee, so it is good that we at least have a regulation-making power for the Minister.

Just to summarise: we have seen a very clear problem, in terms of the slowness and inability for Kiwis to access high-quality internet. We have seen two solutions, one from the Government, which all parties support, and one from the committee—probably the most inspirational select committee process that I have experienced in my 7 years in Parliament, a committee coming together to work on shared solutions. And then this vision for New Zealand—that we could see more in this country connected, taking up the opportunities of the internet.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this Committee stage debate of the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I would like to commend the Commerce Committee. It seems that there was a lot of collaboration and a lot of brainstorming about what the solutions could be to the issues at hand. I particularly want to highlight that when additional amendments were identified, the select committee actually engaged in a second round of consultation with the public to make sure that it got this bill right. I think it has got it right.

I just want to talk about a few things that have now come to my mind, in terms of the relevance of this legislation to not only my community but other communities around New Zealand. For me, it was about understanding what the Government’s aspiration was. The Government originally had a goal of 75 percent coverage for ultra-fast broadband by 2019. It has amended that goal—now it wants to provide high-speed broadband connectivity to at least 80 percent of New Zealanders by 2022. So that got me thinking about why the Government would want to commit over $210 million to this particular priority it has identified.

The benefits to business are actually about—and I have just had a look at some of them—faster downloads, which are apparently three times faster; faster uploads, which are apparently 10 times faster; increased reliability; improved information and data flow; high-quality video conferencing; cost-effective access; and lower costs by utilising internet-calling services. Overall, this is about enhancing the environment for businesses. That is fantastic. Then, from a personal or home perspective, it was also about allowing people to work from home so they do not have to go into work—they can actually work from home. There were the same issues—consistent online video and TV services, and lower-cost telephone and internet-calling services. The net benefit to New Zealanders and to New Zealand is huge.

I want to acknowledge what this bill is attempting to do. From my read of it, we have decided that everybody should have access to what I call a “platform technology”, which is ultra-fast broadband. I think there is collaboration across the House because all of us want access to that technology. In fact, in my own home situation it took me over a year, working with my six other shared-driveway homeowners, to actually have access to ultra-fast broadband. It took a long time, it took a lot of collaboration, and it took a lot of working with Parliamentary Service and Chorus. So I have experienced the relevance of this legislation in my life.

I am hoping that, through the authorisation of land access, instances where the consent of more than one party is required will be addressed in this bill, so that if people want to connect, they are not then dependent on others who may not want to connect or may not want to connect at that point in time. That has then kind of led me to think about having access to this platform technology—being able to utilise it. I guess this is my challenge to the Government, in terms of providing access, because the assumption is that people have the devices, either at home or at work or at school, to be able to use the technology.

One of the really interesting things that I have found is that in May 2016 the New Zealand Council for Educational Research produced a report, and it was actually about schools’ access to devices that enable them to use this platform technology. If you are from a low-decile school the access is through devices that the school provides, and they are shared, but if you come from a high-decile school—66 percent of decile 9 and 10 schools have what they call “bring your own device” (BYOD) policies. It is actually an expectation of the school, given they have access to the technology through the Network for Learning, which provides State-funded broadband to 2,500 schools.

The Government is really committed to this technology, which is why it has contracted Network for Learning to provide this technology at schools. But I am bringing this up as an issue because I think it is an issue for the future. If you are at a decile 9 or 10 school—66 percent of those schools have these “bring your own device” policies. That then assumes that the parents are going to be able to provide these devices to their kids. Why? Well, the “why” I have outlined. It is all those benefits about access to information, data—I guess interfacing with data, especially for our young people when they are doing research projects—and actually having the knowledge to engage with the world. That then provides them with better learning environments, and, hopefully, better learning outcomes.

But one of the interesting things I noted that has just happened is that Katrina Casey, who works for the Ministry of Education, has said that these BYOD policies actually break our Education Act, because our Education Act says that education should be free. If some of the schools are wanting to have these BYOD policies and the Ministry of Education is saying “Well, you can’t, because education is supposed to be free, and requiring parents to provide these devices to their kids breaks the Education Act.”, then I guess that is my wero or my challenge back to the Government, because I think it is incumbent on all of us, then, to provide access to these devices to all of our children.

I know at Manurewa High School—it is a decile 1c school and some would say that, you know, our community does not have the capability to buy these devices. Well, actually, our school has prioritised that our children will have access to these devices, because in the world we live in now if our children cannot access these devices, and they do not have the full range of devices available to them within an education context, then they will never fulfil their potential and they will not be fit for purpose in this modern world. So my challenge now back to the Government is if we are requiring schools to drop their BYOD policies because education is free in New Zealand, then it must provide those devices to all of our kids so they can actually benefit from what is a priority not only for the Government, but, I think, for all political parties across the House. And I bring it up in this debate because it seems that we have come from a situation where, in 2001, we completely overhauled this telecommunications area.

This is about providing efficient and effective regulation of telecommunications, and so if we are going to create an environment where we spend over $210 million to create a technology platform, then we actually have an obligation, I believe, based on that investment to ensure that every child in this country has access to the devices that are going to enable them to utilise ultra-fast broadband. It will be interesting to hear what the Minister thinks about that. It is not a component of this bill, but I think, given the Ministry of Education’s position, the Government does need to respond to this. The reason that Manurewa High School—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): No, not now.

—decided to have a BYOD—[Interruption]—am I getting too; sorry—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Yes, you are.

—policy was that, as I said before, it recognised how important ultra-fast broadband is. In fact, my three high schools—Manurewa High School, James Cook High School, and Alfriston College—want to link their access to State-funded broadband together so that my whole community can have free Wi-Fi, because they want the kids to not only be able to use their devices at school, where they can connect; they want them to use these devices at home.

So I think, given the intention of this bill, given the work that the select committee has done, given that this seems to be an area that, across the Committee, we all recognise is incredibly important to the future of our country—because this is about regional economic development. This is about equality of opportunity for all of our children. No matter where you live and no matter which school you go to, if your school is able to connect and you are able to engage in and with the world, through either having a device at school or a device that you own yourself, I think that we are going to get better learning outcomes for our children. From my perspective as a member of the House and also as a member who was not on the Commerce Committee, I think this is an incredibly important piece of legislation. So more than standing in support of it, I am actually opening us up to ask what is the next phase in the evolution of providing this platform technology to all New Zealanders and, from my perspective, specifically to young people, who through this technology can achieve wonderful things. Thank you.

I think the member Louisa Wall made some really good points, which I will touch on in a minute. There are a few more acknowledgments, though, that I would like to make around the select committee process. Actually, quite a lot of speakers have spoken about how it was actually quite transformative for them to see how a select committee can do a really good job. I would like to acknowledge New Zealand First member Ria Bond, Green member Gareth Hughes, and also the National member Brett Hudson, because we actually all did engage our brains and our ability to work collegially on something that was worthwhile.

I want to go to the access provisions and the cost of not being able to get down shared driveways and into multi-unit dwellings, and the impact that those barriers have actually had, I guess, in the last 4 or 5 years, since ultra-fast broadband has been rolling out. We were told in the Commerce Committee by the Telecommunications Carriers Forum that 17 percent of people who are making applications for ultra-fast broadband are getting held up in this consenting process. This was backed up by Spark, which used around about the same number for its connections. Enable Networks, which is another provider around the Christchurch area, told us that it was affecting around 60 percent of the work that it is doing, which is actually really very concerning. The 17 percent figure is pretty concerning as well.

We asked submitters to come back to us with some idea of how to quantify what that actually meant. Spark told us that it meant $40 million in terms of lost work, essentially. That was about a year ago—or maybe it was around September, I think, that it contacted us, so it is less than a year ago, but that is pretty considerable. If you add that up—I cannot do the extrapolation, and it would be good if we had the resources to do that—we are talking in the realm of around $100 million in lost connectivity for the industry and for the people who are not able to access ultra-fast broadband, when they actually can access it but it is just that the consenting process, and the complexity and the bureaucracy of it, has been so difficult to get around.

There are multiple cases. Every member in this Committee, were they wont to do so—clearly, the National Party members are not—could get up and tell stories from the constituents who have contacted them and are desperate for a way around this. While I was talking in my first contribution on this bill, my office was having calls from a particular gentleman from the Wairarapa who wants me to raise questions on his behalf in the House as to why he has to put up with the terrible connectivity that he and the people in his community have. Well, this bill will not fix all of those issues but it will go some way towards dealing with the blockages if you live down shared driveways and in multi-unit dwellings. If your electricity lines company is willing—after this bill passes—to enter into an arrangement to string fibre up out into rural New Zealand, other providers will then be able to get you access to decent, quality connectivity.

There is a problem of a digital divide—[Bell rung] Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I will do it with a warning to now stick very narrowly to what is in the bill and the Supplementary Order Paper.

There is a digital divide in this country, and this bill, through the provisions in, particularly, new Subpart 3 and Subpart 4 of Part 4, in clause 10, are going to go a long way to address it.

Unfortunately, there is no proper quantification of the digital divide in this country, although we heard over and over again in the select committee from submitters of the urgency to address these issues because of the pressure from communities to address poor connectivity. In Southland, 24 percent of rural businesses said that a lack of connectivity affected their ability to attract staff and 41 percent said their internet service does not meet their needs. Council surveys in Huntly showed that just 44 percent of households have internet access, and it was 51 percent in Tuakau and 51 percent in Taumarunui. In Southland again, although 50 percent had heard of the Government’s broadband programme, only 4 percent had noticed any improvement so far. In Kawerau, the main schools complained that very few of their students had the internet at home, due to cost and access issues. Their students were being held back. The children of a family living near Blenheim were reported as having to stay up until 2 a.m. to do their homework because of the slowness of their internet connection.

With the provisions in new Subpart 4, which allow for the deployment of fibre across electricity lines and across private land, these issues can finally begin to be properly addressed, because fibre is the solution and the fibre backhaul into rural New Zealand is the solution.

I think Gareth Hughes acknowledged Northpower’s submission to the select committee, originally in August last year. I want to particularly acknowledge Northpower for the work that it has done in getting ultra-fast broadband out in its area faster than anybody else and for its foresight in thinking about how it can develop its business case further to cover its whole footprint, rather than just the footprint required by the Government, and for pushing the Commerce Committee as hard as it could into accepting that there was a real case for its proposal to be considered as part of this bill. So, Northpower, thank you; you have done the country a great service. I know that you will take up the cudgels on this and get fibre out as far as you can within your footprint of electricity lines. I just hope that other lines companies will do the same around New Zealand.

I hope that the Government is paying attention as to how it can support lines companies, or other third parties who do deals with lines companies, to do that, because if that happens, then we will have a proper network of fibre backhaul into rural New Zealand, we will start to see some real, transformative change in rural New Zealand, and we will start seeing some addressing of the digital divide. That digital divide exists in our cities, but it also exists profoundly between rural New Zealand and urban New Zealand.

This Government is doing no work, that I can see, on scoping what that real divide is, and that is doing a great disservice to the country. So you are seeing issues with children being able to do their homework, being able to learn in schools, and being able to afford the devices that they need to be able to participate in the digital life, and with businesses being able to properly do the work that they need to do to grow in the digital economy in rural New Zealand. They are currently being held back by not being able to properly access—the Government’s rural broadband policy is not currently taking them anywhere near this. This legislation is, finally, a step towards enabling rural economic development, and that is a fantastic thing.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I know you are spoilt for choice, so I appreciate your consideration. In an earlier contribution, I asked a question of the Minister in the chair, the Hon Simon Bridges, around the dispute resolution scheme. Having sensed a lack of appetite to answer that question, I have taken some time to inform myself of the dispute resolution scheme within the bill, which is good, but there is another question I do want to ask because of some wording in schedule 2 of the bill, which inserts a new schedule 3C into the principal legislation. Clause 1(1) of that outlines the point of the dispute resolution scheme, which is: “to ensure that, if 2 or more persons have a dispute … in relation to an installation [of fibre], they have access to a dispute resolution scheme for resolving that dispute.” That is great. No one thinks that this piece of legislation is going to make everything happen peacefully, and that there will be disputes, but deep in schedule 3C, clause 1(2)(b), it says that the resolution scheme provides for disputes to be assessed “promptly” after they are received for the purposes of any dispute.

My question, either to the Minister in the chair or to the officials that have been looking after this piece of legislation, is—in a bread and butter case of a dispute, when there is some kind of conflict—what does “promptly” mean? Because the point of putting this dispute resolution scheme in and bringing in some of the changes in the legislation here is to make things go faster, not just in terms of the broadband speed but also in terms of the process to get the broadband installed either in a private dwelling or in a business. If there is a dispute, I think the last thing that someone who has been waiting for a tremendously long time to get their broadband installed wants is a delay if there is a dispute. So if the Minister in the chair, Jacqui Dean, or one of the officials could give us an idea of what “promptly” means, that would be very, very useful.

I want to tie this back to the case that I spoke about in my earlier contribution, and that is of a local business that was having a dispute with some of the other businesses that are in the business that it is. It was wanting to get some pretty fast broadband into its building, but I think there were some issues with getting access to common areas. The issue for that business was that it wanted to increase the size of its staff by a considerable number of people, but, because there were delays, that really impinged on that company being able to do that. If that is going to happen and stymie growth and stymie job opportunities, I think a business or businesses or people out in the community would like to know what “promptly” means.

I know there will be some extreme cases that might take months—well, in fact, might take years, at one extreme—but if it is a simple case of access to or dispute over the amount of time that a provider might need to get access to some of these areas, I think it is not a bad question to ask how long the dispute resolution scheme might take to adjudicate on that. Will the dispute resolution scheme be able to weigh up all these issues? Is it fair that it is being held up with a complaint, if it is holding back businesses from being able to hire people and grow their business? Is that a factor that is going to be taken into consideration by those people who are going through that complaints process, because I do not think I would like to see a local firm being held up in a dispute resolution scheme process if it means 10 jobs not being offered to people working in my community. I think that is not good progress. It kind of defeats the purpose of having a dispute resolution scheme, especially if people who might be adjudicating are thinking that some of those people who are holding it up or complaining are doing it just to game the system.

I am not sure from the legislation—and I hope the Minister in the chair might be able to elucidate this for us—as to whether or not those kinds of factors will be taken into account, not just the physical factors of access and time taken to install but also other factors driving a business, or a person wanting to have broadband put into their premises “promptly”, and what that promptly might mean in terms of dispute resolution schemes.

The question was put that the amendment to the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 280 in the name of the Hon Simon Bridges to clause 11 be agreed to.

Amendment to the amendment agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 280 in the name of the Hon Simon Bridges as amended be agreed to.

Amendments as amended agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 280 in the name of the Hon Simon Bridges to schedule 1 be agreed to.

Schedule 1 as amended agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 280 in the name of the Hon Simon Bridges to schedule 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Schedule 2 as amended agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 280 in the name of the Hon Simon Bridges to clause 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.