Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to stand and take a call in the third and final reading of the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill. While many of my colleagues across the House, and perhaps some people listening out there—their eyes may glaze over when one talks about telecommunications regulation, but actually, I feel quite passionate about it. I want to give a little bit of a brief history of the bill, which goes back to 2012, when the ultra-fast broadband network was getting well under way, and when it became pretty clear that there needed to be a regulatory framework post-2020, when the contractual arrangements for the delivery of this new highway of the future were actually complete.

Extensive consultation was entered into, particularly between 2015 and 2017, and this work, this bill before us today, is the result of that extensive consultation. It has also included the work of seven Ministers in this House, going back to Steven Joyce, Amy Adams, Simon Bridges, myself, and, now, Kris Faafoi, who’s shepherding it through the House. I just want to acknowledge all of those Ministers for the work that’s been done and also the telecommunications industry generally, which can be a fairly fraught environment. It’s very competitive. It’s had its issues over the years, in terms of monopoly players, but what we’ve had and what this bill signifies is major disruption that has occurred in a sector, with the replacement of one technology by another—that being fast fibre ultimately replacing our copper network system—in a way that has the industry largely, not completely but largely, on side and has involved two major parties working cooperatively.

Of course, the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee have done a lot of the grunt work on hearing the submissions. I also want to acknowledge the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) officials, and particularly Osmond and Tim, who did an awful lot of work to get this to the point that it is at today. I think it’s something that New Zealand can actually be proud of.

While the eyes may glaze over when one thinks about regulatory frameworks, they are the underpinning of our system working well. This is a utility framework, such as electricity or water. If you were playing Monopoly, you’d be landing on the utilities square and you’d be thinking that we’ve got the fibre regulatory system pretty much right for the future. I think that we should be pretty proud of that. There’s still more work to do, obviously. There’s more disruption coming in the 5G space, and there’s more work to be done to ensure that fast fibre gets out as far into our country as possible, and that we sort out our rural broadband situation so that we don’t have a two-tier system in the country, where people living outside the urban areas are basically struggling to function in the modern world because they can’t get fast fibre.

I want to spend a couple of minutes just talking about three or four of the main parts of this bill, where work included in Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 118—which is the work that was done post coming out of select committee—tried to tweak this bill to be the best bill it possibly could be. The first matter is around the anchor pricing. That is the base price at which fibre post-2020 will be. That ended up being sorted in a contractual arrangement rather than through a legislative instrument. So I think, actually, that’s good law, not to put an actual legislated price into the legislation. Instead, a contractual arrangement was entered into with Chorus, particularly, to make the base figure $46.

That means that the consumer out there will not be faced with price shocks, which would then disrupt the industry. While it is not quite as low as some would have liked, it actually does provide a certainty, I think, for all: for the whole of the industry, for the retailers that can then offer the services above that anchor price, but also, and most importantly, for the consumers, where their monthly bill, which is usually now a bundled bill that includes fibre, phone, and Wi-Fi, all of those services—going forward, they will know that they aren’t going to face price shocks. So I think that was a pretty good outcome.

The other one is the line of business provisions, which, again, sounds pretty boring but actually is pretty important. What that does is it ensures protections against ending up with a vertically integrated monopoly in New Zealand again, such as we used to have under Telecom. So that means that Chorus has to provide the wholesale service, rather than being able to get back into being that vertically integrated monopoly. But you can go too far in these things, and you can restrict business services so much that it actually means that the company has nowhere to go. So the SOP actually provides for some tweaking of that to ensure that some innovation can occur around the edges, because disruption and technological change is happening so fast that every technology company, every provider of services, is morphing into something else before our very eyes. So there are provisions in this SOP for the Commerce Commission, as the regulator, to approve some line of business service changes around the edges.

The third thing I want to mention is around the definition of “telecommunications”, and while I don’t think anyone’s mentioned this yet, this is actually pretty important. On the face of it, it doesn’t seem that important, but what it does is it brings “broadcasting transmission” within the definition of “telecommunications”. What that means is that the regulator, the Commerce Commission, can actually have some powers in that area. We won’t see the impact of that for a while, but it means that broadcasting transmission is no longer in an unregulated space, which was a ridiculous anomaly in our system.

Finally, the 111 service being available to consumers who are on fibre when power cuts happen and they don’t have a mobile phone—particularly elderly people. I really want to acknowledge New Zealand First’s Tracey Martin for the work she did on that to ensure that this bill had provision for them. Protecting older people, vulnerable people—that’s what a good coalition Government that cares about people does, and I’m pretty proud of it. Overall, I’m pretty proud of this bill.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I was just looking at the clock and it had four minutes. I was wondering what was actually—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Yes, I apologise. There was a technical issue, completely caused by myself.

Thank you very much for that clarification. It’s a pleasure to rise to speak on the third reading of the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill. I’d like to acknowledge the member who just took her seat, the Hon Clare Curran. It was under her, when she was the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, that this bill actually came back to the House. I thank her for the acknowledgment of all of the communications Ministers before her who instigated this work, which resulted in this bill that we had to look at in this Parliament. So I thank her for her work and for her passion. I guess, you know, we may differ in the broadcasting sector, but we do actually agree in the communications sector and in the desire for New Zealand to be more connected in the utilisation of those telecommunications—ultra-fast broadband, ultimately, and also the 5G network that is coming—and in wanting to watch New Zealand develop into a nation that is actually leading in this field. So, I thank her for her work.

Also, I thank the member for the descriptions of the results and the discussions that we’ve had under this bill. But there are a couple of areas that I’d like to, sort of, go into. I guess one of the things that I was particularly concerned about as the committee stages happened, and when there were certain areas of the legislation that were brought to my attention which may potentially create a problem for companies—such as ultra-fast, which the former member has sort of mentioned—was in terms of the definition of, I guess, things like access points, which I’ve mentioned. So I will get into that later on, in terms of the fibre network definition, which I was hoping that the Hon Kris Faafoi might actually address in his final reading, but I believe that he hadn’t quite got there. So I have to say I’m slightly disappointed, and I’m sure that members of the public, who were actually hoping to get a little bit of clarity from the Minister, may be disappointed in that fact.

But 257 written submissions were given to the select committee, and 31 were actually debated. One of the things that I want to clarify is that we want laws that are fit for purpose. We actually want to make sure, as Clare Curran said, and I support, and I think all of us in this Chamber want—we want New Zealand to be a leader in this area.

Throughout the consideration of the bill before the House, many people expressed concern—and, actually, some of it was out of scope, but there were concerns raised regarding the health concern. It wasn’t part of the remit of the bill, but they were talking about issues raised as a result of mobile phone technology, particularly looking into the 5G technology that’s coming forward, and also the Mobile Black Spot Fund programme that the Government is delivering, which began under the National Government.

It was important, during the consideration of the bill in the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, to make sure that we addressed some of these concerns. We even had advice received from the health advisers—the Ministry of Health. It is actually on page 26 of our departmental report, which, basically, says—and I quote—“There is nothing in the research which would indicate there is a need to change current policy on the health effects of radio waves.” I am very satisfied with that answer. They are the experts, and I believe that throughout the process of this bill going through select committee, through the committee of the whole House stage, and now in the third reading, we are, in fact, answering the concerns of the public who have raised this with us. I feel quite satisfied that we’ve come to the right place on that.

Another important issue that members of the public raised was in relation to the copper landlines being withdrawn and the advancement of fibre. I guess, you know, the Hon Tracey Martin talked about the 111 code, and we’ve also discussed this: that nobody in this Chamber or throughout New Zealand wants to deny anybody who has vulnerability the ability to access 111. Nobody does that. Having said that, to blame fibre or the withdrawal of copper for people’s inability to contact 111 is actually false. It is actually the electronics that are the problem; it’s not a copper versus fibre issue. I think we need to make that clearer, but I’m glad that we’ve actually put something in the bill to make sure that the vulnerable people are addressed, and the very fact that copper is still going to be maintained in areas where newer technologies are not available is something that many people in New Zealand will be very happy about from 2020, I guess. When there are no new technologies available, copper will still be available, so people can rest assured. Some constituents have actually also raised concerns about the old copper network. You know, they want to make sure that when emergencies happen—they don’t want the system to go down.

A couple of weeks ago, I had an opportunity to tour the major telecommunications network exchange hub in Christchurch to discuss what it was actually like during the earthquake, for example. I had an opportunity to look around the actual cabling in that network, and it was extremely, I guess, eye opening to see the old system. It was almost like a walk through a museum of old telephony, with the circular dial and—I don’t know what you actually call them—those wind-up phones that you used to have. To actually see the new technology being developed and how much cabling there was for copper versus how little there is for fibre—it was, in fact, quite an eye-opening experience.

During the visit, I guess I saw first-hand how much effort the companies have actually put into ensuring that telecommunications systems stay operational at such times when there is a power outage following a natural disaster. As I said, the significant difference in size and capacity that fibre versus old copper technology showed was, in fact, very educational. I urge anyone who has an opportunity to go and actually see and visualise the new technology—I would suggest that they also do so.

I guess I’m satisfied that the telecommunications operators know what they’re going to be doing in the long term, in terms of the phase-out of the copper and also replacement with fibre, and the mobile-communications - based digital world of our future. To me, the upgraded telecommunications network being put in place around New Zealand is, essentially, for the betterment of New Zealand’s future, New Zealand’s communications, New Zealand’s digital sector, and New Zealand’s advancement in digital entertainment, even. We actually need to be in the forefront, and when people are developing new apps and new digital artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and augmented reality, I think we need to make sure that we have the right framework designed and delivered for people to be able to work and lead in those areas.

Despite some concerns that were raised by stakeholders, as I alluded to earlier—concern about the access point issue—I guess, like any legislation or any bill that is being debated in this House, when all stakeholders are happy—it never happens. It’s never going to happen. That means that the Government has, actually, perhaps not done their job if everyone’s happy. I think when stakeholders on both sides of the debate are slightly happy on either side, I think you have to sort of say that we’ve created a bit of a balance, and as long as they’re not too concerned, I think they’ve done well—

I’m sorry, your time has expired. Thank you.

Tēnā koe. I stand to take a call on this particular bill, which, obviously, New Zealand First supports. My thoughts actually go back to the troubled time when an erstwhile colleague David Cunliffe had some measure of influence over this sector. In those days Theresa Gattung, if I’m not mistaken, was the CEO of Telecom, and Roderick Deane was the chair. We were concerned about the inordinate amount of influence and power that that entity, Telecom, enjoyed—monopolistic power. The virtue of this bill is that time has passed, and now what we’re doing is we’re looking at and surveying a situation where there’s more competitiveness, but within that more competitive structure there are still unfinished issues.

One of those does need to be elaborated upon, partly because it was championed, as my colleague Clare Curran has referred to, by Minister Tracey Martin, and that was to ensure that stranded communities or legacy communities—given that I’m 59, I’ll soon be over 65, if my former rugby injuries don’t blight my prospects in the future. The reality is that not everyone is as comfortable or as adept as the new generation in using

technology. So we developed protections in this bill to ensure that emergency calling was not left to the whims of arbitrary decision makers in these organisations, and to ensure that communities in rural New Zealand and, in particular, communities of the elderly, aren’t forgotten about.

As we are further rolling out ICT services through—I digress for a minute—the Provincial Growth Fund, we’re actually building upon something that I personally agree with what was done. You can debate whether or not the former Minister Steven Joyce took the right approach, but he most certainly put the proverbials on the line and committed the Crown to an enormous amount of capital expenditure. In my part of the world, we’ve actually seen that model roll out quite well, certainly in Whangarei—not so good further north.

So, whilst it’s had a long-term gestation, we won’t have a modern economy with what we expect for this generation and future generations unless we get the right balance between investment and a strong regulator. I’m very happy to see that the bill does not cancel the levy. I quite like the model of a levy and look forward to applying it to other parts of the economy. If it’s good enough for the telecommunications part of the economy, I see great prospects in the banking part. That, unfortunately, lies with another Minister; however, my advocacy will not be quelled.

So without further ado, our party supports this bill and commends its expeditious passing through the House.

It gives me pleasure, following the previous speaker, Shane Jones, and the two or three people who spoke before that who knew what they were talking about with respect to telecommunications. As a true resident of the provinces, it’s a pleasure to follow the previous speaker.

I guess my concerns about telecommunications and the way we deal with it are not so much related to the speed at which we can regulate it to ensure that our economy is able to develop in the future but it’s about the people that get left behind by the development of this kind of technology. One of the challenges that we have as a country, because of the very nature of us, our geography, the people that live in it, and, interestingly, the fact that the large majority of our income comes from parts of New Zealand that struggle the most with telecommunications, with electricity provision, and all those sort of things—so our challenge as a country, whoever’s in the Government, is to actually get services to those regions where the productivity comes from. That’s, I guess, one of the key reasons that we have to regulate both the telecommunications industry and the electricity industry, because both of those are vital parts of the potential growth of our productive economy, and they’re certainly important to us in the future.

The other interesting thing that has happened in New Zealand, and I think it’s because of our geography and because of our location in the world, is that we have people moving to New Zealand with very interesting business models, and they move to parts of New Zealand where we have great difficulty providing services but nonetheless they bring significant income to the country. They bring a whole lot of value to the country in the form of new technologies, business, and things like that. So they move here, and they go to parts of New Zealand that are, without question, the most beautiful parts of the world, actually, but, none the less, places where we as service providers and as a Government struggle to get communications into that area. So the issues that I’m interested in, with respect to this bill, are particularly issues that cover those areas that struggle for services.

We, of course, support this bill. I want to talk about one or two things within the bill that I think are interesting and probably debatable, and one of them is the deregulation of the copper services. Obviously, we’ve relied on them in all parts of New Zealand—morning, Goldsmith. Nice to see you. We’ve certainly relied on copper for all of our services in rural New Zealand, from the days when you used to—I think our phone number was 12D, and it was sort of like two longs and three shorts. Now, not many of you in this room, with the exception perhaps of the previous speaker, will remember that time, but I most certainly do. Of course, you could also pick up the phone and listen to your neighbour, provided you knew who it was—you could pick up the phone and listen to what your neighbour was talking about. So, really, the protection of our privacy and all that sort of thing nowadays is nothing new, because in those days you knew everyone down the line and who they were talking to and what they were talking about.

None the less, the world’s changed for most people but it hasn’t changed for some people in New Zealand, and that’s one of the challenges of the deregulation of the copper services and the threat that that, to some extent, provides. I realise that the bill goes to lengths to give the Commerce Commission the ability to review the provision of copper services and when they should be, or when they’re entitled, I guess, to no longer be provided. I live in one of those areas and have just moved, and I still live in one of those areas, and, interestingly, I can throw a stone and hit one of our major defence bases but, none the less, still don’t have a fibre line to my house.

So it’s a massive problem for New Zealand, and it will last for some time to come yet. Despite the effort, as the previous speaker said, of the previous Government and the significant resource that the likes of Steven Joyce and Amy Adams put into this on behalf of that Government, this is going to be an ongoing process, and I’m pleased to see this Government continuing to speed that process up as quickly as they can. Of course, technology enables changes to happen very quickly, and, as with all large entities, Governments lock themselves into contracts. We, interestingly, find ourselves locked into contracts nowadays not only in the telecommunications area but many others where the technology has gone right past those contracts and goes past them very quickly. So it’s an area that I think is hugely complicated, and it’s an area of risk for us, and it always will be.

The other thing that this bill talks about is greater consumer protections, and, despite the very best efforts of our legislators, and however we might go about that, we are never going to get the perfect system of consumer protection. I think that it’s all very well to have consumer protection in place, and you can take an average of or a view of what that consumer protection might look like, but you certainly can’t get a broad scope of consumer protection that protects everyone equally.

Another issue I was interested in talking about, and I note that Clare Curran raised it earlier, was the issue of vulnerable and older people. As we go to change all sorts of legislation—I notice the tax legislation just going through the Finance and Expenditure Committee today is dealing with changes to our tax department which are very clearly putting more emphasis on the use of technology and the way we deliver those services—for old people and the more vulnerable in our community, it becomes a threat, because some of us, as I said earlier, are used to the 12D phone line where you’ve got the long, short, long, and suddenly we’ve got to use telecommunications to deal with our tax issues, with our banking, and with all sorts of things. As those organisations and, indeed, the Government move to provide more and more services online, that becomes a greater threat.

So the very careful regulation and regulatory framework that we operate under is hugely important to those people and certainly makes it more important that we’re able to not only regulate and provide services to those people, but the other challenge we’ve got with this stuff is making sure—and if we’re a Government department we’ve got a significant challenge—that we provide the information and the ability for them to deal with those issues in a manner that is equitable for them.

Interestingly, the consumer survey on this kind of thing done not so long ago reported that 11 percent of our people have problems with both online services and with telecommunications services. It’s all very well for us to say 11 percent of them, but, as I said earlier, the 11 percent might be a very large part of our productive economy. So we can put things in percentages and it doesn’t sound like it’s many people or a very large part of our economy, but it certainly is. So it’s hugely important that we keep working to lift the responsiveness and services we provide for those people and make sure in the course of that that we do our very best to regulate the opportunity for those people to receive those services and to use them as part of their ongoing life.

It’s interesting that the Commerce Commission has got responsibility for understanding this bill, for declaring which geographic areas are specified fibre areas—in other words, where the copper lines can be either removed or run down. That will be a challenge in itself, because, as I said earlier, I live in an area where fibre goes past my gateway but it doesn’t go to my house and it’s not accessible. So regulation is required to ensure that these things are accessible, that people can get at them, and that they work well for us.

So I, like the National Party, support this bill. It’s necessary. It won’t be perfect, because the scene we’re living in changes so quickly. As I said earlier, I guess my greatest fear in the whole of this process is that we continue to provide the very best services we can to that productive part of our economy and the isolated part of our economy that needs those services. But they most certainly also need the support of a regulatory framework, and we’ve seen in the electricity industry that that is fraught and a very difficult thing to do. It’s easy to regulate for the major centres of population but very difficult to regulate satisfactorily for our broader and more sparsely populated parts of New Zealand.

So, certainly, we support this bill and I look forward to seeing how it operates, and I’m pretty sure there’ll be another amendment bill back in the House within a very short time. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Mōrena. Ata mārie koutou katoa. Actually, the previous speaker reminded me of a quite relevant—sorry, I think that’s you, Mr McKelvie. I haven’t got my glasses on this morning. [Interruption] Yes, all good—yeah, I might need yours. In Ruatōria, I reckon about 11 years ago, Nanny Ruby—who grew up all her life and lived in Ruatōria—came to Wellington. And in Ruatōria the telecommunications system there, and what she was used to, was exactly what Mr McKelvie was referring to. So then she came to Wellington to stay with us. She picked up the phone and dialled a wrong number. She was waiting to speak to Auntie Puti, and the person said “No, no, no. This isn’t that number.” She said, “Well what’s Auntie Puti’s number then?” She was just used to everyone in the community knowing that you could ring anyone up and they would know everyone else’s number, but it was also her, I guess, use of the system of the shared phone lines, or whatever it was—I don’t understand it, but you actually shared a phone line and could talk to various people just by picking up the phone.

Ruatōria has gone through a lot of change since then, and, actually, it might sound like a bit of an anomaly, but when I moved to Ruatōria, I think in 2007-ish, from Botany, Ruatōria had a faster internet than I was experiencing in Botany. Now, I remember at that time that actually all up and down the East Coast Chorus were renting people’s homes up and down the East Coast to get the fibre rolled out. So I actually think that that’s what was happening at the time, and they were starting to open up those very isolated—very isolated—communities, and that was good that we were getting super-fast broadband out to those communities.

So it is, of course, that I rise today on behalf of the Green Party in support of this bill, which also is about introducing a regulatory framework, a check, and for us that is principally around making sure that the benefits of information communications technology, ICT, are shared fairly in a way that is just among people.

Actually, I want to acknowledge Gareth Hughes, our spokesperson on this. Particularly, I cast my thoughts back to 2013, when right back then the Greens, Labour, and New Zealand First actually weren’t wanting to support some legislation which would override the Commerce Commission’s upper internet price ruling, and there was legislation that was going to protect profit, to put it simply. So I am very glad that we are seeing, I think, the next steps and some solutions around having a regulatory framework, a check and balance, but that isn’t also too restrictive, as we’ve heard many speakers refer to. We’re just trying to get that balance, still allowing for innovation and creativity in the sector, allowing for that innovation particularly to benefit consumers across the board and to all areas of our country, but also protecting consumers as much as is practicable. So supporting ultra-fast broadband for New Zealand and seeing it successfully rolled out—I know that this legislation is part of the steps of helping us to do that.

I was supposed to take a short call, but I wanted to actually pick up on the disability and inclusive technology. And then, of course, Melissa Lee rose to touch on that quite a bit. I took note that there is perhaps some concern particularly from Enable New Zealand, who facilitate and deliver quality access to resources for people with identified health and disability support needs, particularly in the telecommunications sector. So I think it’s fair. Local fibre companies like Enable will face only light-handed regulation in this legislation, is what I’m seeing, and Enable will only face price regulation if the Commerce Commission finds that it has substantial market power. So that is a substantial safeguard, but I think it’s fair for us to keep a monitor on that, to keep a monitor on how this regulatory framework will impact on various different companies, service providers, making sure that those who have bigger, more massive market power and those who have lesser market power are being treated in a way that is just, and particularly if it’s going to impact on people with a disability.

I actually did want to pick up on the point that Melissa Lee made—you know, it’s something I’ll look into a little bit more so I can understand a bit more of it—that when it comes to effective ICT, particularly for people with a disability, the debate is around the efficiency of the electronics system itself rather than copper versus fibre. It’s something that—I’m new to this debate in that particular aspect—I’m interested in picking that up and keeping an eye on it.

Again, I welcome this legislation because historically, yes, it appears the broadcasting transmission platform was totally unregulated, and I was thinking about a bit of a parallel. I think that if we’re getting this put in place at this stage, it will, hopefully, allow us down the road to not get into some real trouble, particularly for consumers and just ordinary people around the country—the likes of which we have seen, for example, with what the Lines Company are doing for power distribution around the country and how that is not fair right now. So I think this is a good step.

I did want to acknowledge that InternetNZ support the bill, saying that it will protect consumer interests. They are a non-profit organisation and they have principles along the sorts of value statements of ICT needing to be shared among everyone, and that it should be used to enhance productivity and reduce resource use—those sorts of values statements. They are giving a signal that it will protect consumer interests and lead to better service quality and fair prices for users, which is an important flag from them.

Also, we’ve got—I think it is—the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand, and they’re another telecommunications user group who have said they supported this bill. I wanted to acknowledge one of the criticisms that they make, which is that the bill doesn’t address the inequality of resource for consumer voice research and advocacy in New Zealand when compared to other jurisdictions such as Australia. So we might want to pick up on that as some of our next steps and reviews, because I think it’s a fair enough issue to pick up.

I think, overall—and we’re all supporting this here in this House today; we’re doing some good work this morning—it really just goes back to understanding that the communications sector is going to be vital, can offer incredible promise for some of the visions that we actually need to be able to achieve for our country, for our people, for our environment, particularly in reducing waste, reducing travel in the way that we go around our work. So I am really welcoming this legislation to enable us to get on with the job. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’m very pleased to join with the widespread support across this House for this legislation, the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill, which we’re now putting down for its third reading. The bill amends the Telecommunications Act, as we know, to establish a stable and predictable regulatory framework for fixed fibre line access services in New Zealand—[Interruption] Thank you very much.

It’s work that the National Party began in the last Parliament and which had made some progress under the previous Government and is now being continued on by this Government—good, sound legislation, backed after careful scrutiny and communication with the broader industry that it affected. I hesitate to make the contrast—but I will—between some of the previous bills that we’ve been speaking about in the last day or two, most notably the Crown Minerals (Petroleum) Amendment Bill, which dealt with the offshore exploration in the oil and gas sector, which displayed none of those basic attempts to understand what was really going on and to liaise effectively with the industry affected. But this is how you go about doing quality regulation.

So what we’re talking about here is the regulation of the ultra-fast broadband services that the previous National Government invested about $2 billion in laying out across the country. It is a key part, now, of the national infrastructure that we have. It’s almost as important as roads and other fundamental infrastructure that we have, in terms of power and other things that are essential to the workings of the economy. Of course, it didn’t exist 20 or 30 years ago, but with the development of the immense computing power and the connectivity that we have within the country and all around the world, the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband, we thought in the previous Government, was something that the Government needed to have a hand in and could usefully contribute to the investment in so that it would happen more quickly than it would otherwise have.

The various countries all around the world have gone about this in different ways. The only point I’d make is that, in this particular respect, I think we’ve done a better job than our friends across the Tasman, who have spent billions and billions of dollars on their scheme with far less effect and success than we have in New Zealand. So under the previous National Government settings, we were on track to have 87 percent of New Zealand households connected to ultra-fast broadband by 2020, and maybe even earlier under ultra-fast broadband phase two. The point I would make—and we have the Minister for Regional Economic Development here talking to one of my colleagues, Ian McKelvie, which is a little bit concerning. He’s concerned about regional development—well, there was no more useful regional development than the investment that we have made in ultra-fast broadband and in the Rural Broadband Initiative, the RBI, in order to get the many different towns and hamlets around this country connected to ultra-fast broadband.

This legislation is about coming up with a regulatory framework, particularly in relation to Chorus, which owns much of that fibre network, to ensure, as it, essentially, has control over that critical piece of infrastructure, that it’s not able to take excess profits at the expense of consumers, and is, ultimately, regulated about the price cap that it can have. So Chorus will be subject to a revenue cap, but, most importantly, the company will be required to provide certain anchor services to its wholesale customers. As you can imagine—not you, Madam Assistant Speaker, but listeners—there are all sorts of complications around the arrangements between the provider of the core service and the many different innovative companies that are operating, using those services, and providing, as intermediaries, those services to New Zealanders.

We want to see innovation flourish. We want to see different companies coming up with different ways of delivering the ultra-fast broadband, whether it’s super-fast for people who are prepared to pay for it, or just medium speed, and all the various combinations and permutations of that. We want that innovation to flourish, and for that to happen, those companies need to have access to the core infrastructure in a way that works for them and is predictable and is based on a set of rules that everybody can make long-term investments over. That’s what this legislation seeks to put into place.

So the revenue cap gives Chorus the flexibility in how it sets its prices for most products but also ensures that Chorus can’t earn excess returns. The safeguard built into the system is that Chorus will be required to supply price-regulated anchor products. They’ll initially be at the entry-level broadband product, about 100 megabits per second upload and 20 megabits per second download, and voice-only products.

The purpose of this is not simply so that we can all get better access to Netflix and Lightbox and all the other streaming services that New Zealanders have shown great enthusiasm for over the past few years. It is partly that, and why not—there’s some good stuff on—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: House of Cards.

Well, yes. Bodyguard is the one I’ve been watching recently—very good—on Netflix. So that has enabled all sorts of different ways of entertaining ourselves. But, the power of broadband, of course, is much more significant than that. The ability for all the classrooms in New Zealand to be able to stream video and connect anywhere they are in the world is a massive, massive boon for education if teachers and the education system itself are innovative enough to make use of it. Also, for our businesses right throughout the country—being able to connect with global marketplaces such as Amazon and Alibaba and all the different global marketplaces that rely on having excellent internet connections, but also just trading with companies and consumers all around the world.

The previous Government invested heavily in providing this infrastructure, and we continue to invest throughout, in the technology space. In fact, just this morning I was over at Greta Point, at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), with Minister Megan Woods, at the opening of the latest supercomputer that NIWA has bought in order to crunch the numbers in terms of its climate modelling. Interestingly, that computer is the third supercomputer they’ve bought. It is 1,000 times more powerful than the first. The incredible ability to make a difference, in terms of understanding our world—it’s all just part of the investment that we’ve continued to make over an extended period, and I commend the current Minister, Megan Woods, for their ongoing commitment to that investment in infrastructure.

The final point I want to talk about was the deregulation of copper services. It is important that all Governments should demonstrate regulatory restraint, and so when there was one single copper line around the country and it was a monopoly, it was regulated in order to ensure that consumers weren’t—like every monopoly, the Government takes an interest to ensure that consumers are getting a fair go. As soon as it is no longer a monopoly, then it is appropriate that we step back and allow normal competition to rule. So copper is not the only way you can get a telephone service to a house. Obviously, you’ve got cellphone coverage, and we’ve had it for a long time, but now, through fibre, you can have digital audio phone calling. So there’s no longer a monopoly with the copper line, and so we no longer need to regulate it, and as soon as we don’t need to, we shouldn’t. The normal competitive forces of the economy can be far more effective than any regulator based in Wellington. That’s why we step back in conditions where ultra-fast broadband is available. People can have a choice, and then the normal market disciplines apply. But of course where there isn’t yet that choice, then we still have to deal with the situation with copper. So this is a sensible and pragmatic move, but it is part of a mind-set which says that when you no longer need to regulate, you shouldn’t, in order for investment to flow as rapidly as possible.

So, all in all, it’s good to see this legislation, and I commend it to the House.

I understand this is a split call—5 minutes, Dr Duncan Webb.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It appears that peace has broken out. Indeed, Mr Goldsmith was right: when we don’t need to regulate something, of course we shouldn’t. It is an interesting and very useful piece of legislation, though, because what we have is a huge and largely Crown-funded investment in infrastructure. What we see here is technology moving very, very fast indeed—not only from copper to fibre, but we see very near on the horizon 5G, which may indeed make some of the infrastructure we have largely redundant.

One of the real challenges of this legislation was how to deal with the fact that these businesses—Chorus and other local providers—have put huge amounts of fibre under the ground at hundreds of millions of dollars of cost, and yet now they’re being asked to provide those services to cellphone towers, which may, in fact, be undercutting their own market. Now, that was a real challenge, and I must say that the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media took that on and has done a very good job in, essentially, saying that there won’t be price regulation in respect of those ultra-fast broadband services in those non-Chorus settings. There are contractual arrangements for Chorus, but in the other settings the decision has been made to say, “Look, there is the shadow of regulation but no price regulation at all.” so that there can be some flexibility, some versatility, in terms of facing these new challenges about how you price something which was designed to go to business premises and household premises but now may well be going to cellphone towers which themselves serve 200 or 300 homes. There are some really difficult technical challenges in there, and I must say that I commend both the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee and also the Minister for engaging with industry at every level to address those very, very difficult issues.

So, in sum, this is a piece of legislation which addresses competition issues where monopolies tend to emerge in a rapidly changing technological environment. It’s a technical piece of legislation but an absolutely essential one. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

Madam Assistant Speaker, it’s my pleasure to take a short call on this Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill. I like the fact that the whole of the Parliament agrees on this. It’s a very sensible and pragmatic way forward, and that’s because it’s been worked on by a number of Ministers over a number of years and a number of Governments. I likened it to one of my former colleagues, who said, “What we do with technology is very similar to what New Zealand has done with the roading network, what we have done with the power distribution network, and how we provide water to people. This is the next realm.” Our ability to communicate and our ability to share information across the globe has been transformational on the global economy, and this work, really, simply brings us up to date and puts us in a forward-looking way that we can make the best of the new technology. So I acknowledge the work from the former Minister the Hon Clare Curran and the work by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee that has brought this to this point.

What we have on these machines is transforming our lives, and, as we seek to use them more and more, we have to look after the advancing needs of New Zealanders, but we also have to look after people like my mum, who’s got limited ability to use these things but is also worried about the security of what the former system offered.

I wish to acknowledge the work of New Zealand First in looking after some of our older and more vulnerable people in bringing changes to the legislation—something that I personally support, and I know many people in our community, who feel vulnerable with the pace of change, will personally support.

I like the balance that is in this legislation and the change, because what we’re really saying is that we can keep the old where the new is not available—in other words, where there is not fibre and all the technology that goes with fibre, there is a requirement for copper to be provided. Over time, that will be phased out, but there may be some places that it’s probably never going to be viable for fibre to be run. There will be alternative solutions, but, in the meantime, copper must be provided.

I want to touch on a comment that was made by my fellow colleague Mr Ian McKelvie. It is amazing to me that in his own farm and his own situation, he cannot get broadband to his home, right next to a large air force base. We have some significant challenges, and while where I live and work, I have the availability of the best type of technology and the fastest type of technology, we do need to acknowledge and we need to keep incentivising and working to make sure that broadband and fibre is made available to as many New Zealanders as can possibly happen.

It was a mission of the last Government, and I’m pleased it’s carrying on with the next Government, to try and make broadband as widely available as possible by various incentives and investment options. The change that is being made here is simply a reflection on changing times.

For me, this has been one of the better processes. I’ve watched a Supplementary Order Paper being brought in. I’ve watched New Zealand First work on natural concerns they had. I think this is a very good framework for New Zealanders to go forward. I think we can have the best of both worlds. 5G technology is going to fundamentally change how things are delivered, yet this bill allows for the best of every world. From what we had—and I think other people have referred to the “Ring, ring! Are you working?” type of party line system—to where we’re going to go in the future is catered for in this bill, and I think it strikes the right balance across New Zealand.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. This is the third reading of the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill, and I’m very pleased to be taking a short call on it. I wasn’t part of the select committee that dealt with this bill, and I have to admit, when I was first reading through the document, my eyes did start to glaze over as I learnt more about copper fixed line services regulation than I ever thought I needed to know. But this is obviously a very important bill, as we have heard from our wonderful colleague Clare Curran as well.

I’d like to commend the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on the great work that they’ve done on this, because this bill modernises the Telecommunications Act, ensuring that we have a stable framework for fibre access services in New Zealand and enhancing New Zealand’s connectivity.

On a personal note, I share the sentiments expressed by Ian McKelvie. My family too lives rural, and at first it looked like we couldn’t get internet at all. We did eventually get some broadband, but it’s over copper lines, and we might as well be on dial-up. It’s so frustrating. So I know, on a personal note, that my family is welcoming this legislation.

Look, I’ve very little to add after Clare Curran spoke so eloquently about the issues in this bill, explaining what it is about and explaining the important changes that the Supplementary Order Paper is making after the feedback to the select committee. So I’d like to end on the fact that this bill, obviously, gives certainty to the industry. It encourages further investment by network providers, but, at the same time, it also protects the consumers. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be taking a call on the third reading of the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill. This bill has been progressing through the House for quite a long time, but I do just have a few comments I’d like to make on the process that we’ve gone through in passing it. I do sit on the select committee that considered this bill—the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. We are a split committee, so we do have to act in a very collaborative and cohesive manner. We are represented by the three governing parties and also, obviously, by the National Opposition. We are very ably chaired, I think, by Jonathan Young. Also, we’ve got some subject matter experts on issues like this, in people like Gareth Hughes, and I’d like to acknowledge his extensive knowledge in this area and thank him for the advice that he gave us throughout the process.

I mentioned that there has been quite a long gestation to the bill, so I just wanted to cover off some aspects of that. It’s been quite adequately covered earlier in the debate by Clare Curran as well, because this bill has quite a history, and it does go back a long way. There are quite a few Ministers—in fact, she mentioned Steven Joyce, and that was quite a few years ago. The one I was going to start with was with Amy Adams, who released the results of the telecommunications review back in 2016—so a couple of years ago now—and that set out a new direction for regulating broadband and phone services. Not long after that, in 2017, the new communications Minister, Simon Bridges, set that new direction into a bill, and introduced that piece of legislation on 1 June 2017—so nearly a year and a half ago now.

I do just want to point out, though, that even though it has been a long gestation, that is not a criticism of either the previous National Government or the Labour Government, because, as we found during the debate in the select committee on this bill, this is something we do need to get right. Members on both sides of the House today have pointed out the reasons why that is. I would like to acknowledge, as well, the two Ministers that this bill has been under on the opposite side: Clare Curran—thank you, Ms Curran, for the advice that your officials gave the select committee during our proceedings; it was most appreciated—and, of course Kris Faafoi, who gets the good fortune, I guess, of having the bill passed in the final reading under his name. I’m sure that will put him in good stead when the next Cabinet reshuffle does occur.

We had to consider a number of different aspects of the bill. There were two issues in particular that the select committee grappled with, and I think they’ve been, again, fairly well covered on both sides of the House today. The first one is around the debate between new technologies and innovation, on the one side, and then, on the other hand, ensuring that people remain connected, particularly in rural and isolated communities. That’s something that we debated at length, and it certainly came up in the submissions. We had 257 submissions on the bill and heard 31 of those in person. So there was quite a lot of debate around it. It got quite technical at some stages and, again, it was useful to have people like Gareth Hughes, who has a long history in this area, and also, of course, the officials who guided us through.

So we had to have that debate around, of course, making sure that we’re making the most of innovation as it develops and as new technologies emerge, but also ensuring that when we embrace those new technologies, we’re not unfairly or unreasonably cutting off people’s access to important telecommunications services, or even just being connected to their local area. There’s been some discussion earlier in the debate about the work that New Zealand First did on 111 services. I’d like to acknowledge their work on that as well, because that, of course, was a particular area of concern for people in rural and isolated areas.

The other issue that we grappled with at length on the committee was just in relation to the health impacts, or potential impacts. Quite a number of those 257 submissions, and certainly a number of the 31 oral submissions that came to us, were concerned about the potential health impacts of moving away from copper fixed line to new innovative technologies around fibre. We certainly heard those out. I think it’s fair to say that most members of the committee were a bit sceptical about some of the claims that were put forward and some of the dubious research that was quoted from offshore about the effect of these new technologies on health, but we certainly looked into it. We sought advice from the Ministry of Health, and they came in to brief us on the bill. If there were any concerns in the select committee, they certainly satisfied those and said that there was next to no risk of these new technologies impacting negatively on people’s health.

I think it’s fair to say that the people that submitted on the bill who were concerned about those aspects probably won’t be satisfied by the Ministry of Health advice, and, certainly, if they’re not satisfied by that, they won’t be satisfied by what I’m saying in the House today. But I do think that they were heard. Jonathan Young, as our chair, was very respectful in the way that they were heard. Certainly, it got a little bit interesting during some of the debates, but he was very fair in making sure that they had the ability to have their say.

My colleague Ian McKelvie earlier mentioned the fact that he comes from quite a rural area, and he mentioned that he is not far from, I think, a reasonable-sized defence establishment in the central North Island, and mentioned that he doesn’t have fibre anywhere near his house. There is that debate, I guess, ongoing at the moment about where it is and where it isn’t, and, certainly, as a provincial member of Parliament, I find the same thing, where it’s certainly present in some of our larger towns, and I think of the likes of where I used to live in Ashburton—certainly it’s fully fibre there. But then there are other communities where it’s being rolled out, like Pleasant Point, where I live now—unfortunately, even when it is rolled out, it still won’t come quite over the hill to my house.

I’m conscious of the fact that we have Nicola Willis, one of my colleagues—she has talked to me at length many times about Karori. Karori, I understand, is the largest suburb in the country, and it doesn’t have fibre yet. Small communities like Pleasant Point will probably end up with fibre before Karori does. So despite Nicola, I think, pushing very strongly on that issue in caucus, unfortunately that’s unlikely to occur for a couple of years yet, and that, of course, comes back to the commercial reality of when the providers can install it.

I just want to spend the final couple of minutes speaking in relation to the process again, and that’s about the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that was brought forward during the committee of the whole House stage. This has been a collegial debate, and I don’t wish to, I guess, insert a negative note to it, but it did certainly leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, because we did consider a lot of these issues at length on the committee. It did disappoint me, I guess, that the Minister brought forward an SOP at the 11th hour to make changes. I do think they were positive changes—certainly with the elements I spoke about earlier, with the 111 connectivity for rural and isolated areas. That makes absolute sense. But it did disappoint me that the select committee didn’t have the opportunity to consider those amendments. The Minister could have quite easily sent a draft SOP to us while we were considering the bill, and we could have considered those amendments alongside the legislation. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, so it was tabled at the 11th hour. As I say, they are good changes, but it was unfortunate that there wasn’t that level of democratic oversight, or certainly not the ability for submitters to make their feelings known on what those amendments were.

I did mention during the committee of the whole House stage that we could consider sending it back to select committee for a short, truncated period. That, obviously, didn’t happen. I am conscious that this bill has been going through the House for a very long time, so I don’t wish to hold it up any longer. That was a suggestion that that would have, obviously, elongated the process by a couple of weeks, but I think it would have provided a good opportunity for us to consider those amendments. So the only opportunity we had to do that was, of course, the committee of the whole House stage, which we did at length, and now during this third reading as well.

So I don’t wish to hold up the debate any longer. I’m very aware that there are a large number of, particularly, industry players out there who are very keen to see this legislation progress. So I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just rise to take a really short call in support of the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill. One particular part of this piece of legislation that I particularly like is that it puts a framework in place that’s going to support long-term investment, and ultra-fast broadband providers are not going to be able to make a large profit at the expense of the consumer. I think that’s one of the key things about it—that it’s really important that the consumer is protected here and has better protections, at least, anyway, because we know that the internet is no longer a “nice-to-have”; it’s actually an “essential-to-have”. We use it in our education system. We have businesses that rely solely on that type of function, through internet—that’s just how their business operates completely. We find that more and more people are actually working from home and, therefore, it’s really important that they have the good connectivity that we have.

So as I’ve said, it’s no longer a “nice-to-have”; it’s actually an essential thing that we need to have. Again, I think it’s imperative that the consumer is protected, given those reasons. So I’m not going to take up any more time, and I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.

The House adjourned at 10.10 a.m. (Wednesday)