national significance. We oppose this vote because it is
a wrong spend of money
and a Labour Government will do so much better.
I call Chris Bishop. Thank you very much. I'm a young man, a young
I've seen a little bit of parliament and I've worked around politics for
a while. I have not seen two weeks
like we've seen in the last couple.
Just extraordinary, the contortions
between the opposition benches,
the
not in this debate. I just ask the member to focus on the contents of
this Appropriations
the general debate issues that you were talking about and that
is not part of this. Thank you, Mr Chair, I
was just making a
couple of prefertory results. I want to focus
my remarks on the Government's
investment
When they come to write the history of this Government, that has
been in office for nine years now, and
God willing, another three
after 23 September, they will look back and
say that it was the investment in
the defining achievements of this Government. Because it's hard
to actually explain sometimes
how the rest of the world looks with quite
a degree of envy
and admiration with what is going on in New
Zealand with
where credit's due, some of that is due to the action of David Cunliffe,
the Honourable David Cunliffe, when
he was Minister of
telecommunications. And then
of
partnership model that was developed by Steven Joyce, when he was
minister for broadband, I guess you
would say, in the early
days of this Government. I had the opportunity
to visit a company in Upper Huttt just
a couple of weeks ago called
Strictly Savvy, which is one of
the companies taking advantage of
the opportunities provided
well, it is a small unit in a very large development in Railway Avenue
in Upper Hutt,
a repurposed old factory and they provide virtual
assistance services. You might say,
sit there in Upper Huttt and provide basically executive assistance
services in graphic design and
website design and bookkeeping,
all in Upper Huttt and their clients are
in Wellington and Auckland
and
Basically they have a team of people there that are contracted to do
the work that people all
around the country want and it's
only possible because
They started in the last three or four years, they are an
growing very quickly and it's only possible because
broadband. It is an example of an innovative company,
innovative company, and Kiwi ingenety, and they are
doing great things and that's what
ingenety, and they are doing great
broadband can do is provide new innovations and opportunities,
and that is the whole point when
you make investments in infrastructure
you don't know what's coming down the line, you don't know what
people will do with it in the same way
as when you build a road or
railway network it is
not clear sometimes exactly what
exactly what opportunities will be presented, but you know that they
will exist, and that's why
you do it and that's
and that's why this Government is making such a strong investment in
infrastructure, like we see in
the Appropriation Bill
Appropriation Bill that we're debating before the House. So I
welcome the Government's investment
in
welcome the Government's investment
ongoing investment, including in this Budget. I also want to touch on
the investment in the
rural broadband initiative,
broadband initiative, and people might say, well, Lower Huttt, the
Hutt South seat, there is not very
much rural in the lower part
of Hutt, but they would be wrong. There
are small pockets of rural,
idyllic lifestyle in the Hutt, and they're
crying out for a cellphone tower
down the coast ready
crying out for a cellphone tower
the forest park, which hundreds of thousands of people
visit every year
taken the chair, Scott Simpson, I'm sure will be out there with Maggie
Barry who visited recently,
to visit the forest park, in his new role
as Associate Minister and
it is a wonderful part of the valley it's a
wonderful part of Lower Huttt
and a wonderful part
wonderful part of the lower North Island. But there's
no cellphone coverage. And every summer
Island. But there's no cellphone
missing in the park, and it is a hassle for the rangers that go in
and out and it is a hassle for
people who work in and around the
park and it needs and deserves
cellphone coverage and that is
the point of the rural
broadband initiative, for
initiative, for people missing out you do a
initiative, for people missing out
and the telcos in order to make a
companies in order to provide coverage that
coverage that wouldn't otherwise exist if things were done on a
purely economic basis. So
I'm very hopeful that the result of the
commercial negotiations between the
telcos and the Crown will be that
the forest park gets some coverage.
It will be good for the
area and good for the Hutt Valley. I call
Melissa Lee. Thank you. Thank
you for the opportunity to take
a call on the excellent work of
the right Hon Bill English, and the
undertaken over the past year to support more jobs growth in the
economy and the
support more jobs growth in the
for our Kiwi families. So I chair the