Joyce flounders on poor broadband performance

New Zealand’s internationally declining broadband performance raises serious questions about whether this Government’s $1.5 billion ultrafast broadband investment will actually make the country digitally competitive, says Labour’s communications and IT spokesperson Clare Curran.

“Statistics show that since 2008 monthly prices in New Zealand have slipped from seventh cheapest to fourth most expensive among OECD countries, and that we have gone from 12 to 21st for download speed and 12th to 24th for connection speed since the government took power,” Clare Curran said.

“Yet when asked today how reinforcing Telecom’s market dominance by giving them $1 billion of taxpayer money would reverse our declining international rankings, Steven Joyce, the Minister in charge of the roll out, floundered, disputing the OECD statistics. He was unable to give an adequate answer.

“The gains made by the previous Labour government were significant. Now we have a Minister, who for the last two and a half years has been figuring out, largely in secret, how to ram through an anti-competitive law which hands a large amount of taxpayers’ money to Telecom,” Clare Curran said.

“This is Steven Joyce’s legacy on broadband and he alone is accountable.

“And that is why Labour opposes his Telco Bill and reserves the right, should we be elected, to review both the ultrafast broadband and rural broadband schemes and to repeal parts of the legislation that we believe to be uncompetitive,” said Clare Curran.