National’s blatant broadband pork barrelling misses the mark by a country mile
National’s blatant pork-barrelling ICT announcement today should reinforce a growing sceptical electorate’s view that
they are all about the gift wrap and not the present, Labour’s ICT spokesperson Clare Curran says.
“Instead of addressing the real issues - the woeful inefficiency of Chorus in rolling out ultrafast broadband and its
desperate attempts to keep copper prices high along with the low uptake of UFB by households, National has merrily
announced it will broaden its scheme to parts of New Zealand where it needs more votes.
“The industry hasn’t been consulted; even Crown Fibre Holdings, the government agency charged with managing the UFB
contracts, hasn’t been consulted. And to cap things off National will use asset sales coffers to fund the UFB expansion.
“National has based its ICT policy on spending the industry’s money to increase rural broadband using a failed model and
extending the urban scheme to appear to be handing out free lollies using a deeply flawed recipe.
“National must provide a solid guarantee that it hasn’t promised any more backdoor hand- outs to bail out Chorus.
“National’s polling clearly indicates regional New Zealand has lost patience with the current abysmal connectivity and
is scrambling to patch over the cracks.
“Instead of creating a Chief Technology Officer to develop a joined up vision for a tech-savvy nation across rural and
urban New Zealand and undertaking an increasingly urgent, fast but thorough, review of UFB and the rural broadband
scheme, Amy Adams has produced a mediocre and thoughtless policy.
“It makes no attempt to address the issues raised by communities, the industry and by those hoping for ICT to be at the
heart of economic development. It is nothing more than a cynical gap filler.”
ends