The cities of Hamilton, Tauranga, Whangarei, New Plymouth and Wanganui will be among the first to benefit from the government’s rollout of ultra-fast broadband (UFB), says the Minister for Communications and Information Technology Steven Joyce.
In addition, UFB will be rolled out in Cambridge, Te Awamutu, Hawera and Tokoroa.So, what does this look like by electorates? UFB will be rolled out to:
- Whangarei, held by National’s Phil Heatley, with a majority of 14,663;
- Hamilton East, held by National’s David Bennett with a majority of 8,820;
- Hamilton West, held by National’s Tim Macindoe, with a majority of 1,618;
- Taupo, held by National’s Louise Upston, with a majority of 6,445;
- Taranaki-King Country, held by National’s Shane Ardern, with a majority of 15,618;
- Tauranga, held by National’s Simon Bridges, with a majority of 11,742;
- New Plymouth, held by National’s Jonathan Young, with a majority of 105;
- Whanganui, held by National’s Chester Borrows, with a majority of 6,333.
So, the first thing to note is that only National-held electorates get broadband; those with Labour MPs need not apply (sorry, you voted for the wrong person and so must be punished). The second thing to note is the targeting of marginal seats New Plymouth and Hamilton West. It’d be interesting if someone who knew about IT policy used the OIA to delve into National’s rollout decision, but from here it looks like pure pork-barrel politics. And I don’t like it one bit.
I don’t know if there’s anything in this. But on the face of it, it doesn’t look so good. The third agreement, which was expected to be announced with those above would have covered Timaru, held by National’s Jo Goodhew.
Steven Joyce is a crafty fellow. But even he will overplay his hand one of these days.
Update:
Think it’s good that a decision’s finally been made to lay out some fibre. The people in those towns will be pleased. Not sure they’ll be able to afford it though. And what about the rest of New Zealand?
Steven Joyce is unable to guarantee that the major agreements will be finalised before the next election!
Update 2:
Oh and before David Farrar at Kiwiblog has a go and points out that Labour holds only Palmerston North of the general electorates outside the metropolitan centres, that’s true. But it would have been smart for the government to think about this. Instead it doesn’t look so good. Given that Steven Joyce couldn’t guarantee that the rest of the deals could be finalised before next year’s election.
The plot thickens.
Update 3
Must have got under David Farrar’s skin
Time to get rid of electorates and move to full proportionality so that these pork barrel politics cannot occur even if it is only in seeming.
The degree to which provincial areas usually miss out on stuff compared to urban areas in exactly why we should not get rid of electorates.
Currently typing this from Whangarei District – in a place where there’s no UHF TV and where I have to stand on one leg to get mobile phone reception
Interesting observation Clare. ( Daisey).
You’re not very smart either. I guess Trans-Tasman were right about you. Hamilton and Cambridge are both part of the Maori electorate of Tainui which is currently held by Labour MP Nanaia Mahuta.
After years of punitive neglect Deleted. Personal. Clare the true blue seats need a bit of help catching up.
Clare, i like how the strength of your conviction decreased with each update; Conspiracy Theory Fail.
I live in the country. Couldn’t get broadband for ages even though neighbours up the road, closer to town, could. Then. A neighbour further down the road got elected to Parliament. We got broadband fairly soon after that. So, if you are planning on moving to the country it would pay to check out the neighbours if you like going onto the interweb.
And what Michael said.
I can’t help but fear that this does feel like a bit of stirring for the sake of it when there’s enough already to be concerned about.
It’s coming up to Xmas when a whole lot of things that the Government does in general (such as passing some bills that quite often escape public scrutiny) seems questionable.
So Steven Joyce has been put under pressure to make something happen… I still maintain that we simply can’t afford for National to be behind this. It’s a gift horse for the telcos. Nevermind the paying public.
Trust National to get in on a promise that makes sure we pay twice…
This post is retarded. The second update completely contradicts the rest of it.
“But it would have been smart for the government to think about this. Instead it doesn’t look so good.”
So what you’re saying is that Joyce should have thought about who held which electorate before he made his decisions to achieve a ‘better look’?
1) That seems like an arbitrary way to make public policy
2) The whole rest of the post is implying that Joyce made his decisions based on National holding the 6 electorates in question. Either he considered who held which electorate for political gain or he didnt.
Great to know that LAB is keeping a sharp eye on Joyce’s activities. Fact of the matter is that we cannot take the activities of this NAT Govt on simple trust. A lesson we have learnt the hard way over and over again.
Let me guess only people in those regions that voted National will be able to take advantage of this roll out too. Citizens wanting to sign up to the service when completed will have to fill out a questionnaire, the first question will be ‘what was your party vote at the last election’. “You say here you voted Labour, sorry next”.
Another chicken roosting?
The perception was that Labour would alter shower heads and light bulbs.
What if the perception is that Nact give gifts, like Fast Broadband to their mates. Yes they are. Here is the list!
Perhaps the reaction here is the chicken coming home to roost. Clare is backing down, yet everyone here is calling for NACT blood rich Tory boy’s club pork barrel, etc. H Fee anyone? Of course, the logical thing to do is to scream conspiracy, not stop and think rationally for a second.
If you really want to take a stance on something, tell us what Labour thinks about Assange, and how you’d react if a similar set of circumstances unfolded here with a whistleblower leaking NZ documents? That would actually be really interesting, and may very well be a talking point come next election.
Hamilton west is very much a marginal seat, and I suggest it will take much much more than the promise of faster broadband for the Nats to retain in 2011.
What we in the electorate really need are jobs, and lots of them.
What we currently have is an mp conspicuous by his absence. That’s not a fair trade by anyone’s standards.
I fully expect Moroney to realise a Labour gain.
Yet again. Another print fast and repent at leisure post.
next update should be a plate of humble pie.
“Yet again. Another print fast and repent at leisure post.”
And there was us thinking you didn’t have a concience Lol
Palmerston and Hamilton should have been first, given they both have university campuses and many regional offices of government departments.
As for God’s waiting room being near the first (Tauranga) – please, come the first decent Tsunami it will be gone (please)
Hamilton was the first city in the entire country to connect to the Internet – much of what NZ Internet old timers’ regard as tradition was created in the Waikato Uni IT department. In the same way that European roads lead to Rome, many of NZ’s Internet roads lead to Hamilton. No surprise that it’s early on the UFB connection list.
But of course, it must all be a great and terrible conspiracy. That too.
If I were National in an election year and wanted to leverage this investment to the advantage of the party I would aim to deliver in Labour held electorates.
There is marginal value in making people who are going to vote for you anyway even happier. It would be far more effective to deliver in Labour held seats in order to make the margins that much thinner.
So from a Labour point of view you can only hope that National have made such a gross error on purpose. I think it is more probable that they are working on delivery to those who are not currently well serviced.
Like Bruce Simpson of Aardvark, who will no doubt be happy that Tokaroa is getting broadband.
Nevyn has made the most relevant point. With the advent of 4G, the UFB will be an even bigger white elephant, almost like the think-big era.
Farrar destroys your post and the best you can come up with is “Must have got under his skin”.
Pathetic.
When will the cities be getting ultra-fast broadband then? Yes I know quite a few businesses have it, but many homes don’t. I would have expected suburbs to be a much quicker and cheaper proposition per connection – am I missing something?
Good point
I/S should stick to Human Rights and leave conspiracy theories alone, part of the problem when you turn the comments on your blog off, you may lose the trolls but also lose would be respectable regular posters who can tell you when you’re being nonsensical…
If you look at Australia where pork-barrelling of infrastructure is common place, it is regularly targeted at swing seats not usually ones with massive majorities…
Steven Joyce is a crafty fellow
No he is an evil obnoxious p****
he should be targeted for his every move as he
looks after his friends and himself
Isn’t he the member for the road transport lobby among other interest groups?
I dont think that you got under his skin – He simply pointed out the very obvious – something that ‘you guys’ missed in your rush to find the big conspiracy.
@ Andrew with a picture of a woman.
4G will run over the UFB.
Mobile data is currently being transferred to underground fibre optic as over the air transmission of data has pretty much reached capacity.
Given that the final make up of parliament is decided by the Party Vote under MMP, you do seem to be grasping at straws here.
Just out of interest, why were these areas chosen?
@Tracey, common sense would say they were chosen because they are provincial areas with large(ish) populations currently with poor telecommunications services. The larger cities, Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch have reasonable services, relatively speaking. Bang for buck.
It is not so much, why were those areas chosen as why were other areas ignored? The biggest areas where the bang for buck will be the biggest (Auckland!) were not chosen because carrots had to be left dangling for Telecom to come to the party. But the correlation with electorates is interesting!
I have been trying to reconcile, in my mind, the reason for the $1.5b subsidy to Telecom, reasons included (from memory) increased competitiveness of NZ business, and all schools having better access speeds. Are there particular business or school hubs in these areas and/or is it being regarded as a “pilot” so the inevitable glitches get addressed here before Auckland central?
I don’t know, am genuinely interested in responses.
This is a very long bow to draw. Don’t you think those in need the most (rural areas), should get the first roll-out. Just because Labour rarely, if ever, makes a strong connection with rural folk, doesn’t mean what you are suggesting about National. Were this the case, are you saying that Labour would ignore the rural areas (and actual need) and concentrate on the urban ones, were they in Government? I find it difficult to believe this without actual provable evidence, rather than a conspiracy theory.
@Dave I think Labour makes very strong connections with the rural community and on broadband has been a champion. I think you’d find Fed farmers and Rural Women NZ would agree and that our policy will reflect this. Do your homework
@Harold The rural commnities are the poor cousins to urban NZ with this government’s broadband scheme. 5 megabit per second for rural NZ compared with 100 megabit per second in the cities? $1.5 billion for urban NZ and $300 million for rural NZ? Go figure
Sorry Clare, you just lost a lot of credibility in my eyes with this nonsense about links between National-held electorates and UFB roll-out priorities.
To bring the broadband debate here back on track the focus should be on issues like these:
1. the minister suggesting that deals for the big cities may not be done until close to the elections – Auckland can’t afford to wait that long
2. rural NZ being sentenced to live with sub-standard wireless based broadband for the next 20 years
@Clare “on broadband has been a champion.”, If you think that, good, although your election results in these areas would say different. Then, if you are indeed a “champion” in rural areas, what is the problem with rural areas getting this first ?
Also, wouldn’t it be a very good idea to have areas of extreme economic importance to new Zealand (rural and agricultural townships) to have a business tool like this to enhance their competitiveness and hence production efficiencies and have all other the business advantages this brings? This would put them on equal footing with most urban businesses and the rest of the world. A good idea. Can’t really see why anyone would try to delay this or criticise it.
Dave why should rural areas get crumbs first when they should get a fairer share of the project? After this money is spent thats it for a long time. Clare has got her priorities right on this. By accepting that rural gets such a small slice of the pie, you do not.
P Rabbit said
Yep, this certainly isn’t good enough. There needs to be a more proactive plan, 5Mb/s is usable but that standard is already long past being relevant. We need to be talking about 10Mb/s minimum with a clear pathway to step it up from there.
CV – Thats exactly what I’m saying. Rural areas (national strongholds) were ignored during Labours time in government. So yes they are now the long overdue priority. Clare trying to read some dark mysterious conspiracy into the project does her no credit. I’ll give you one to think about, why didn’t Labour upgrade the telecom infrastructure during their lengthy time in power, why didn’t they intend to upgrade the broadband infrastructure? Are you saying it is now suddenly a priority? Gee wonder why?