But that was before it gained status as the round in which Prime Minister John Key cut his teeth as an Opposition spokesman in 2003 and in which Labour leadership aspirant David Cunliffe and Government "chief operating officer" Steven Joyce debuted their ministerial careers.
The Government and Opposition portfolios are now in the hands of two South Island women: Cantabrian lawyer Amy Adams as minister and Clare Curran, a former public relations executive from Dunedin, her Labour counterpart.
Adams, who sits in an office in Parliament's Bowen House annexe rather than the Beehive proper, acknowledges there might be a view the heavy lifting was done when the Government picked companies to build the ultrafast broadband network and structurally separated Telecom last year.
But if Joyce, her predecessor, was the minister for "getting ultrafast broadband in the ground", she will be the minister for "making it productive", she says.
The UFB plan was famously labelled "Stalinist" by Cunliffe but it now appears to be back to business as usual for National's pro- free market economic philosophies as the Government waits to see whether the telecommunications industry responds well to the $1.5 billion leg-up it has been given by taxpayers, or whether more interventions are required.
Adams says the Government first has to take care of "its own end of the shop" by making sure it capitalises on the ability of UFB to improve public services. "The areas where we see most immediate productive upswings are in health, education and e-government." Conveniently, she doubles as internal affairs minister, with responsibility for the latter.
The Government also has a role in encouraging businesses to take advantage of UFB through education and advice, she says.
"But I don't think we will be in there prescribing and subsidising mass uptake. All the experience is that doesn't work and this is not a time when there is a lot of money to throw around."
The "real wins" will come when service providers start putting together services that use UFB to provide new benefits to customers, she says.
"If it is just a case of doing what we do now, just a bit quicker, that offers limited productivity gains."
The Government would be ready to step in to deal to any "bottlenecks".
Adams is not convinced the Southern Cross cable's near monopoly on international bandwidth qualifies as one of them yet.
Though in the longer term a further sub-sea cable would be a good thing, "all the reports I have seen suggest we are in a good place in terms of capacity and pricing", she says.
If Adams shows any sign of a hobby horse, it is in a claim that attention needs to be given to the "security and resilience of the network to ensure all the amazing opportunities" UFB offers are taken up.
"The issue is to bring it to the forefront of thinking. On a personal level, one [an issue] is are we good at changing passwords and updating firewalls and doing all those things that protect you from 80-90 per cent of them [problems]."
Any initiatives would need to be "consistent with what our major international partners are doing", she says.
Curran argues that the Government missed an opportunity by not combining the broadcasting and communications portfolios, saying "the quality content available to people who don't have Sky TV is diminishing by the day".
"We see broadcasting and ICT as being one portfolio. It is shortsighted and backward of this Government not to have recognised that. The moment they merge them, they have to look at the regulatory environment and I suspect that is why they are not doing it."
Adams counters that Labour favours "content regulation" and while convergence between broadcasting and telecommunications is occurring, she has yet to be convinced there is an argument for a single regulator for the two industries.
Curran adds that Adams and Broadcasting Minister Craig Foss will both have to prove they are independent thinkers and "not puppets of" Joyce.
Curran also makes it clear Labour is concerned by the diversity of advice provided to the Government by officials and will not let the Government hide behind that advice, for example on the best way of allocating "digital dividend" radio spectrum freed up by the closure of analogue television.
"It is important there is a search for the best possible advice," she says. "Whether that comes from inside the country or outside, I don't really care.
"We shouldn't be relying on 'last century thinking'."
Issues of social equity will be high on her agenda. Curran is concerned UFB will be provided first to richer suburbs and that this will exacerbate the digital divide.
"Labour's policy was to ensure parts of New Zealand that weren't likely to get broadband quickly should be prioritised," she says.
COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER FIRM ON COPYRIGHT
New Communications Minister Amy Adams says the internet has raised people's expectations of being able to access "anything we like any time", but it is difficult to argue people should be able to steal copyright material just because it is not available on their terms.
Adams would not comment on the arrest of file-sharing entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, the elephant currently in the corner in her new ministerial office.
New Zealand has a duty to be seen to be acting appropriately and doing its part in the prevention of any crime, she says.
"We want to have New Zealand seen as a safe place to do business and our response to intellectual property and copyright issues is part of that."
Adams hints at a possible refresh of copyright law, saying there needs to be "some thinking about what is protected commercially and what isn't. My view is this is always evolving and [a review] is just a question of timing."
Labour communications spokeswoman Clare Curran has backed a rethink, but Adams is giving few clues as to National's agenda - copyright being just one area where her portfolio intersects with that of Commerce and Broadcasting Minister Craig Foss.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Tom Pullar-Strecker
Quelle/Source: The Dominion Post, 27.01.2012
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
