In 1870 Julius Vogel, the NZ Premier from 1873-75 proposed to borrow of Millions of Pounds to build a rail road network in New Zealand. The core of the scheme Vogel outlined in one sentence:

 

“We recognize that the great wants of the Colony are – public works, in the shape of roads and railways;”

 

He saw New Zealand strong in agriculture and in industry but realised that we needed national transport and communication infrastructure. Vogel’s vision ensured the country could build a strong economic base. This gave us the fourth best living standards in the world by the 1960’s.

 

However, since the 1960’s New Zealand has slipped back and is not even in the top half of developed countries today. As time went on, our courage to build ever-important infrastructure weakened. New Zealand is globally isolated and relies on exports for most its living standards. Due to the large distances from markets it is very important that New Zealand has the best communication technology possible.

 

It has also been recognised around the world and by Australia that strong regional economies are important for a country to compete in a global economy. New Zealand for nearly three decades has invested into large population areas resulting in rural regions struggling to meet the increasing demand for infrastructure. The very locations were communication is most needed is the most ignored.

 

Today’s global economy is based on innovation and new ideas rather than the efficient production of things. Ideas are not unique to cities and not providing communication technology to rural areas means a country is not competing at its full potential. For NZ to compete in a global economy we must have strong regions that are able to do business anywhere in the world. For this to happen we need to have a competitive communication internet network that allows knowledge transfer in New Zealand as well as any where else in the world.  In Vogel’s time rail was the most important communication and transport technology - today, its fibre optic cable.

 

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development or OECD’s survey on fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants shows that New Zealand has been under investing and losing competitiveness for many years;

 

                             In 1990 New Zealand was 14th in the OECD

                             In 1995 New Zealand was 17th in the OECD

                             In 1999 New Zealand had slipped back to 25th in the OECD

 

At the same time E-Commerce is growing rapidly and countries are investing a lot in the technology. E-commerce is business on the internet. E-commerce is growing at a rapid rate globally, achieving $3.9 trillion in 2004. The United States of America and Australia are adapting to this growing market. The Bandwidth in USA will grow to 100mbps for 100 million homes and small businesses by 2010.

 

On a survey of 1000 farmers surveyed found while nearly ninety percent had computers three quarters of them were not satisfied with the internet service that they had. They suffered from slow downloading and connection failures because the standard of internet continues to be poor in rural areas. Fonterra New Zealand’s only major global corporate has predicted that if farmers were real broadband capable dairy productivity would increase by 3 % annually or and extra $150 million every year. In the education sector, compared to urban schools, rural and minor urban schools have 4 times the internet use. This is due to their isolation from everywhere else as New Zealand is to the rest of the world.

 

The fact is our government must get serious and invest at a much faster rate. We also need to consider alternative technologies to Telecoms copper wires, which have serious limitations. Farmers of New Zealand has been at the forefront of rural broadband improvement for some years and has achieved some success. But we need to do more and we will continue to promote the need to do better.

 

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