The key purpose of this Bill is to make additional funding available, through the telecommunications development levy applied to the telecommunications industry, for the Government’s policy of extending the Rural Broadband Initiative and establishing a Mobile Black Spots Fund. To achieve that key purpose, this Bill resets the telecommunications development levy amounts prescribed in Schedule 3B of the Telecommunications Act 2001 for 2016/17 and beyond.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment is required to prepare a disclosure statement to assist with the scrutiny of this Bill. The disclosure statement provides access to information about the policy development of the Bill and identifies any significant or unusual legislative features of the Bill.

A copy of the statement can be found at http://legislation.govt.nz/disclosure.aspx?type=bill&subtype=government&year=2015&no=20.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment produced a regulatory impact statement in March 2015 to help inform the main policy decisions taken by the Government relating to the contents of this Bill.

A copy of this regulatory impact statement can be found at—

• http://www.med.govt.nz/about-us/publications/publications-by-topic/regulatory-impact-statements/mbie-regulatory-impact-statements

• http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/informationreleases/ris