Key on broadband and Fonterra

Prime Minister John Key has made an announcement that will come as a windfall to rural people desperate for fast broadband reports Scoop. Mr Key has told the Country Channel the government is to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more than originally earmarked for rural broadband. The Prime Minister says broadband is a commercial must for agriculture and the expanded plans will help boost productivity on the land. He says the days of painfully slow dial-up connections for rural customers have to come to an end and the government's determined to see farmers catch up with urban New Zealand so they can run their businesses much more efficiently. And in a two-part interview, the Prime Minister has told John Stewart on The Country Channel's in-depth Newsmakers programme that the government will not stand in the way of any changes to Fonterra's capital structure. He says he understands that the farmer-owned dairy colossus needs an ownership structure that will enable it to raise equity. But Mr Key says any decision on the ultimate ownership of Fonterra rests with its owners "“ the vast majority of the country's dairy farmers.