12. Question No. 12—JusticeGINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister of JusticeQuestion No. 12—Justice12. GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister of Justice: What legislative changes to seize criminal assets and combat organised crime are being progressed?Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): The Government is progressing a range of changes to legislation to give Police additional tools to combat organised crime and pursue ill-gotten gains. On 6 September I introduced the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill to the House and on 13 September I introduced the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill. These bills build on significant progress already made this term including the enactment of the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Act record investments in front-line police and boosts to programmes to stop young people becoming involved in organised crime in the first place.Ginny Andersen: What will these changes mean for organised criminals who structure their affairs in order to avoid their illicit assets being restrained or forfeited?Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: The Police's experience with criminal proceeds investigations tells us many cases involve criminals structuring their affairs to create distance between themselves—Hon Louise Upston: It should be 10.Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: —and the assets by putting property into associates' names. It should be 10? It is currently 10000 so thank you for agreeing to our proposal as well. The criminal proceeds bill grants Police new powers so that if it is suspected that an associate couldn't have funded their assets legitimately then they could be required to prove to the court how they came to possess them or face having them seized.Ginny Andersen: What will these changes mean for criminals who flee overseas but have illicit assets based here in New Zealand?Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Currently criminals are able to avoid the reach of the criminal proceeds regime in some cases if they are overseas and simply refuse to cooperate with the existing legal process. The criminal proceeds bill establishes a new court order for the High Court that will allow authorities to pursue and seize the New Zealand - based assets of criminals no matter where they are in the world unless they can provide proof within two months that they obtained their property legally.Ginny Andersen: What other changes are being made to reinforce the criminal proceeds regime?Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: The criminal proceeds bill also fixes two technical issues by closing a gap in the legislation so that the Official Assignee the Government body that manages assets restrained under the criminal proceeds regime can hold seized property longer than 28 days while the court considers an application for a restraining order and secondly by protecting the integrity of KiwiSaver by eliminating the potential for criminals to hide illegal funds in their KiwiSaver accounts by making funds subject to civil forfeiture orders.Ginny Andersen: How will the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill help make communities safer?Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: The criminal activity bill gives effect to our announcements made in July and will enhance community safety by creating new powers and offences for Police to target criminal offending including those commonly associated with gang activities such as the possession and discharging of weapons and firearms money-laundering and suspicious possession of cash and dangerous behaviour on our roads. In 2020 we campaigned on working harder and smarter to keep our communities safer break the cycle of offending and tackle the root causes of crime. And that across a range of areas is exactly what we are doing.