Roche Denise: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionRoche Denise: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 07 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14504. Text is subject to correction.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): I have put a bit of thought into considering what the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill means. I have listened very closely to my colleagues on this side of the Chamber and I agree with their assessment of what the bill is. As a consequence I believe that this bill is badly named so I have put together a few alternative names that this Committee might like to consider. The first one is the “New Zealand International Convention Centre (Maximisation of Problem Gambling) Bill”. It is more accurate because with the concessions that have been negotiated—the 230 pokie machines the 12 automated tables with 20 seats at each aswell as the 40 new gambling tables—we are looking at approximately 8000 people who will be harmed by problem gambling and we are looking at about 6500 children who will also suffer directly from problem gambling as a result of this bill.We know that the only reason we have this bill and we have these concessions around gambling is to fund the convention centre off the profits of problem gambling because 40 percent of those profits that Skycity will make from all those machines will be from people who have no control over their behaviour. For a Government to say that this is how we will fund a public benefit for our economy as it suggests through the misery of others is morally bankrupt.I have also thought that maybe to be more accurate to more accurately reflect the impact of this bill we should call it the “Stealing Little Kids’ Lunch Money to Build a Convention Centre Bill” because that is what happens to children who live in homes where one of their parents has a gambling problem. Maybe we should be asking Skycity whether it could actually extend its creche facilities which are otherwise known as the parking lot because that is where a lot of those kids will be.I am also thinking that we could be calling this bill the “We Welcome Money-launderers and Loan Sharks International Convention Centre Bill” because if you look at how Skycity will be increasing its profits and if you look at the concessions particularly the concessions around ticket-in ticket-out technology which actually gets rid of real money for gambling we are looking at a big huge welcome to loan sharks. They love this kind of thing. That is how they launder the money and that is how the P cooks suddenly have an income that they can declare. But at least as I have said before the police will know where to find them. They will be in the casino.We could also be calling this bill—and I think we should be—the “Dodgy Dealing and Tainted Decision-making International Convention Centre Bill”. If you think about the tender process that was aborted halfway through or even before it started really—if you look at that these other dodgy characters have entered the fray. They include members of this House who may have a kind of tainted attitude towards Skycity because of the implications around them keeping their job as an MP because they have allegedly taken money from Skycity during their mayoral campaign. The conflict of interest there is that that member has to rely on the evidence of the chief executive officer of Skycity to maintain his job as an MP and Skycity relies on the vote of that member to pass this legislation where it will dramatically increase its profits. The $403 million that it will cost to build this convention centre is chump change. It will have recouped that within 4 years because of the concessions that this Government is allowing with this piece of legislation which totally undermines the Gambling Act as others have said.We could also say that another title for this bill could be the “New Zealand is a Pushover in Negotiations International Convention Centre Bill”. Honestly we are a laughing stock internationally. We have allowed one corporate citizen to negotiate with this Government for—