Turei Metiria: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11986. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green):Tino pai Mr Speaker.Tēnā koe. “But gambling is not just the scourge of my communities. We all know that there are teachers there are lawyers and there are even politicians who gamble. So let us not say that this is a problem defined to one area but across the country. It is also personal because I have had numerous constituents come into my electorate office in Onehunga in Maungakiekie and I have seen the broken relationships. I have seen kids who have gone without the essentials the broken families and the broken relationships. It affects our communities right across this country.”—so said Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga last night in this House and I agree with him. I agree with him 100 percent and so do thousands of New Zealanders. So my plea to all of my parliamentary colleagues today is: “Do not vote for this bill.”—the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill.Today we have a rare opportunity to vote with our conscience on a bill that we all know grates so deeply and it grates because it is wrong. It is wrong to sell the law to Skycity so that Skycity and no one else can make millions of dollars off the misery of problem gamblers their families their children and their communities. It is wrong to use the authority of this House to excuse Skycity for 35 years from the Gambling Act the Act that constrains the harm of gambling by stemming its growth. It is wrong to know that increasing gambling at Skycity will produce measurable predictable harm to people who can least afford to be harmed but to choose to do so anyway. It is wrong to subvert the very foundation of our law—the law that says that we are all equal beforeit—to confer on Skycity a special privilege that the rest of us simply do not have. That is wrong and there is no more simple way to put it.People’s lives have been destroyed by gambling and by Skycity. Every few months we hear another story about another business that has gone under about people who have become sick their lives destroyed who have stolen from their employers have harmed or abandoned their children and have even harmed themselves because of that place. So please do not use this one vote you have today to make Skycity bigger more rapacious and more damaging than it is already. We all have the power today to stop that from happening.I would add to that a concern about the nature of Skycity. Today in fact just a few moments ago I saw a press report on Skycity and a comment that it made where it is in effect threatening MPs today saying that if MPs choose to deny this legislation and vote it down Skycity will take its money—hundreds of millions of dollars says Nigel Morrison—and spend it overseas. So it is effectively attempting to threaten MPs—Hon Trevor Mallard: Good riddance.METIRIA TUREI: —good riddance I agree Mr Mallard—by saying that it will remove its business and take it elsewhere in a deliberate attempt to use its financial power to influence the votes of members of Parliament. We are seeing that happen right as we speak today with this release from Skycity.John Key would have us all believe despite the fact that these gambling extensions breach the law and despite the demonstrable harm that they bring that these extensions are necessary for Auckland to get ahead on jobs. Well of course Auckland as we know is much much better than that. Aucklanders are creative innovative and imaginative and they are better than this dirty deal of expanding a casino and placing a casino monument—plonked right in the middle of their beautiful city.The other fallacy that John Key and Steven Joyce would have us believe is that jobs should come at any cost but that is just simply not true. Not only are the numbers false—there are not those numbers of jobs that they say and if you look at any of the reports it is clear that they are overestimating the jobs—but jobs do not come at any cost and they most certainly must not come at the cost of 6500 children who Joyce’s own officials warn will be harmed by this bill. That is 6500 children who the officials say will be at risk of not being fed and clothed properly as a result of this bill. This is not my information. I did not produce this information. This is information that is in the Government’s own albeit heavily edited carefully redacted and selectively released documents. It is information that it has produced and has known about.The jobs claim of Steven Joyce is untrue. One need only look at the reports to show that that is the case. Even the $90 million claim that is being made by Steven Joyce is untrue. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment reports that its analysis shows that 72 percent of that money will go to Skycity through the hotel and through the convention centre. So very little of that $90 million is going anywhere near outside the Skycity boundaries.Steven Joyce and John Key say that because we cannot know for sure exactly how many people are to be harmed or how they will be harmed by the increased gambling that this bill brings the risk to those people or the risk of that harm is somehow irrelevant. Joyce claimed yesterday that the regulatory impact statement said that putting a precise cost on the potential increase is difficult. Well yes it does say that but it also goes on to say why it is difficult to put a precise cost on the harms. It says: “Reportedly only a fraction of those who are affected by problem gambling seek help and the cost of the intervention services is in any case only a fraction of the cost (harms) associated with problem gambling (such as suicide; family violence; children inadequately clothed and fed and other examples of deprivation and poor parenting; costs to the justicesystem to businesses and to community groups of gambling-related crime lost productivity etc.).” That is what it says in the regulatory impact statement.All of those harms are identified as being real and the risk of those harms being real. Yes it is difficult to quantify the cost but that does not mean that those harms do not exist. It does not mean those harms are irrelevant to this debate. In fact it raises serious questions when this bill is proceeding knowing that those harms are a risk and when Mr Joyce today confirmed that he has made no attempt to find the real evidence behind that. No he did not seek any advice about whether more children would be left in cars in the Skycity car-park even though we know that that happens. No he has not assessed the risk of increased fraud for those businesses that we know will suffer from theft and fraud—usually by people who own or are senior in those businesses—as a result of problem gambling. No he has not sought any advice on the risk to charities—charities that not only receive funding from the members of the public but also receive funding from Government—of that money being stolen when we know that more than 50 percent of the money that is stolen from charities is stolen to fuel problem gambling.These are the facts that we know. This is the information that we have available to us but John Key and Steven Joyce have deliberately refused to investigate that information because if they do not know then they can pretend it does not exist. Yet that harm will be experienced by thousands of New Zealanders and more important by thousands of their children.I am going to end by quoting a member of this House who fought against the 1997 Casino Control (Moratorium) Amendment Bill 15 years ago. He said: “We are talking about a problem that we all own. We cannot just sweep the problem under the carpet because we believe in free enterprise. We cannot just sweep the problem under the carpet because we think it is an individual’s right to throw the dice to play blackjack ... We have a problem in this country and it is the addiction of gambling. It creates havoc amongst families be theyMāori be theyPākehā. It creates a problem and we need a Parliament with the strength and courage to face up to that problem and face up to it we will.” and “We have a problem and those people who vote in favour of this Bill are on the side of the angels and those who vote against this legislation are on the side of evil.” Thank you Mr Tau Henare for those wise words.