Roche Denise: Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19771. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green):Tēnā koe i te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. I rise to take a short call on the Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill. The Greens will be supporting this bill—of course we will—because we believe that there should be regulation to prohibit international crime syndicates from operating in New Zealand. We agree that it should be illegal to influence a betting outcome or to improperly manipulate a sporting match or a race. But I would like to note that this is the fourth bill in this term that protects and advantages the betting industry. Those in the industry are obviously very good friends of the Government.So just to recap we have had the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill which was Te Ururoa Flavell’s failed attempt to reduce harm from pokies. That is the one that galvanised the pokie industry. The Commerce Committee received 30000 or so submissions from community organisations that had been whipped into a frenzy by their pokie trust funders.We have also had the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) which was in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne. That bill has been on the books since 2007. It has not been heard yet but it is on the Order Paper.There is also the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) which is yet to be heard but is scheduled for December this year. That bill puts in place some of the regulation that was talked about in the harm reduction bill that Te Ururoa Flavell put forward in the House and it has the laudable aim of focusing on class 4 gambling—that is pokies in pubs and clubs. It says that its policy objectives are to “increase transparency of grant-making … improve transparency surrounding management companies … simplify compliance and reduce costs for societies and venue owners … and ensure the efficiency of the appeals process is not undermined.” So this is the one that says that pokie venues can be paid a percentage of the pokie takings which really sets up the pubs and the clubs to incentivise problem gambling because that way they can make more money.Who could forget that last year we had the Hon Steven Joyce’s New Zealand International Convention Centre Act? Its stated purpose was to give effect to an agreement between Skycity Entertainment Group Ltd and the Crown. The agreement that it referred to was that in exchange for a $402 million convention centre Skycity would get an increase in gambling opportunities. It would also have a new system called ticket-in ticket-out which is a method of gambling that increases the opportunity for money-laundering. This brings us back to today’s bill which is of course about crime.The fact is that if we had passed the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill—which was the member’s bill in the name of Metiria Turei and which was again about crime and gambling—last year then we would have absolutely dealt to money-launderers. They absolutely love casinos—and they love the sports betting industry as well because that is where they launder their money—and we would have been able to put a stop to the fact that money-laundering does occur in casinos in New Zealand. We would have put in place a situation where money going through casinos that has been stolen or obtained as a result of crime would have to be paid back. Given that a lot of the money for betting whether the betting is in casinos or whether it is sports betting comes from small businesses or not-for-profit organisations and has been stolen by people with compulsive gambling habits that bill would have meant that the money would be paid back to them. The fact is however that the bill that was in Metiria Turei’s name which did deal just with casinos was voted down by this Government.We Greens love New Zealand. We think that we can have a fairer society and a smarter more diverse economy that is based on a cleaner environment and we do not think this bill is going to deliver that. But it is clear that this Government loves to gamble. It has been gambling with our laws it has been gambling with our economy it has been gambling with our people and it has been gambling with our environment. But having said that we will be supporting this bill because we believe in fair play.