Cosgrove Clayton: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 05 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14349. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): The one thing that is lost on the Government as we debate the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill is that there is a process that should have been gone through to come to an appropriate outcome. It may be that some of the things the Government says are true. There may be a case for a convention centre. There may be a case. There may well be a case for economic opportunity based around a convention centre in Auckland. There may well be a case for involvement by a whole lot of commercial entities. But the problem is that we will never know because as we know no appropriate economic evaluation was done because there was only one bidder. Actually when you look at Skycity it is a private sector entity. Its job is to get the best deal it can for its shareholders in any commercial negotiation. I do not hold that against Skycity. It is its job as a private sector commercial organisation. But you would hope that the job of the Government in negotiating a deal with the private sector would be to firstly do it appropriately; secondly do it ethically; and thirdly do it with a bit of gumption.We know that when it comes to actually negotiating deals whether it be with Rio Tinto—where Bill English told us that the $30 million was a free gift in order to secure the jobs down south and then we found out that there is no jobs guarantee and then bizarrely we found out that he did not even have the brains to ask for a jobs guarantee—or Meridian Energy or Mighty River Power botch-up after botch-up—Hon Shane Jones: Chorus.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: —or Chorus—those guys over there could not negotiate their way out of a paper bag. Skycity must be sitting up there in Auckland going “Ha ha ha! Didn’t we do well?”.Hon Shane Jones: Inept.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: As my colleague said the Government is inept to the point of negligence. Maurice Williamson grins away. He knows that it is true. He has negotiated the odd deal in his time. Maybe the Government should have put Maurice in charge of this. He might have done a better job. The job of Ministers and the Government is to be responsible to look after the public purse to get the best deal they can and to protect our communities.When you look at the process—my colleague Mr Mallard called Mr Young a toady. Well there is a pattern.Hon Trevor Mallard: No no no.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Was it not you?Hon Trevor Mallard: No I think he toadied up.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: He toadied up. Well there is a pattern when you look at the minority report that the Labour Party has put in and you look at the process that the Commerce Committee went through. The truth is that in the select committee when Labour and I think Green colleagues asked repeatedly for the Ministry of Health to come in directly and make a submission to us so we could ask questions directly to specialists in the Ministry of Health—not the gatekeepers in the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment; the Ministry of Health—the Gambling Commission and the Department of Internal Affairs those entities and Government agencies charged with policing and dealing with the problems around gambling per se they were blocked on every occasion by Jonathan Young and his band of merry men. They are all men. They were blocked on every occasion.In fact I can recall in the select committee that we wanted to send a letter to Steven Joyce and ask him for some particular commercial data that we believed he held. He is entitled as a Minister to say no. He was entitled to do that. Jonathan Young the lion in Parliament and the lamb in the select committee said no and blocked it on numbers. He would not even allow the committee to write to the Minister and just ask him for the information he had—not demand but ask—knowing of course that Steven Joyce could and would say no. That is the amount of intestinal fortitude and bravery—and he has got a ton of it—that that member exhibited on the committee.Just like with Solid Energy when we asked for an inquiry the toadies—and Trevor Mallard is right—for whatever reason for their own political vanity and ambition blocked every inquiry into that disaster. So those members cannot stand up here with any moral authority and say that as select committee members just like their Ministers they executed their duty and looked after those whom they purport to represent in the Government. And if I was Skycity I would be looking at them and going “What a bunch of amateurs.”In fact it was so embarrassing of course during some of the public hearings looking at Sam Lotu-Iiga. We now know of course that his electorate chairman rocked up allegedly on behalf of the Catholic Church unbeknownst to the Catholic Church the pontiff the archbishop and a few others in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and said that this was a fantastic deal. Sam Lotu-Iiga never even asked him a question—for good reason because he did not want to admit that he is a very close personal friend of that member. Did he breach any Standing Orders? No. Did he breach any ethics? Yes. Does he have any moral authority to stand on this issue? No. A number of those members Jonathan Young and others railed against the gambling industry for years but when Steven Joyce comes acalling—Hon Ruth Dyson: Flipped over.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: —they just flip over as my colleague said and they are just marshalled into the corral like a bunch of sheep. I ask Jonathan Young—and he might want to ask his Minister—why if he believes that this proposal stands on its own economic feet on its own ethical feet and all the data stacks up he blocked the officials from the Ministry of Health from coming to the committee. No answer. Why did he block officials from the Department of Internal Affairs from coming to us?Hon Ruth Dyson: Silence.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Silence. Why did he even refuse the committee sending a letter to the Minister to ask for some more information? If he was that worried—he could not even work out that the Minister does have the power to say: “No it’s commercially sensitive and I’m not going to give it to you.” Why did he and his merry men even block the committee from being allowed to send a letter?Jonathan Young: Leaks.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Pardon? Sorry? Leaks—he said leaks. I presume he is not referring to the vegetable variety. So let us get this straight. The alibi for not sending a letter was the fact that if the committee sent a letter to ask for information of a Minister who could then refuse the letter might be leaked. That is brilliant. That is genius. That is incredible. If that is the best that those members over on the other side can do to justify this then there is a problem.The truth is that this was a deal done that the Auditor-General criticised. This was a deal done and slipped through “Slick Willie” - like. The Prime Minister said “Just get it done. One tenderer—that will be all we need to do.” I think I said in the first reading that in a way you can understand that the Prime Minister came from the private sector frustrated as we all are from time to time with bureaucratic processes. In the private sector when your chief executive officer says: “You’ve got the budget. Do it on time do it properly and by the way don’t bother me. Just get it done fast.” that is appropriate because it is their money. When you come into Parliament you do get aggrieved sometimes when you are a Minister at the slowness and at the bureaucratic processes that you have to go through. That is fair enough. But you have to go through them because the difference is that this is public money. This has public impact. All this is for the public’s benefit. It is taxpayer money. There has to be a higher and a different degree of accountability and transparency when you are spending other people’s dough as a Minister and as a Government on behalf of taxpayers.So you can understand that frustration but I say to the Prime Minister that he needs to temper his frustration because there is a proper process to go through. And his select committee members his toadies and lackeys over there did not represent their constituencies or their public well. I believe that they did not want to know what submitters said—certainly not if they were opposed to this deal. They did not want any evidence any Government agency or any specialist on behalf of the Crown to even come raise issues and question any facet of the harm that could possibly be done or even talk in general terms—take Skycity out of it—about the harm that excessive gambling causes. They did not want it on the public record and they think that that just papers over the cracks they can get away with it and it is all hidden. Well the problem for Jonathan Young and the three at the back who are on the committee is that this is a Parliament. These people are exposed; the report exposes them. We have such a thing called freedom of speech and we can now debate it here. So the short-sighted stupidity of Mr Young in trying to hide it all paper over the cracks—he did not even have the gumption to realise that hang on we are going to whip back to the Chamber when the bill gets reported back and it will all come out anyway.Jonathan Young: Of course.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: “Of course.” he says. Well that shows the ineptitude of that man over there. He could not even work that out.We are opposed to the bill we are opposed to the process that it went through and we are opposed to the disrespect that was shown to not only submitters but those good folk in the Public Service those specialists who could have provided great background and facts as to the impact the negative impact of this bill.