Shearer David: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionShearer David: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 07 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14502. Text is subject to correction.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I just want to carry on from where my colleague from the Greens Metiria Turei left off because I completely agree with her. The New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill is a bill that is improperly named. It should be the “Look After Your Mates (Sleazy Convention Centre) Bill.” I hope I am able to stay in the Chamber after saying that title.At the end of the day this whole bill is built solely around the fact that we have to bring in changes to our gambling laws in order to get this convention centre up. If it was just a simple convention centre we would not have to be doing this. If it was a simple deal that did not involve a shonky deal we would not have to be doing this either. As the Deputy Auditor-General said it was flawed it was not transparent and there were deficiencies on the part of Ministers and their officials. When the Prime Minister said that he was totally vindicated by her report she said: “No that isn’t the case at all.” In fact she said: “You don’t have to spend time writing 40 or 50 pages of an Auditor-General’s report if he was going to be totally vindicated.”This was a deal that was shonky from the beginning because of the way it was carried out. It was done over dinner. It was done through a whole bunch of secret meetings between the Prime Minister’s office and Skycity. It cut out completely the other four tenderers that wanted to have a look in to this bill as well. They did not get a good look in. Instead we had Skycity and instead we had to amend massive amounts of legislation in order for Skycity to get the cosy deal that it ended up with. Otherwise we would not have needed to do it.What sort of deal did Skycity end up with? Well the current 110 gambling tables will go up by 40—by 40. And listen to this: Skycity has 1657 pokie machines currently—1657 currently in operation—and it is going to lift that by 230 more. But here is the kicker in this—here is the kicker: what Skycity will get out of this is not just the extra pokie machines but also 359 of those pokie machines will have their limits lifted from $20 to $100. They will have in-out cards so you do not actually have to put any money in whatsoever.This is designed to fleece those people who cannot afford to put their money in these pokie machines in the first place faster than they have ever done before. It will increase gambling harm much more than has occurred in the past. This is a bill designed to give Skycity an enormous shot in the arm. I asked a former employee of Skycity whom I spoke to before this came forward about what sort of deal this would be and he laid out what he thought it would be. He was surprised—he was surprised that Skycity got such a great deal.This will not enhance New Zealand’s reputation. It will not be the economic development miracle that Steven Joyce said it would be. It will pull money out of people who can least afford that money and it will put money in the pockets of those people in New Zealand who have already got that money. This is wrong. It will do nothing for New Zealand except provide the knowledge that our convention centre is being built on the backs of people who can least afford to pay for it. We the taxpayers will be paying the bill for all of those thousands of New Zealanders their families and their kids who will be poorer as a result of this shonky piece of legislation. Here we are in this Chamber on a Thursday afternoon debating a bill that should never have come tothis House because we should have had a proper process that would have enabled other companies to have a fair look in to the situation.