Mallard Trevor: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is subject to correctionMallard Trevor: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 06 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14420. Text is subject to correction.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): It is appropriate that the Minister of Police is in the chair for this because what we are discussing is the greatest money-laundering operation in the history of New Zealand the Skycity Casino.Hon Tau Henare: That’s right. You accept the tickets. You would go to the rugby but you won’t support them.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: No no I have an interruption. I just want to acknowledge that it is Tau Henare’s 20th anniversary in Parliament today. I remember when he was first a member of Parliament. He was tall he was slim he was handsome and he was modest. He is still tall. He is still tall. I do congratulate the member and the other members whose 20th anniversary it is. And of course Mr Chairman you are tall and you were modest. You are still modest. I do not think it is fair to say that you were ever slim. Fit maybe—fit maybe. But shall we get back to the bill?The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Please do.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think it is fair to say that I was responding to a non-verbal interjection on your part. Going back to the bill the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill I want to focus on a couple of parts of the bill. The first is in clause 4(2) where it says: “It is the intention of Parliament that the provisions of this Act are interpreted in a manner that best furthers the agreements expressed in the Agreement.” What that says is that it does not really matter what we are passing; the agreement is going to count. That is the attitude of this Government to the law of this country and especially with regard to this bill that just stinks. It does not matter what is in the bill; it is the agreement that counts. So it does not matter what dirty deal the Government does; the Parliament cannot override it because it is the agreement that counts and that overrides the law of the land. I just want to say that I would be surprised if that worked in a superior court in New Zealand. In my view I think that in the end a court will go to the legislation rather than override the legislation with an interpretative clause like this but it just shows the attitude of Steven Joyce that he would attempt to do such a thing.I want to just remind people what that agreement referred to in that clause clause 4(2) is. It is the agreement to increase the number of gambling machines in New Zealand massively at Skycity. That is the agreement that will cause New Zealanders to lose their homes. That is what Skycity does now. It entices people into gambling and many of them lose their homes. Many of them lose their families.Hon Tau Henare: But that’s OK for you to take tickets to the rugby.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Tau Henare might not care about that but a number of people also lose their lives. That member knows that many people commit suicide every year as a result of the losses that they incur at Skycity. That member knows that the gangs and the moneylenders murder people who owe them money who borrow it at Skycity—Hon Tau Henare: Ha ha!Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The member laughs. The member laughs. He only has to go to look at the evidence in the case of the body in the suitcase that was fished out of Auckland harbour. That young man was targeted in Skycity by moneylenders. He borrowed money from them he got more from them than he could repay he did not repay and they killed him put his body in a suitcase and dumped it in Auckland harbour. It is the extension of that sort of behaviour that members opposite are voting for. They might not care. They say: “Oh it is just another Chinese student.” Members on this side care notwithstanding who it is. It does not matter who it is. No one should end up owing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to corrupt moneylenders and people who end up murdering as part of their enforcement activities.And what are we doing here under clause 4(2)? We are giving legal effect to an agreement that will result in people losing their houses. It is well documented. Members opposite know it. Members opposite know that families are destroyed as a result of problem gambling—the very type of which is caused by this sort of 24-hour-a-day 7-day-a-week operation that the members opposite want to make worse. Members opposite do not care about the destruction of families that occurs as a result of the inability of Skycity and others to curb problem gambling. And it is the very agreement in clause 4(2) that we are giving force to that members opposite know is going to be the cause of these further problems.I see that clause 5 binds the Crown. Well I want to say that it might bind the Crown for now. It might bind the Crown for now but I do want to remind the Committee of the fact that the Crown cannot bind itself into the future. When there are decent gambling laws in New Zealand—and they are inevitable—the Crown will be unbound from this legislation because that is the way that our parliamentary system works. You cannot bind a future Government. I think everyone on this side of the Chamber is committed to a decent review of gambling laws and anyone who suggests that this law which takes out not one but two reviews of the casino licence could survive a decent review is fooling themselves. Anyone who thinks that is absolutely deluding themselves. Therefore people opposite have just got to know that these sorts of arrangements that are embodied in this bill cannot possibly continue.The Labour Party has looked at the possibility of doing multiple amendments and trying to fix this bill up. And I want to say that we will support the Green amendments. We will vote for them. But we have come to the conclusion that this bill is so bad that it cannot be improved to the point of being acceptable. It is like the old saying that you cannot polish a turd.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! That is unacceptable and the member will not use that term again.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: This bill is rubbish and it does not matter what adjustments you make to it it cannot be improved to the point of being acceptable. There is nothing that one can do that allows for the extension of gaming the extension of thehighest turnover of any sort of gaming—the highest per table turnover in the country—and what is more the highest pokie machine turnover in the country. That is absolutely unacceptable—