Parker David: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11992. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour):Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I would appreciate a bell at 1 minute if I could?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Yes.Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you. This is the result of a backroom deal by our Prime Minister done with vested interests.Le’aufa’amuliaAsenati Lole-Taylor: It was a dirty one too.Hon DAVID PARKER: A dirty one someone says here. The Deputy Auditor-General inquired into the probity of this arrangement. I want to quote a couple of paragraphs from the Deputy Auditor-General’s report because we heard continual misrepresentation including by National members today that it was all in order. The Deputy Auditor-General concluded in the report that was done by one of her deputies that “The result was that one submitter was treated differently from others during the evaluation process.” Only one bidder for this project knew that regulatory holidays were available. Only one bidder knew that the Government was willing to change the laws so that they could get a break. No other bidder knew that and that is why the Deputy Auditor-General concluded that this process was wrong.That fundamental error was never fixed and we will never know whether had the prospect of regulatory holidays been conveyed to other bidders we would have had others. There are lots of rumours around that Vector would have been interested in bidding. It faced regulatory risk around the revenues that it gets from its lines businesses. Vector may have been willing to subsidise a convention centre if it had certainty as to its revenue flows and if it had a regulatory change that took away its risks in the way this regulatory change being done for Skycity does.There is another really shady thing going in here. There is a pretence by National that it was not warned. We know from the Deputy Auditor-General’s report—and again I am reading from it—that “The Treasury … noted that an important part of the standard PPP process was a market tender which provided assurance that the taxpayer was receiving value for money. … Overall the Treasury comments suggested that officials should think about other more conventional procurement approaches.” The Treasury comments were referred to in an email of 12 November 2009 that went to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet from the Ministry of Economic Development. Treasury comments went to the Ministry of Economic Development then from the Ministry of Economic Development to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and then the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in addition wrote a briefing note to the Prime Minister. None of those documents has been disclosed. Are we such a corrupt country that we cannot see what warnings were given to the Government by the Civil Service?I raised this very issue with Steven Joyce when he was at the Finance and Expenditure Committee on estimates for the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment the other day. He said that they would be released in due course when the other documents were released. I checked today. They still have not been disclosed because this seedy underhand irresponsible disreputable deal is wrong and these notes from the Government departments to the Government told it that it was wrong. So in addition to all of the problems with this casino deal—it is a casino deal; it is not a convention centre deal—that results in a convention centre being built on the back of gambling harm the Government knew it was wrong for reasons other than gamblingharm. New Zealand’s reputation as being a transparent country free of corruption is tarnished by this deal and that tarnish cannot be undone.I want to say a couple of other things. No Parliament can curb the sovereignty of a future Parliament. That means that future measures to remedy gambling harm are always within the jurisdiction of a future Parliament. We in the Labour Party say that we reserve the right to legislate for gambling harm in the future. That does not mean to say that that will be without cost to taxpayers. This deal with the Government effectively promises compensation to Skycity in respect of some future steps by a Government and not all of that could be avoided by a future Government despite the fact that future Governments might want to go the whole hog and reverse everything. That would come at a cost. But make no mistake: future Governments have a right to regulate for gambling harm. This bill reflects poorly upon the Government and I for one will be opposing it.