Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): It is with great pleasure that I rise on behalf of the Green Party to offer our support for the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill at this the second reading. The Green Party really supports these initiatives. We want to see this law happen. We want to see it happen quickly. We want it to be comprehensive legislation. I do though feel compelled at the beginning of my speech to point out a bit of a double standard that seems to exist in relation to crime in this country. It seems that our Government has been very slow to respond to crime at the big end of town compared with the endless harsh treatment of beneficiaries who may or may not indeed have committed welfare fraud. I really think that it is a significant injustice in this country.This legislation that is in front of us is really long overdue. The extensions to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act were signalled early on and then the Government delayed it for 2 years between 2014 and 2016 before the Panama Papers publicity basically forced it to put the reforms back on track. This is a very common picture that I am seeing in this country. There are things that we know we need to do—say build more houses—and yet nothing gets done because that seems to involve active governance and this Government that we have here to my left does not seem to be very interested in active governance. It seems to be more interested in waiting until we have a crisis before it responds.In this case the delay was after 2010 when the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering—which is an inter-Governmental forum on money-laundering that comprises international experts and has the strong backing of Governments from around the world and includes as well as in its consideration money-laundering and anti-terrorism financing concerns—issued a damning report on New Zealand revealing cases of fraud drugs theft blackmail and burglary that had resulted in criminal funds subject to money-laundering in this country.Even that report which ended up for at least a period of time with New Zealand being struck off the prestigious European Union white list of countries that have financial integrity was not enough to get this Government to fast track these protections. It delayed after that and was really forced and waited until the public furore after the Panama Papers forced it to take action. It really does blow my mind a bit and I wonder how it has managed to stay in its place as long as it has.It is I think really important that we have this legislation to build this trust back in. What this legislation does is it amends the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act of 2009 to extend its core obligations to include real estate agents lawyers accountants conveyancers the New Zealand Racing Board and some high-value dealers in certain objects like jewellery precious metals arts cars boats and antiquities to give the Department of Internal Affairs oversight supervision of these new sectors to protect against these areas being used to cover money that is actually the proceeds of crime so that we can as a country be more on top of reducing crime by removing its cover protecting the integrity and creating an even playing field for our businesses as well as bringing back some of the real costs of things like housing taking out the money from the proceeds of crimes that are affecting those markets.