Carter Chris: Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Bill — In Committee 
Carter Chris: Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:658;Page:6937] 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 I rise to make my first contribution to the debate on the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Bill in the Committee stage. I am a member of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. In fact I am the senior Labour member on that committee and I am really pleased to make a contribution. 
I begin my contribution by praising John Hayes the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. John and I of course have our political differences but I want to tell the Minister in the chair Simon Power that Mr Hayes acted in a very non-partisan way during the process of this legislation. 
Mr Hayes was receptive to Opposition suggestions and he was very accommodating to experts from the banking sector. He worked particularly closely with my colleague the Hon Pete Hodgson who in my view made a first-class contribution as an Opposition member of the select committee. Pete Hodgson is a master of detail—I guess that is because of his scientific training—and he really focused the whole select committee’s attention on the details of this bill and especially on the processes of working with the banking industry on this piece of legislation which I am proud to say was introduced by the previous Labour Government. 
My colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel was a driving force in getting this issue dealt with. It is an important national issue. We are faced with the spectre of global terrorism as well as with the efforts of organised crime to launder illicit funds through the global financial systems of the world. New Zealand and Australian banks with their fine reputation for honesty and stability along with being away from the financial centres of Europe and North America have been a target an opportunity for international criminals to launder funds through our system. 
In our confidential briefings from the police we were told that this is in fact a real issue within the South Pacific. There have been significant issues in Vanuatu and elsewhere where illegal funds have been moved globally and money has been washed through financial systems including New Zealand’s. This legislation will go a long way to putting in better systems to ensure that that does not happen. 
Sadly we also have a global political framework whereby different groups be they in South Asia—Sri Lanka comes immediately to mind—the Middle East within the Russian Federation or elsewhere have moved funds to finance global terrorism. As part of the global community we must make an effort to make sure that our financial systems are not used for this illicit activity. All of that sounds fine. Nobody would disagree that we must have more robust and effective systems. Indeed we have global obligations to make sure that our systems are up to scratch and that they address these issues which are so important. 
The Financial Action Task Force has been looking at how effectively we can do this but that then comes down to the practical issues that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee struggled with. How do we make these noble intentions actually work within our banking system so that we do not place too onerous a financial burden on banks and so that we have effective systems? Particularly in the context of our close economic relationship with our largest market and closest neighbour Australia our systems need to be in sync with the Australian systems. 
I have to say that it was quite a laborious process for the select committee to ensure that this legislation fitted as closely as possible with the Australian system and that the banking sector was comfortable with what we were doing because we will be relying on that sector to make it work. Through a process of negotiation we set up a group of banking experts who came in on a regular basis to look at the legislation. They moved through it carefully. At times they came up with suggestions that we took on board and on other occasions they made suggestions that we felt were not appropriate. The consideration of the bill provided one of the best examples I have seen in my 12 years as an MP of the select committee process and of a cross-party opportunity where people worked really well together.