Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well I guess that's an indication of how the racing industry is going to perform under that Minister's leadership. We were promised—[Interruption]SPEAKER: Order! Order! I would like to listen to the member speaking to the bill. He may have had an early start in this race but he will now speak to the bill and only the bill. Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes Mr Speaker. Well the bill is a very important bill that this Minister had promised to the industry. Chris Bishop: What does it do? Hon DAVID BENNETT: Well the bill gives ultimate power to the Minister. The Minister was unable to even make a speech in this House and yet now has ultimate power to dictate who will be running the racing industry in all the different boards that are created in this bill and also the ultimate power to vest ownership of the assets of racing clubs in the various codes. So this is a bill that has been part of a programme that the Minister had promised to the industry when he was anointed to that role. It's taken many years to get to the first part of that process and that was duly only a small part of what the Minister was going to do because we had the Messara report which was the origin of the reforms and the Messara report was to be enacted in full. It has been broken into two bills and this is the second bill. This bill has to be done by the next election because the Minister has a temporary board in place to govern the racing industry and this bill is the part of assigning the full representation. Now in the bill the Minister has made it very clear that he has the ultimate discretion over who will run the racing industry going forward. That is a lack of accountability a lack of ownership and a lack of respect for those people that are in the industry. For example the Minister can appoint the board to replace codes if he needs to do so. So the codes that may be out there the racing codes of thoroughbred standard bred and dogs can be replaced. Their boards can be replaced by the Minister at his whim under this legislation. The Minister can also appoint a commissioner for any disputes between the three codes giving him ultimate discretion again to dictate what may be done. But the greatest discretion this Minister has is in regard to the assets of clubs and the relationship they have with codes. Racing clubs under this bill will have to abide by the rules of their relevant code. Now that may not seem that difficult but what it is in fact going to do is create a pressure point where codes can pressure clubs into doing what is required by that code. The code will have the ultimate power of being able to say to clubs This is what is required from a prospective club." That pressure point then could lead to clubs having to reconcile themselves and do the things that the code requires rather than what the club itself may require. That lack of democracy and that lack of independence will be a key part of the select committee hearings around this bill. The National Party does not accept that lack of independence and clarity as worded in this bill. It is very difficult to see how clubs can have any autonomy under this legislation. They are essentially at the whim of the code and if the code is not effective in putting pressure on they can then be at the whim of the Minister. This bill gives the Minister the ability to override the club's decision and to vest their assets and their landownership in the code. It is effectively a mechanism where the Minister can nationalise racing portfolios and racing clubs and can take away their ability to have independent racing operations. Now this may all be in the aim of achieving the ultimate goal that the Messara report said of having some amalgamation of clubs and people understand why that may be necessary in the industry but there are number of ways that that can be achieved. One way could be through clubs coming together and making those decisions themselves as you would expect would be the appropriate way; not the way that this bill enables which is the Minister having the ultimate power to dictate that change. In the select committee process that will be an overriding factor that the National Party will look for for change. There are ways that that could be changed to save the integrity of those clubs and also achieve the purpose of the goal of the Messara report and also the ultimate goal that the Minister probably has in this case. Another issue that has been in the racing industry for a number of years has been the top-heavy nature of administration. This bill does the opposite of this and it creates another level of board in the industry. Not only are we going to have the Racing Integrity Board that will effectively be there to govern the racing industry but now we have a new TAB board that will also be set by the Minister. Those seven places on each board will be set by the Minister without necessarily having to have profiled to the relevant codes. The Minister has to take into account the codes and the Sport New Zealand recommendation in regard to the TAB board and has to take into account other factors in regard to the Racing Integrity Board but there is no requirement on the Minister around the composition of those boards to represent each code effectively. That is another example of where this bill gives all power to the Minister and none to the codes or to the clubs. The TAB board and the creation of the TAB and the model that has been looked at in this bill reflects a revised vision of the TAB going back to a sense of what happened in the TAB many years ago. It creates a board that has the role of promoting racing and the distribution of profits and deals with betting and venues but we don't really have any indication from the Minister at this stage as to the real nature of the TAB's powers. Does the TAB have the power to outsource to other betting agencies? That is the real issue that has been circling around the TAB for many years now with proposals that for example foreign TABs or betting agencies could be involved with the New Zealand TAB. It appears from this bill at first instance that it gives a lot of discretion to the TAB board and we would like the Minister to clarify in his second reading speech no doubt that the TAB will not be outsourcing its operations to an overseas provider under this legislation. We need that clarity around this legislation so that people in the industry know what is happening with regard to those issues. The bill also has a part that's in regard to offshore betting that relates to the consumption and information charges that were in the original race fields legislation that the previous Government had put forward. Those clauses in that part of the bill are very repetitive of what has gone through this House in the past and we want the Minister to explain the devil in the detail if there is any in regard to those and why they have been incorporated into this bill at this time. So this bill really is an attempt by the Minister to have ultimate discretion and power over the industry. The Minister will appoint board members the Minister has the ability to say that a racing club is no more and the Minister has the power to vest the assets of that club in the relevant code. That is a loss of independence integrity—SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."