Carter Chris: Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Bill — Third Reading 
Carter Chris: Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:7108] 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 As the previous speaker Jacqui Dean said the purpose of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Bill is to enhance New Zealand’s anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism network worldwide and assure the world that New Zealand’s financial system is robust transparent and honest. I know that the question of politically exposed persons has been a subject of some debate in this House. I was listening with a degree of amusement to my colleague Trevor Mallard’s exploration of that particular phenomenon particularly in reference to Mr English’s embarrassing situation over the rent for his house. I guess that is an issue that focuses us on how a financial system picks up where corruption has been occurring in a financial system. 
In the course of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee looking at this legislation we heard that it had a confidential report from the New Zealand Police. The report was about whether money-laundering had been going on through our financial system whether there had been a transference of funds between different South Pacific locations and whether there were genuine reasons why we should be concerned that politically exposed persons—I am not necessarily saying New Zealand ones but ones in our region—were using our financial system to launder money. The report we received back was indeed that cases of that were proven. There were also concerns that international terrorist groups—and sadly this is a phenomenon of our age—were using global financial networks to move funds around to finance their terrorist activities. There was concern that our financial system could provide that cover to wash money through to make it look legitimate and to use it to finance terrorist activities. 
New Zealand is a member of the Financial Action Task Force which my colleague Keith Locke talked about a few minutes ago. It is an international organisation established to combat the very issue of money-laundering and terrorist financing. This is an issue that the previous Labour Government was working on. My colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove as the Associate Minister of Justice in the previous Government had officials working on this issue. It is something that New Zealand has an international obligation to work on to assure our global partners and the international financial system that our systems are robust and effective in stopping money-laundering particularly with its focus these days on international terrorism. 
One of the things the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee was really concerned about was that the structures we put in place within our financial systems were in sync with those in Australia. As most people are aware much of our banking system is Australian-based. It is the banking system in particular—and the wider financial system of course—that is the framework where this new legislation must be effective. So we wanted to ensure that whatever legislation this Parliament passed would be in sync with the Australian legislation and would be acceptable to the banking sector because we are relying on it to make sure that it works. 
In that process the select committee engaged extensively with the New Zealand banking sector. We had the help of four representatives from that sector. One of them was previously an adviser to the Hon Michael Cullen. She worked in his office as one of his major financial advisers and is a very experienced young woman. These representatives were extraordinarily helpful in helping us work through this legislation to make sure that the system first was in sync with Australia; and second was acceptable and practical for the banking system without creating enormous compliance costs which is something we were very keen to avoid. 
I have to say that it is unusual to work on legislation in this Parliament that everybody agrees is important and where there is very much an attitude of taking a bipartisan approach to it. Mr Hayes who is the chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee was extraordinarily helpful in taking on board advice from Opposition MPs. The Hon Pete Hodgson who led the Labour team on this legislation was amazing. He has an incredible ability to get straight down to the nitty-gritty. He also has an amazing ability to digest a vast amount of technical data. I guess it is his scientific training. He very much took the lead role at the select committee in working through how we can make this legislation effective compliant with our international obligations and acceptable to the banking sector. I take this opportunity to thank Mr Hayes for the work that he did in chairing the process. In particular I thank and praise my Labour colleague Pete Hodgson for making this bill better legislation as it comes before this House. I have great pleasure in saying that the Labour Opposition fully supports this legislation.