New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNew Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 06 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14420. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]New Zealand International Convention Centre BillIn CommitteePart 1 Preliminary provisionsHon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): It is appropriate that the Minister of Police is in the chair for this because what we are discussing is the greatest money-laundering operation in the history of New Zealand the Skycity Casino.Hon Tau Henare: That’s right. You accept the tickets. You would go to the rugby but you won’t support them.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: No no I have an interruption. I just want to acknowledge that it is Tau Henare’s 20th anniversary in Parliament today. I remember when he was first a member of Parliament. He was tall he was slim he was handsome and he was modest. He is still tall. He is still tall. I do congratulate the member and the other members whose 20th anniversary it is. And of course Mr Chairman you are tall and you were modest. You are still modest. I do not think it is fair to say that you were ever slim. Fit maybe—fit maybe. But shall we get back to the bill?The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Please do.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think it is fair to say that I was responding to a non-verbal interjection on your part. Going back to the bill the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill I want to focus on a couple of parts of the bill. The first is in clause 4(2) where it says: “It is the intention of Parliament that the provisions of this Act are interpreted in a manner that best furthers the agreements expressed in the Agreement.” What that says is that it does not really matter what we are passing; the agreement is going to count. That is the attitude of this Government to the law of this country and especially with regard to this bill that just stinks. It does not matter what is in the bill; it is the agreement that counts. So it does not matter what dirty deal the Government does; the Parliament cannot override it because it is the agreement that counts and that overrides the law of the land. I just want to say that I would be surprised if that worked in a superior court in New Zealand. In my view I think that in the end a court will go to the legislation rather than override the legislation with an interpretative clause like this but it just shows the attitude of Steven Joyce that he would attempt to do such a thing.I want to just remind people what that agreement referred to in that clause clause 4(2) is. It is the agreement to increase the number of gambling machines in New Zealand massively at Skycity. That is the agreement that will cause New Zealanders to lose their homes. That is what Skycity does now. It entices people into gambling and many of them lose their homes. Many of them lose their families.Hon Tau Henare: But that’s OK for you to take tickets to the rugby.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Tau Henare might not care about that but a number of people also lose their lives. That member knows that many people commit suicide every year as a result of the losses that they incur at Skycity. That member knows that the gangs and the moneylenders murder people who owe them money who borrow it at Skycity—Hon Tau Henare: Ha ha!Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The member laughs. The member laughs. He only has to go to look at the evidence in the case of the body in the suitcase that was fished out of Auckland harbour. That young man was targeted in Skycity by moneylenders. He borrowed money from them he got more from them than he could repay he did not repay and they killed him put his body in a suitcase and dumped it in Auckland harbour. It is the extension of that sort of behaviour that members opposite are voting for. They might not care. They say: “Oh it is just another Chinese student.” Members on this side care notwithstanding who it is. It does not matter who it is. No one should end up owing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to corrupt moneylenders and people who end up murdering as part of their enforcement activities.And what are we doing here under clause 4(2)? We are giving legal effect to an agreement that will result in people losing their houses. It is well documented. Members opposite know it. Members opposite know that families are destroyed as a result of problem gambling—the very type of which is caused by this sort of 24-hour-a-day 7-day-a-week operation that the members opposite want to make worse. Members opposite do not care about the destruction of families that occurs as a result of the inability of Skycity and others to curb problem gambling. And it is the very agreement in clause 4(2) that we are giving force to that members opposite know is going to be the cause of these further problems.I see that clause 5 binds the Crown. Well I want to say that it might bind the Crown for now. It might bind the Crown for now but I do want to remind the Committee of the fact that the Crown cannot bind itself into the future. When there are decent gambling laws in New Zealand—and they are inevitable—the Crown will be unbound from this legislation because that is the way that our parliamentary system works. You cannot bind a future Government. I think everyone on this side of the Chamber is committed to a decent review of gambling laws and anyone who suggests that this law which takes out not one but two reviews of the casino licence could survive a decent review is fooling themselves. Anyone who thinks that is absolutely deluding themselves. Therefore people opposite have just got to know that these sorts of arrangements that are embodied in this bill cannot possibly continue.The Labour Party has looked at the possibility of doing multiple amendments and trying to fix this bill up. And I want to say that we will support the Green amendments. We will vote for them. But we have come to the conclusion that this bill is so bad that it cannot be improved to the point of being acceptable. It is like the old saying that you cannot polish a turd.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! That is unacceptable and the member will not use that term again.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: This bill is rubbish and it does not matter what adjustments you make to it it cannot be improved to the point of being acceptable. There is nothing that one can do that allows for the extension of gaming the extension of thehighest turnover of any sort of gaming—the highest per table turnover in the country—and what is more the highest pokie machine turnover in the country. That is absolutely unacceptable—GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to carry on from where my colleague Mr Mallard left off perhaps with some alteration to the form of language that he used. Part 1 of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill is the preliminary provisions and it deals specifically in clause 3(1) with the purpose of the bill. The purpose of the bill according to this is “to provide economic benefits to New Zealanders by improving New Zealand’s capability to host medium- to large-scale international conferences and related exhibitions through the construction and operation of an international-standard convention centre.” Well there is not a huge amount in that to disagree with. There can be some debate about convention centres and just how much they add to the economy but the notion that an international-standard convention centre would be built in Auckland is not one that members on this side of the Chamber have a great deal of difficulty with.But that is not really the purpose of the bill. In fact clause 3 is quite misleading in beginning with that because it then says “to this end” and then tells us what the bill does and what the bill does is create a situation where one company is favoured above all others in New Zealand. One company is singled out. This is the classic crony capitalism of the National Party—picking off one company and saying: “We’ll do a special deal and what’s more when we do this special deal we will have an agreement with them that totally contravenes New Zealand’s gambling legislation.”I want to make reference to that now. In clause 4(1) we see a definition of “gambling law” that being the Gambling Act 2003 and any regulation related to that Act. In the regulatory impact statement we learnt from officials that they put up as an option the possibility of amending the Gambling Act in order to make the changes that this bill facilitates. The Government decided that it could not because it contravenes the Gambling Act because the Gambling Act is designed to reduce gambling harm. There is no way that even the officials could argue in the regulatory impact statement that this bill reduces gambling harm because it does not; it increases gambling harm. We have had reports from the officials that tell us that there will be up to 5000 to 8000 additional problem gamblers as a result of this piece of legislation. So the Government could not even amend the Gambling Act to do this. It had to create its own legislation for this dodgy deal which goes against the very principles of that legislation.The purpose clause of this bill then goes into the agreement between the Crown and Skycity. As I said on this side of the Chamber the idea of building a convention centre in Auckland is something we could support. But when we look at the Deputy Auditor-General’s report into this what we see is that quite clearly Skycity was treated differently from others who sought to be part of building that convention centre. This agreement that is referred to here in the purpose clause is an agreement that cuts across what is good process and that is exactly what the Deputy Auditor-General said. If you are Ngāti Whātua or Infratil and you were interested in being part of the convention centre this report makes shocking reading because what it shows—Hon Tau Henare: They’re not going to have a Ngāti Whātua room though are they?GRANT ROBERTSON: I would not want to know what you would do in there Mr Henare but what I do know is that Ngāti Whātua were not treated fairly when it came to the building of this convention centre. This convention centre could have been built by an iwi with a huge interest in the Auckland area. But no—John Key came along and he intervened and what this report shows is John Key’s intervention. He got hold of that paper and he wrote on the top of it “Close off the Skycity angle first.” His officials from that moment on worked only with Skycity and held meetings only with Skycity. Theother bidders did not get that opportunity. That is crony capitalism and that is the style of this National Government.The agreement as it is outlined in clause 3(2)(a)(i) and (ii) tells us that the main purpose is “the granting of changes to the regulatory regime applying to the SKYCITY Casino at Auckland;”. It is an innocuous phrase that is actually about adding a huge amount to the bottom line of Skycity above and beyond anything that it might spend in the building of this convention centre because as we go down to the interpretation clause it talks about 30 June 2048 which will be the point at which this agreement will come to its end allegedly although clause 4(1)(d) actually allows the concessions to continue beyond 30 June 2048. Trevor Mallard will probably still be in Parliament part-way through his parliamentary career at that point but that is a very long distance into the future to undertake—Hon Trevor Mallard: Clearly approaching the mid-point.GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes mid-point so there is some time to go. But that is a very long way in the future for these regulatory concessions to be granted. What those regulatory concessions do is expand the number of gaming tables and the number of gaming machines to the extent that we are talking about percentage increases for the whole of the gaming tables in New Zealand of around 8 percent just from this deal. So this is a hugely significant regulatory concession that is noted here.But it is more than that. It goes beyond just a regulatory concession. It actually sets up an unlevel playing field in New Zealand around the gambling industry. That is why the Government could not even manage to amend the gambling law as it is stated in clause 4 of the bill. The purpose of this bill is not just to build an international-standard convention centre; the purpose of this bill is to give Skycity concessions that nobody else has that contravene New Zealand’s gambling laws and that will increase gambling harm and all for what—all for what?If a member of the Government gets up today and tells us that the economic benefits to New Zealanders as they are outlined in clause 3 include employment let us not buy into that for a minute. Let us not buy into that for a minute because from the beginning of this we have had wildly exaggerated claims from the Prime Minister of how many jobs would be created—300 500 900. Well guess what? It is 18—18 jobs. That is what it is worth. The 18 jobs are the great economic benefit of clause 3 of this bill. That is appalling when it is set alongside the massive harm that will be done to families in New Zealand from this—the thousands of extra problem gamblers and their families.When you go into the prisons of New Zealand you will find people who are there as a result of their problem-gambling issues. When you go into mental health institutions in New Zealand you will find people there as a result of their issues with gambling. The irresponsibility of this Government to trade away a law for 18 jobs and a massive windfall profit to Skycity is completely shameful.Part 1 of this bill is the part that misleads New Zealanders by saying that the purpose of this bill is to establish an international-standard convention centre. That could be done without any of the regulatory concessions that are in this bill. That could be done without massively increasing the gambling harm in New Zealand. But no—the National Government made a conscious choice to go after an agreement with Skycity over and above any of the other bidders who might have been able to put their case forward in this bill. That is the wrong way to go about economic development because the name for that is crony capitalism. The name for that is a rort of the system a rort of the process that started at the very top with the Prime Minister and his officials who made sure that Skycity got the inside running.We actually cannot particularly blame Skycity for this. This is a private business that has gone after the best possible deal and outcome for it and its shareholders. The problemis that the other group at the negotiating table the Government was not looking out for its shareholders for the taxpayers. It was not looking out for the citizens of New Zealand; it was just there to do another shabby deal. So on one side of the table you have got the tough commercial negotiators; on the other side of the table you have got a Government that is failing to act in the interest of New Zealanders and is failing to protect New Zealanders from gambling harm.This is not a piece of legislation that supports the values of New Zealanders. It is not a piece of legislation that upholds other gambling law. Part 1 of this bill is just plain wrong. It does not meet the purpose that is stated here and it allows an agreement to be written into law that goes against the interests of New Zealanders.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I am very pleased to take the first of a number of calls on this legislation the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. I have a number of amendments to this bill in Part 2 but here in Part 1 I am particularly concerned about the purpose clause and the apparent overarching purpose of this legislation which is to provide economic benefits to New Zealanders. We have had a very close look at the economic benefits from the papers that have been provided to us and I can tell you now that I do not know whether Mr Key and Mr Joyce deliberately misinformed the House over the number of jobs that would be created but they certainly did misinform the House. There is no paper that is available to anyone but them—perhaps they are still keeping that one secret—that describes the number of jobs as they have said. They have claimed 800 jobs as a result of the final convention centre and they have claimed 1000 jobs that will be created as part of its construction. This is supposedly part of the great economic benefit to New Zealanders from this deal. Well let us just have a look at the information that has been provided.They first relied on the Horwath report. There is nothing in the Horwath report that describes those numbers of jobs. They then relied on the KordaMentha report that was produced earlier this year. That report does say that it looked at the economic benefits. It does not describe 800 jobs in the convention centre or 1000 jobs in the construction phase—Hon Trevor Mallard: They relied entirely on Skycity for information.METIRIA TUREI: That is right Mr Mallard. The report says: “The financial analysis of both the NZICC and the regulatory concessions are based on an Excel Model dated 18 April 2013 … prepared by SkyCity.” So the KordaMentha report was based entirely on information from the one organisation that is about to get hundreds of millions of dollars of benefit from this deal. Still that report does not talk about 800 jobs in the convention centre or 1000 jobs in its construction.Then we look to the Government’s own information that it provides to the public to help inform the public around the economic benefits of this deal and we go to the regulatory impact statement which provides that information. We see here actually the description of the 800 jobs and the 1000 jobs. It says here in paragraph 9 of the regulatory impact statement that “(… around 800 people) would be employed by the convention centre with up to 1000 workers employed in the construction phase.” and then there is a little note footnote 8 on the regulatory impact statement. So let us look at footnote 8 to see where the evidence is that shows that there will be 800 jobs and 1000 jobs. That little footnote refers to two things. It refers first to table 1 in a New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report and it also refers to information that has been supplied to the Government by Skycity. It says “(… received from a leading NZ-based contractor)” but it does not provide the paper it does not provide the name of that contractor and it does not provide the evidence.Let us have a look first at the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research paper that the regulatory impact statement refers to as justification for this misleading—and I stillthink deliberately misleading—statement around job creation. What does the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research paper say? Oh it does not say 800 jobs in the convention centre. It does not say 1000 jobs in the construction of the convention centre. Actually it says that there will be 380 full-time jobs in construction and 340 full-time equivalents once the convention centre is operating. So somehow Skycity has created out of who knows what—thin air—an additional 160 people who will apparently be working at the convention centre and an extra 600 people have been invented by Skycity and agreed to by the Government as evidence to back up this claim of 1000 jobs in construction. This is a deliberate attempt to mislead New Zealanders on the economic impacts of this deal. John Key and Steven Joyce have spent months and months and months telling New Zealanders that there are thousands of jobs in this convention centre and yet the only piece of genuinely independent advice that this Government has and the only genuine advice that it has released to the public says that they are not telling the truth. There simply are not the jobs that they claim.So what are we giving up here? What are we giving up in exchange for this misinformation about job creation? I can give you some numbers of some other people who will be affected by the legislation—people who will not have any choices about how they are involved people who will actually be harmed by this legislation. They are the 6500 children who the Government’s own papers say are likely to be harmed by the problem gambling that is caused by this deal—6500 children. Those children do actually exist. They are not the made-up people—the made-up workers—whom Skycity and the Government have been talking about. They are children whose lives will be affected and in some cases very damaged for most of their lives as a result of this deal.Where do they sit? Where is the analysis of the economic impact on them the social impact on them from this deal? Actually there is not any. The Government looked to KordaMentha for some of this information. KordaMentha said that it was not engaged to assess the social harm of this deal. The Minister for Economic Development himself has said that he sought no advice on the economic harm that could be caused by this deal. I do not know whether he is telling the truth frankly because there have been so many mistruths told around this deal. Maybe he did seek the advice and is not prepared to release it. Maybe he did not seek the advice because he does not want to know. All he has been prepared to talk about are the mistruths around the job creation and not the reality for the 6500 children who his own advisers have said will be affected by this legislation. Where is their voice here? Is it only the Opposition that cares about the 6500 New Zealand children who could be affected by this bill? There is no way that it is justifiable to claim any kind of economic benefit from this deal when the numbers of jobs are being deliberately made up and spread around the country and when the real numbers of the people actually affected are being ignored by the people who are making the decisions.There is a whole range of economic advice that comes from this legislation and out of the papers that have been released and all of it flies in the face of the statements made by the Government. Even if we just want to look at comparisons we have comparisons for example with convention centres overseas. The 3500 capacity convention centre in Sydney employs only 200 full-time equivalents not the 800 that Steven Joyce and John Key are claiming. Melbourne’s 5000 capacity convention centre employs just 133 people full-time. It has 270 casual workers and 130 full-timers and yet Steven Joyce somehow thinks that a smaller centre here in New Zealand is going to employ 800 people. He is actually interested in the deal being done not in the reality for New Zealanders and for Aucklanders. He is not prepared to tell the country the whole story around the genuine economic impacts and the genuine economic harm. Why does he mistrust New Zealanders so much? Why does he believe that New Zealanders are too stupid to identify these failings these mistruths in what he has said? Why will he not tell the truth? If it issuch a good deal why keep information secret? Why not tell New Zealanders the truth about the jobs? Maybe New Zealanders will think that it is still worth it if there are 340 jobs not 800. Maybe they will. What is the harm in treating New Zealanders like they are intelligent people who can make a genuine assessment about the effects good and bad of this convention centre? Why put all this spin and mistruth over it? It is because there is an inherent mistrust by this Government of New Zealanders and New Zealanders’ ability to assess the information and to make an intelligent decision about what they think is necessary.We do not want a Government that does that. We do not want a Government that treats New Zealanders in such a shabby way. We do not want a Government that is going to put 6500 children at risk for at best 18 new jobs in the New Zealand economy. That is what the research actually says. That is what the table that the Government has referred to actually says. There will be 18 new jobs in the New Zealand economy—JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I do find it incredible when I hear that figure of 18 new jobs. I do think that those members of the Commerce Committee who were there on the last day of hearings will recall the gentleman who came in and refuted those figures. I think that is important to actually acknowledge. Horwath HTL in its report when it analysed the benefit of having a convention centre—which I believe Auckland Council wants to have and I think that the Labour Party wants to have as we certainly do—said that there would be an estimated increase of $85 million in tourism-related expenditure per year. It is very hard to think that $85 million extra could be spent and create only 18 new jobs.Think about the tourists who will come to Auckland City and to this nation for a conference or a convention that may be 3 or 4 days long but who might like to stay for 10 days or 2 weeks. They might stay not just in Auckland; perhaps they might go to Rotorua or maybe down to Queenstown and certainly to Taranaki to visit that beautiful place down there. They are going to be spending money. They are going to be spending money in cafes in shops and in retail centres. They are going to be needing transport. They are going to be needing accommodation. All of these are spin-offs for our economy throughout our nation as we see extra people come to this nation. That is why the purpose clause of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill says: “The overarching purpose of this Act is to provide economic benefits to New Zealanders”—New Zealanders out there who work in tourism and in hospitality and who are retailers in our nation.It is quite easy just to become singularly focused on a few single issues. Let me just talk about why this is important. We want to see employment grow in our nation. We are already seeing the lift happen which is fantastic and I think New Zealanders can be encouraged that the financial stewardship of this Government going through 5 very difficult years is starting to see some benefits roll through in our economies.Dr David Clark: Five long years.JONATHAN YOUNG: Five great years—5 great years after 9 bad years. We are starting to see this economy fire up. What I think we need to understand is that it is hard decisions like this that can create employment opportunities that can better people.I want to just touch on a few points because the economic well-being of this country is very important to every single one of us. I talked yesterday—and I want to raise it again—about the issue and the social harm of unemployment. We need to understand that the people who have unemployment particularly long-term unemployment struggle immensely. They have very poor social outcomes. They suffer depression loss of confidence and poor health and they can become suicidal. Let us not negate that. Let us not negate that. Let us not just ignore that because unemployment is an issue that we want to address in this country.As I read yesterday—and let me read it again—fromPolicy Quarterly November 2010 Clair Mills from the University of Auckland said in her article “Health Employment and Recession” that “Increasing unemployment is associated with a wide range of adverse social outcomes particularly when prolonged.”Carol Beaumont: What has that got to do with this bill?JONATHAN YOUNG: What has this got to do with the bill? This bill is about the economic development and growth of this nation. It is about job creation—far more than the 18 jobs that these people on the other side keep parroting on about. It is hard to think that you could have $85 million come into a country per year and you would get 18 jobs out of that. Come on—use your common sense and realise that it is going to feed through our economy and that we are going to see people all over this nation who are going to receive the benefit.It is also important to see in clause 3(2)(a)(iii) in Part 1—that point there which you see in the bill underlined—where it is stated in the “Purpose and outline” of the bill is that there is an “imposition of obligations on SKYCITY to adopt certain harm minimisation and anti-money laundering mechanisms;”.Kris Faafoi: What a sop.JONATHAN YOUNG: That is not a sop. In fact there are people in Australia and New Zealand who are the experts in this field who say that this obligation placed upon Skycity creates an opportunity to address some of the harm by having new technologies and new tools available to mitigate and address the harm issues.We need to also understand when you look at the issue of harm regarding pokies in particular that 70 percent of the harm happens outside of casinos. There is a huge amount of gambling that takes place with online gambling which has no surveillance and no support for people who get hooked up in that. What we see here is a development of some technologies and some tools that as they develop and are brought to bear on the situation can bring some recognition of harm and bring some result of being able to address these issues that I think all of us do not want to see happen when it comes to harm in people’s lives.As we come to this outline here once again I say that one of the big issues in our country that we want to overcome is unemployment and we must have steps that are going to create economic activity and growth. I believe that we can get the balance right in this. It is a difficult balance but we can get it right and we can ensure that people come through this and get employment and get work in the construction hospitality tourism and retail areas in our society. Thank you.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): It is interesting to follow that member Jonathan Young who chaired the Commerce Committee on the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill and to hear some of the claims that he was making which I wish to refute now. One in particular is that the number of jobs—18—was refuted in that select committee. It may have been refuted per se—somebody may have said: “I don’t accept that number.”—but there was certainly no evidence presented that was convincing to say that the independent research by the New Zealand Institute for Economic Research was not in fact dead on the mark. That independent research said that conventions would be drawn from other places in the country and that regions further around outside Auckland would suffer as a consequence of this centre being built—that they would lose jobs as a consequence of this centre being built. The New Zealand Institute for Economic Research as an independent body estimated that there would be a net 18 jobs created by this legislation at a cost of $402 million—$402 million—and most of that paid off the back of problem gambling.This is an appalling bill. This is an absolutely appalling bill. Its purposes as they are laid out in the bill itself are difficult to argue with. If we look at Part 1 it says that “Theoverarching purpose of this Act is to provide economic benefits to New Zealanders …” by providing some capability to host these conventions. Who could argue with that on the surface? It is just that when we dig into it it does not quite stack up. It does not stack up. The Government would not hear that. It would not hear about the harm. At the select committee a ragtag group of MPs blocked submissions. They blocked the officials from the Department of Internal Affairs from coming who had shown in the official papers that were released that they had expertise on this matter. They blocked the Ministry of Health officials the people who understood gambling-related harm from coming to speak to the committee. They blocked the Gambling Commission and its people who deal with this stuff who are at the hard end and who understand the gambling-related harm that will fund the building of this convention centre from coming to the committee. And they blocked Treasury officials for goodness’ sake from coming to this committee most probably because Treasury was very clear that the public benefits did not accrue in the amount that one would expect and that the private gain would far exceed those public benefits. Treasury is normally right there with the Government fighting hand in hand but this time the committee did not want to hear from Treasury’s officials. There was a majority on the committee that blocked those officials. All those MPs who blocked it had in common a little “N”—a little “N” lapel badge. It was an “N” for “Not listening” and beans in their ears—beans in their ears I say.That is unfortunate because if the Government really believed in this legislation—if it really believed that this was the way to go—it would not have tried to bury it. It would not have tried to hide the officials. It would not have stopped people from being critical. It would have let all of the facts come out into the open. It would have let the debate proceed. But instead it tried to shut down the debate in the select committee time after time after time. When later on one of my Green colleagues asked whether we could perhaps just have some updated advice from the Ministry of Health some advice that looked at the bill now that it had been changed and now that more facts are out in the open that too was blocked. They were not even asking to have the officials come there but for a simple piece of advice advising on health concerns and that was blocked by members of the select committee. That is a shameful thing. I say shame to those members of the committee who blocked us from getting advice on the harms that will be caused by this legislation.No one in this Parliament I do not think—and I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong—thinks that building an international convention centre is of itself a bad idea. Having the ability to host conventions is a reasonable proposition. It is simply the fact that the proposal is to pay for this convention centre through problem gambling that really has us uncomfortable. It is a conscience vote I understand but I would be very surprised if it was not very strongly opposed on this side of the Chamber. This Government is pushing a very bad deal on New Zealanders. The papers that have been supplied and the regulatory impact statement indicate that 8000 people effectively will be harmed by these changes through the impacts of problem gambling. That as we have heard is for the creation of just a net 18 jobs in the economy. Of course there will be a confidence variant around that number of 18 jobs. It might be lower than that. It might be a few higher. It might actually be none in which case we will see that this language in the purpose clause right at the start of the bill which talks about providing economic benefits to New Zealanders will not hold up to the light of day.The other thing I want to say about these economic benefits that are outlined at the start of the bill is that they have been questioned in the debate that has ensued in the media. We have an article on Stuff by Matt Nippert that draws attention to the way these things are handled in Australia. Over there they tend to make sure they get independent advice. They do not get all of the facts and figures about the benefits from the person whois bidding for the contract; they go and get independent advice on the economic benefits so that a fair decision can be made about the worthiness or otherwise of the tender. An expert on these things Mr Kale from Bond University said that Skycity got an incredibly good deal out of the Government. He said that it is a clear win for Skycity. He said of Mr Morrison that “He’s a friend but if you want to quote me you can say: ‘Morrison did an excellent job negotiating with authorities.’ ” The estimate that was in the documents supplied by the Crown shows that the deal ends up at $68 million in Skycity’s favour and that is a risk premium.But that is not the worst of it because it is actually more than that. If we look at the overseas examples in Australia the estimates for this kind of deal are much higher. We see in Sydney that there was an outfit called Echo Entertainment Group which paid $700 million for a licence extension the likes of which we have Skycity paying about $90 million for. There is a huge discrepancy there. That pattern is replicated across Australia. For exclusive rights to run this kind of pokie outfit the Australians demand much more money for the taxpayer but that gets away from the very fact that this is actually a moral issue. It is the harm that is caused that is the bit that I think most people in this Parliament object to. Putting this convention centre on the back of problem gamblers will have serious impacts on our communities. It will cause deaths suicides and murders the likes of which Mr Mallard referred to earlier. We know this because the evidence says that that is what happens and it is highly quantifiable internationally. There is a huge literature around the impacts of problem gambling.This is a terrible bill. The way it is outlined in the beginning might lead us to think that it had economic benefits of a significant nature that were somehow worthy of taking the risk of running with it but we know that that is not actually the case because the case simply does not stack up. The independent research has not been done that would say that was the case. The Government has got itself into a political corner and now it feels that it must get the deal through to try to save face to try to show that it is doing something to stimulate the economy because it currently has the worst economic record of any Government in the last 50 years and that record is shameful.It is a Government that is struggling. New Zealanders are waking up—well they woke up long ago but they are getting frustrated I should say with the lack of progress by this Government when it had the circumstances following 9 years of surpluses from a Labour Government to actually build New Zealand into the kind of country that we all want to live in with a chance for no one to be left behind. But instead we have the rich getting richer the poor getting poorer and those who are really at the bottom getting more debt lumped on them through gambling debt. That is the vision of this Government—a visionless Government. It is making deals. It is trying to get this legislation through but it will lead only to more harm for New Zealanders who are struggling the most. I personally will be opposing this bill because I do not feel that in my conscience I could support it.There ought to have been a transparent process around it. We know from the start that Mr Key met with the Skycity people and gave them the inside running on the legislation. That also meant that the taxpayer did not get a look-in through a fair process of having other tenderers bid for it to see what else might have been on the table. That means that the Government put itself over a barrel in the negotiation process. It had only one party that it was talking to. That party spelled out the terms and the Government is sitting there with its head down bearing it swallowing and trying to get on with the job. It is a shameful day for this country. It is a shameful piece of legislation. We should not be having it go through this House. I say to those members opposite that I hope they examine their consciences and I hope that some of them are willing to cross the floor particularly those who live in electorates where this gambling harm will hit the hardest. I think of SamLotu-Iiga and others in the Auckland constituencies who know very well that the communities they represent will be harmed by this legislation.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure to give a contribution on this New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. It is something that I feel really strongly about as someone who is resident in the area where this convention centre will exist. I fear that in all of the debate the overall principle the debate around the existence of a convention centre or not has definitely been blurred by the Government. So I want to come back to that original question because the Government has continually maintained this line that the choice was either trade off the gambling harm issues to get the convention centre or nothing—or nothing. It has maintained that the choice was economic development via the Skycity convention centre and a bit of gambling harm on the side or potential job losses and net economic loss to the country on the flip side. That is completely wrong and that is completely misleading.The rest of the country could be forgiven for having just that small view of this entire picture because the Government did not talk about the other options on the table because in reality the Prime Minister never really considered them. In fact the Government probably never really considered them but they existed.In fact many months ago now I put in an Official Information Act request for what some of those options were. I had a personal interest in some of them because some of them may have led to quid pro quos that could have been a net benefit to the city in which I live including the Aotea Centre deal. I want to go through some of those so that the public know that they are not forced into the ridiculous situation of choosing harm for the sake of 18 jobs when actually we could have had the convention centre without this dodgy deal.Back when it was originally floated that the Government was interested in a convention centre that there was a belief that there was a gap in the market there was an opportunity for some other options to be raised. At that time probably the most seriously considered options were from the likes of Ngāti Whātua who had some plans for land that they owned—I believe on the waterfront was where they were originally thinking. There was the potential for them to then partner with the council and the Government in the development of a convention centre there.The other option that got a little bit of air time—a little bit of air time—was the idea that we have the entire Aotea Centre in the middle of Auckland City operated by The Edge. Some might say it is an underutilised resource but it is a resource that in recent times has had significant investment in it. There is a recognition that at the moment that centre is fulfilling quite a specific job—that it does house for instance Opera New Zealand and the Royal New Zealand Ballet and so on—and that if you did pitch the Aotea Centre to be an international convention centre you may need to provide some alternative facilities. So the idea that was put forward was that we could turn the Aotea Centre into an international convention centre give it the alterations that it would require—and it would require some—and at the same time restore the St James Theatre to pick up the alternative role that that convention centre therefore would no longer be able to provide.I see only win-win in a suggestion like that. We would not have had to pass law in this Parliament to allow for additional pokie tables to come into play in order to have that deal. We would not have had mass protest from the public who know what we are trading off in this Parliament today off the back of that deal. But that is not the deal that the Government chose to select. So be under no illusion that this was the only option on the table. It was not. Be under no illusion that the only way we could have had economic development and jobs was through this trade-off. It was not. That in my mind exposes how dodgy this deal is because there were other options.I want to speak a little bit to clause 3 in Part 1 the “Purpose and outline”. It says that “(1) The overarching purpose of this Act is to provide economic benefits to New Zealanders by improving New Zealand’s capability to host medium- to large-scale international conferences and related exhibitions through the construction and operation of an international-standard convention centre; (2) To this end the Act—” and then it follows on giving the agreement with Skycity. As I have already said it is very unusual to have to pass a law to build a convention centre in this way. That therefore implies that the economic benefits were of course attached only to the Skycity deal.That is why I want to reflect on the process that we went through in order to get Part 1 in the first place. In order to find that I would like to go back to some of the statements that were made in the lead-up to this even before this got to the Commerce Committee because we did have some analysis of the process that we went through in order to get to this place. Let us perhaps go through that process in which we established the economic benefit.In August 2009 there was a feasibility study as to whether or not a new international convention centre would be of value. It was for the Ministry of Economic Development and Auckland City Council. It was at that time that I heard the vague discussions about this potential deal. It was in that same month that John Key was briefed on the study’s findings and officials recommended that there was a business case that sat around it. That was in August 2009. We know that by the end of August officials had been made aware of a proposal being developed by Skycity to expand its own convention facilities. Key then writes by hand when they were talking about the proposals and looking at feasibility that “We should close off the Skycity angle first.” He handwrites that “We should close off the Skycity angle first.” If that does not indicate that there was already an ingrained preference before any of this had gone anywhere I do not know what does.We know that by the end of that year by 4 November John Key had had dinner with members of the Skycity board and he says that they discussed a possible national convention centre. They raised issues relating to the Gambling Act 2003. That is an interesting point because we are debating now the very amendments that the Prime Minister was already talking about back at the end of that year 2009.But here is a really important point: the tender process had not started. Expressions of interest were not called for until March the next year but already the Prime Minister was having discussions and talking about regulatory trade-offs with Skycity. If regulatory trade-offs were part of what the Government was interested in entertaining in order to have the convention centre built was that part of the tender process? Were any of the other interested parties told that if they were interested they could perhaps put forward a package that was not just about building a facility and doing up the St James Theatre? For instance Vector Arena might have been interested in building another facility in exchange for some regulatory trade-offs in electricity. But did Vector know that this was an option? It absolutely did not because this was a deal just for Skycity specifically. We know that from the time line that has already been exposed.Hon Trevor Mallard: Auckland Airport.JACINDA ARDERN: Auckland Airport may have wanted to do that—there were a range of parties—but we never knew about that. The other parties did not even know about that.In that same month when the expressions had gone out the Government suggested that the current arrangement with Auckland City Council to follow up the jointly funded feasibility study must end even though $250000 had already been set aside for the feasibility study. In May we then had the open tender process. By September Skycity was asking the Government about buying some of the land required in order to go ahead with the convention centre it was proposing.I actually could go on. I have got pages and pages more of the time line. But as you can see before the convention centre tender process had even closed Skycity was talking to the Government about buying land to build its convention centre. Before the tender process had even opened the Prime Minister was talking about amendments to the Gambling Act. It is no wonder that the Deputy Auditor-General said of the process: “We do not consider that the evaluation process was transparent or even-handed.” I am going to read that again; I think it is an important point. The Deputy Auditor-General said: “We do not consider that the evaluation process was transparent or even-handed.”This side of the Chamber does not just throw around the words “dodgy deal” for nothing. We say them because the evidence exists. Mr Joyce may lurch in his chair with what appears to be laughter—I cannot be quite sure—but these are the facts that are before us. We know from the time line—we so rarely see what could be anything other than a smug smile from the Minister; it is hard to know. We based what we have said around the tender process on the facts the evidence the Cabinet papers and the process and all of it leads us to the impression that it was a dodgy deal. But it did not have to be this way. We could have had the convention—DENISE ROCHE (Green): I rise to take a call my first call for the evening on Part 1 of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. I am going to concentrate this part of my speech around the economic benefits and I take note of the previous speaker Jacinda Ardern and her discourse around how this deal started out and the lack of transparency around it.At the time when the discussions were first occurring with the Government about the need for a convention centre I was an Auckland City councillor. It was definitely on the table that there should be negotiating between the council the private sector and also the Government to look at the economic benefits of a convention centre.If there is a good economic argument for a convention centre then we would certainly support it but what we are seeing with this bill is an economic argument that has not taken the costs into account. I am not an economist; I do not dabble in that dark art. However any normal person would first do a cost-benefit analysis before agreeing upon a certain course of action that would cost New Zealanders. The costs of this deal are externalised and it is the New Zealand taxpayers who will be bearing those costs while the provider of the convention centre who keeps the convention centre and who keeps the profits of the convention centre also profits from harm that is caused to ordinary New Zealand citizens.The purpose and outline of this bill as it says in clause 3 in Part 1 is that “The overarching purpose … is to provide economic benefits to New Zealanders”. Do those economic benefits include the 5000 convictions last year that were made in respect of people who had gambling problems? That was gambling problem - related crime. The cost of that is not only to the people who were the victims of that crime which was committed to fuel gambling problems but also to us the taxpayers. For every criminal who is convicted and spends a year in jail it costs $91000. We can assume that with an extra 230 pokie machines with an extra 12 automated gambling tables which each have 20 seats and so are in effect another 20 pokie machines per automated table as well as with 60 more tables—Metiria Turei: 40 more.DENISE ROCHE: —40 more tables; I stand corrected—there will be more problem gamblers as a result.It is not going to be solely the convention centre attendees who will be gambling there. We know from all the reports that the Health Sponsorship Council has done and from experts both in New Zealand and internationally that 40 percent of the profits that Skycity will get from those extra gambling concessions will come from people who haveno control over their gambling behaviour. For our Government to say that that is what we will pay that that is how we will pay for this convention centre is morally bankrupt—it is morally bankrupt.The bill does not take into account the economic costs that we will all bear from the suicides from family violence from domestic violence and from child neglect. It does not take those costs into account. These are the things that we need to be looking at if we are going to pass legislation that endangers and it will endanger New Zealand citizens. This is bad lawmaking.If we are looking at job creation we have already heard that the reports that the officials themselves provided have said that the benefits for the country as a whole amount to only 18 jobs. I guess if you wanted to be cynical you could look at the other jobs that have not been taken into account. They include the jobs across the road from the Skycity Casino at the Chow brothers’ brothel. They include the increase in jobs for the budgeting service that will be dealing with the families of the problem gamblers. They include the jobs that will be needed to provide counselling for those who are suffering from problem gambling. They include the jobs in the corrections service. They include the jobs that mop up after problem gambling. If those were the jobs that the Government was counting then at least we would have an honest assessment—an honest cost-benefit analysis—of this deal in its total because what we are seeing is not economic benefits to New Zealanders.I think there has been some comment about the negotiation and how poorly it was done. I think that needs to be taken into account when we are considering the economic benefits. What we have here is a deal that extends the 35-year casino licence by 27 years. Each year of an extension of a licence is worth millions of dollars. We know from Australia that that is something that the Government should have been negotiating. The cost of the convention centre is just over $400 million. Skycity is estimated to recoup the cost within 4 years based on the 25 percent increase in gambling opportunities that these concessions are delivering to it. We have sold ourselves cheaply. Not only have we sold ourselves down the river and our citizens down the tubes because we are carrying the cost of the deal but also we have been incredibly cheap in the licence that we have given Skycity. I guess we should also take into consideration the fact that this Government has not considered the longer-term costs that we will all bear. So over these 35 years we are stuck with it.The Greens have said that we will be looking for ways to minimise harm. We will come to that in the second part of this Committee stage today. My colleague Metiria Turei co-leader of the Greens and I both have Supplementary Order Papers that we hope will get support across the House. If we are to rely on problem gambling as the way for Skycity to be paying for this deal and we are not actually attempting to reduce it then as lawmakers we are being remiss in our duties.One of the things that does concern me I think is the fact that the economic benefits have been so highly ramped up. They have been so inflated beyond what is actually accurate that we have tended to lose sight of what is happening in gambling as a whole. We are tending to put forward legislation that will undermine our Gambling Act to some extent. That is really worrying because the Gambling Act is there solely to reduce harm from gambling. Yet we are seeing an attempt with this legislation the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill to give concessions to Skycity that undermine our position on that. That is one of the reasons why one of our Supplementary Order Papers Supplementary Order Paper 383 talks about that as well.Several speakers on that side of the Chamber have talked about the flow-on economic benefits. In the second reading yesterday we had people from other centres saying that the convention centre will result in additional tourism opportunities in their small towns. Wehave not seen the proof of that. We know that there are other convention centres across the country that will be competing for convention centre attendees. Unlike Auckland people who go to a convention in Queenstown will not be going to a centre that was paid for through the suffering of children.Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Oh!DENISE ROCHE: If the member finds that too emotive I suggest he looks at the facts as they were presented by the officials: 6500 children are estimated to be put at risk as a result of this deal Minister. I suggest you take that on board when you cast your vote because it is a conscience vote and we will be wanting you to think with your conscience and to exercise it. It is not just children who suffer. International—CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I moveThat the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am going to call Kris Faafoi. He is on the Commerce Committee. We are going to hear Kris Faafoi.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Thank you very much for the chance to speak to Part 1 of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. In his comments during his contribution Mr Young talked about the benefits in terms of this deal and addressing unemployment. He said that this Government has been willing to sign this deal to make sure that there are employment opportunities for New Zealanders. Well I would ask Mr Young and other members of the National Party why they have not intervened to this extent when there have been job losses in the previous 5 years of their Government—that is to sign a deal of this nature to the point of signing away a $402 million convention centre to create employment for New Zealanders. Where was the Government when the train yards down in Dunedin were in grief and those Hillside workers were looking for some hope from this Government? Where was the Government? It was nowhere to be seen at all washing its hands clean of a problem with people losing their jobs. But here the Government member over there Mr Young was quite happy to say that the Government would intervene to do a deal with Skycity to make sure that there are employment opportunities to address the unemployment problem that we have here in New Zealand.A number of people have mentioned in this debate that a convention centre for New Zealand might be a very good idea and that it might be able to draw the likes of international trade shows to New Zealand bringing international visitors here to New Zealand. But the question that we on this side of the Chamber have is did we have to sell off to a huge effect our ability to regulate gambling and also to make laws here in New Zealand in order to do that? We on this side of the equation and on this side of the Chamber say that we did not have to.This is a conscience vote. There are some members on the other side of the Chamber who do come from constituencies where gambling harm does hit disproportionately hard. I am speaking about members such as Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga and I do acknowledge that he has had a family death. But besides that Sam has a responsibility as a member of Parliament to represent his community. The officials who were advising the Commerce Committee on this did point out in point 86 of the regulatory impact statement that the increase in the number of pokie machines will hit the likes of Māori and Pasifika communities harder. I know that Mr Lotu-Iiga represents Maungakiekie where there is a very high percentage of Pasifika people. So I think that this being a conscience vote Mr Lotu-Iiga should look at the harm that this bill will have on the Pasifika and Māori communities within his electorate and choose wisely when we are asked to vote on this bill.As other members have pointed out in this debate on Part 1 the deal that has been signed between the Crown and Skycity will see over 230 more machines. The deal between the Crown and Skycity will extend its licence for another 27 years inAuckland—a city that I must say has the highest Pasifika population in the country—and will allow another 40 extra gaming tables. The deal goes on to give many more concessions to Skycity in response to building the convention centre.Unfortunately in all of this the Pasifika community will be hit very hard. I do call on the consciences of other Pasifika members on the other side of the Chamber to think very wisely about the impact that this will have on our communities and the harm it will cause to families—and as Denise Roche says to the children in those families—by signing off this deal. By signing off this deal we are saying that we are OK with harm in those communities—we are OK with harm in those communities. So for the Pasifika members on the other side of the Chamber I make a special plea to you to think very wisely before you do vote on this issue.I turn now to some of the machinations of how this agreement—or dodgy deal—came about between Skycity and the Government. In fact if I were sitting in the Skycity boardroom at the moment I would be very happy. The Government has completely and utterly sold out in terms of the deal because what Skycity gets for the cost is a great deal. We have sold ourselves short here because the Government has sold out in a big way. Mr Young was talking about the spin-offs in terms of addressing unemployment. We get nowhere close to a good deal in terms of employment Mr Young and I know that in the Commerce Committee which that he chairs there was some research done by the Institute of Economic Research prepared for the Minister in the chair the Minister for Economic Development that showed that because of the diversion of investment only 18 more jobs—not 1800 not 18000 just—Carol Beaumont: Not even 180.KRIS FAAFOI: Not even 180. Just 18—one-eight—more jobs will be created under this deal. So this Government is playing up very highly the gains of employment from the deal but it is quite clear from the evidence presented before the select committee that they simply do not exist.Just turning to some of the politics around this Mr Key the Prime Minister was kind of crowing that this was a good deal. He said that he was totally vindicated when the Deputy Auditor-General investigated how this deal came about. But let us just dig a little deeper because always with this Government it is the details that catch it out. That is not exactly—Chris Auchinvole: Ha!KRIS FAAFOI: —how the Deputy Auditor-General came to be. For the benefit of Mr Auchinvole who giggled because maybe he does not know what the Deputy Auditor-General said I say that the Deputy Auditor-General said that the process of Skycity getting the contract to build the convention centre was—Chris Auchinvole: I didn’t giggle—guffawed!KRIS FAAFOI: He said it himself. I think he said “flawed”. The Deputy Auditor-General said it was flawed and not transparent or even-handed. The report established deficiencies on the part of both Ministers—so I think we are talking about the Minister in the chair and the Prime Minister—and officials. That is not exactly pertaining to the Prime Minister being totally vindicated by the Deputy Auditor-General’s report. It is another instance around the Skycity deal where the Government has been more spin than reality.We have heard from David Clark who talked about an expert from a university in Australia—I think from Bond University—who said that Skycity got an incredibly good deal. It shows you just what bad negotiators they are on the other side of the House. It shows you just what bad negotiators they are on the other side of the House because not only was it a bad business deal but it was bad for our communities—not just in Aucklandbut right around New Zealand. It showed that this Government would quite easily and happily sell out in the interests of doing a deal to build a convention centre.There will be 280 more pokie machines and 40 more gaming tables for pretty much zero. I note the harm that that will do to I think it was 8000 more Aucklanders as a result of this convention centre and the increase in the licence to Skycity going ahead. This deal will do harm. It will do harm to the communities in Auckland.I just want to finish with a plea again to the Pacific Island members on the other side of the House. It is patently obvious that gambling harm hurts our community more so we will be disproportionately affected by the increase in these pokie machines and these gaming machines and the extension of the licence that is given to Skycity. It is our community that will get hit harder. So in order to prevent that happening the members on the other side have an opportunity to stop that today. They can just simply vote against this piece of legislation. So to Alfred Ngaro and to Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga I say do the right thing for your community because if you do not sure you will have your political reputation within your party intact—you did the right thing within your party—but you sold out your community.MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): I moveThat the question be now put.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I want to address another part of clause 3 of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill and that is the part that is the tricky way that the Government has got around not amending the Gambling Act. It is worthwhile remembering that the Gambling Act says that there will be no more casinos there will be no increase in the space that casinos can use for gaming machines and there will be no more machines or gambling opportunities at casinos. The Gambling Act essentially provides a blanket prohibition on any expansion of any casino.As was described by my colleagues in Labour any attempt to change the Gambling Act for just this one business—for Skycity—runs completely contrary to the entire purpose of the Gambling Act. So in order to get around this absolute prohibition for just Skycity this one business in the gambling industry the Government has had to do a lot of wording machinations and a bit of management here and there. In clause 3(2)(a)(ii) it discusses the purpose of the agreement and it provides for “the granting of changes to the regulatory regime applying to the SKYCITY Casino …”. That is how the Government is using this legislation to avoid the prohibitions against expanding the casino business in the Gambling Act.Many Auckland businesses I understand are actually rather frustrated and quite angry at the extent to which Skycity has been given this special privilege by the National Government by Steven Joyce and John Key. The Government gives Skycity this extra-special deal—worth billions of dollars actually—through this tricky legislative mechanism to try to avoid the prohibition in the Gambling Act. But what is really important and concerning to us with that is that the purpose of the Gambling Act is to place constraints on gambling operations. Casinos were allowed eventually to operate in New Zealand and part of the social contract that allowed casinos to come to New Zealand was that there would be constraints on them: constraints on how large they would be and constraints in terms of regulation to minimise problem gambling as much as possible. That was the social contract. That is the deal—that they can operate in this country as a legitimate business as long as they adhere to the law.What we have had with Skycity over the last I do not know more than a decade is Skycity continually challenging the Gambling Commission and continually challenging the Gambling Act provisions in an attempt to expand its business. It has time after time I understand taken the Gambling Commission to court to try to get the Gambling Commission’s rules changed so that Skycity can expand its business. Time and time again the Gambling Act provisions which place an absolute prohibition on the expansionof its business have won out. Every single time Skycity has not been able to get what it wanted. It has not been able to breach the social contract that casinos have with New Zealanders which allows casinos to operate legitimately here with some kind of social licence.Then along comes John Key who has a few dinners with the Skycity top bosses and suddenly the entire social contract is blown out of the water. The whole social contract—the social licence that Skycity Casino has to operate in New Zealand—is destroyed over a couple of fancy dinners and a couple of bottles of fancy wine with John Key because John Key wants a monument to his prime ministership when he eventually goes after the next election. Skycity finally found the guy who would give it the deal for which it has been fighting for years which was to get outside the Gambling Act. That is what clause 3 says. It is a “get out of jail free” card for Skycity Casino to avoid the controls that society placed on casinos and the controls that are placed on Skycity.Those controls are primarily designed to protect New Zealanders from the harm from casino gambling—gambling in general but casino gambling in particular. They were agreed to because it is globally acknowledged that casino gambling causes harm that pokie machines are designed to be addictive—they are designed expressly for the purpose of hooking people in and creating an addiction. There is widely known research around the world. So there is a need for legislation to try to curb the harms and that is what the Gambling Act does. But we have now—Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I want in this part of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill and in this contribution to focus on National Party members and ask them to examine their consciences. [Interruption] Steven Joyce the promoter of the John Key casino extension giggles. He giggles at the thought of a National Party member having a conscience and I think that is disgraceful. He is not an experienced parliamentarian but most people know even if they have just read the history of the country that the National Party has a tradition of allowing its members to have a conscience vote. Members opposite say that we went to the election on the issue. Well I think that to a certain extent some of them did. Some of them did go to the election. John Key certainly went to the election on a convention centre. But I remind them of the people of integrity of the National Party of the past who notwithstanding going to the election on an issue had the courage to stand up and say no.I refer the members to Ralph Hanan. Ralph Hanan was a former Mayor of Invercargill from memory. He was a Minister of Justice and the Attorney-General in the Holyoake National Party. His party led by Holyoake went to the election in 1960 and promised to undo the suspension of capital punishment that had been instituted by the previous Labour Government. Ralph Hanan said: “Notwithstanding the fact it is my role to introduce this bill because that is my obligation as a Minister who is part of the Holyoake Government my conscience will not let me vote for it.” What that man did was he introduced a bill and he voted against it.I ask Jonathan Young where his conscience is. Mr Young knows absolutely that this bill and in particular the interventions in clause 4(2) are an area where the agreement which is not even specified in the bill—so what we have in here is a bill that specifies an agreement and says that the interpretation should be based on the agreement. But is the agreement available in the legislation? No it is not—no it is not. National has not even bothered because it is trying to keep it all secret. It is trying to say in clause 4(2) that this Parliament should interpret the agreement as overriding the legislation notwithstanding the fact that it is not prepared to put the entire agreement into the schedule of the bill.National has cherry-picked it. It has picked up a clause here and a clause there that it wants to have highlighted and it has made those in the schedule of the bill. But theimportant part of the agreement signed by Steven Joyce and initiated over drinks by the Prime Minister is not in the bill. I say to Jonathan Young shame on you.Jonathan Young: Website Mallard.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Since when in the history of the Parliament of New Zealand have you been told that you go to a website—according to Jonathan Young—for something that overrides a letter of the legislation? For goodness’ sake! What sort of “Mickey Mouse” Parliament are we talking about? Chris Auchinvole’s head is hanging in shame at the interjection. I would ask Jonathan Young how many people he is prepared to have die as a result of this legislation. One? Ten? Fifteen? How many extra people are going to be murdered as a result of not paying their debt? How many more bodies in suitcases of people who could not pay their debt are going to be found in the Auckland harbour?NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central): I moveThat the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The question is that the question be now put. Those of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No. The Ayes have it. [Interruption] A party vote? [Interruption] No we are not accepting personal votes on Part 1. In Part 2 there will be—Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I would like to refer you toMcGee. Sorry this is somewhat unanticipated so I will have to go to the particular part.McGee makes it absolutely clear that gambling issues are areas where there is a traditional conscience vote. I do accept that it is the right of the Chair to decide when a personal vote occurs but I ask you to examine the precedent that you are setting for something that is a gambling issue. I want to point out that in this bill—for example looking at the purpose clause of the bill; the interpretation clause especially clause 4(2); and clause 5 of the bill which binds the Crown—every single one of those clauses involves extra gaming.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I thank the member for the points that he has brought up. There is an agreement from the Business Committee—I do not know whether the member is aware of it—that there will be personal votes allowed on Part 2. Here is the letter that has gone to all parties. It is dated 5 November. There is an agreement that says that Part 1 will be done by party vote and that Part 2 will be done by way of a personal vote on a conscience matter. That is the decision of the Speaker that is the decision that I have ruled on and we will now have a party vote which has been called for.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Is this a new point of order? Because I have actually ruled on the previous point of order.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I have heard your ruling. Are you ruling that the Business Committee agreement can strip from a member their right to have a personal vote? Can you show me the Standing Order that allows that?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am referring to Standing Order 139: “Where the Speaker considers that the subject of a vote is to be treated as a conscience issue the Speaker will permit a personal vote to be held instead of a party vote.” The issues about conscience matters are in Part 2; they are not in Part 1. So the points that have been made—and I refer the member to the decision of the Business Committee and the Speaker’s letter to the parties which I am upholding and so on that basis I have ruled. I am not going to entertain it further Mr Mallard because I have ruled. I have ruled on what the Speaker has determined. Mr Speaker has determined that it is an agreement of all parties on the Business Committee and it is not for me to actually deviate from that. At the end of the day—[Interruption] No hang on. At the end of the day it is at mydiscretion. I have ruled that Part 1 is to be done on party vote as per the Speaker’s instructions and that Part 2 is to be done by way of a personal vote on conscience matters.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I moveThat the Speaker be recalled in order to contest the ruling you have just made.Motion agreed to.House resumed.Speaker RecalledThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Mr Speaker you have been recalled on the basis that a closure motion was put. I accepted the closure motion and put it to the Committee. At that stage the Green Party asked specifically for a personal vote. I denied a personal vote and subsequently I have used the letter that you have written to the parties as it is your prerogative to do stating that Part 1 because they are procedural matters would be on the basis of a party vote if a party vote were called for and that Part 2 because they are conscience matters if a personal were called for a personal vote would be allowed. I have quoted the letter from your office signed by you on 5 November which states the position quite clearly. On that basis the ruling that I made was that we would accept a party vote on Part 1 but not a personal vote. That is the decision and the ruling that I made.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I think it is fair to say that Mr Tisch has summarised the situation well. I have now received a copy of the letter that you sent to the party whips. I do want to point out that nowhere in this letter does it say that Part 1 will be treated as a party vote. What it does is indicate that certain matters will be treated as conscience issues.One of those in the dot point at the top of page 2—and I am researching this relatively quickly—is changes to the regulatory regime for gambling and the application of proceeds of gambling. I refer you in Part 1 to clause 4(1) which defines “regulatory concessions” and brings them into the Act. From just a very brief reading of your letter it is clear that in fact that amendment at least comes within the ambit of your letter and therefore should allow for a personal vote. So that is No. 1. I apologise. It is not a matter that I was aware of before or I would have brought it up. I have just read your letter and compared it with the bill.The next point that I want to make is the indication from the Chairman that he had been directed by you. That is actually a quote. “The direction of the Speaker” were the words used by the Chairman of the Committee. Of course that cannot be because you I am sure would give guidance and not direction in these matters because otherwise the right of the Chair in following the debate to act as he sees would be fettered.I turn to the last point and I do want to say that we might have been if you like one vote premature in calling for a personal vote. There might be a good debate around—I think we can have a debate around whether the closure motion is a personal vote or not. It might be that there could be an argument as far as the closure motion is concerned to do with Government business and getting it through that those votes might be a party vote. But given the ruling from the Chairman that this is part of Part 1 as opposed to a procedural motion it might be worth considering it as a package.The last point that I would make is that if one looks through these definitions we go to “licence” in clause 4(1) and we also go to the legislative implementation of the agreement which is not counted in the schedules. So if one looks at clause 4(2) that is the clause that gives effect to the agreement and therefore is a major operative clause in the extension of gambling and the implementation of those provisions.My submission to you is that this part includes three or four provisions that change gambling andMcGee and other learned people who have written on the matter have made very clear in the past that gaming provisions are matters of conscience. I am asking you to rule that your letter stands and that that is guidance but not direction to the Chairman and that it would be appropriate for him to review his mistaken assumptions as to the effect of this part in relation to the letter that you have provided.TIM MACINDOE (Junior Whip—National): I just want to indicate that the Chairman did not indicate to the Committee that he was in any way being directed by you Mr Speaker. What he did make very clear for the guidance of the Committee was that you had after discussion in the Business Committee written to members to indicate that all parties had agreed on the procedure that was to be followed. There is no doubt in my mind that the Chairman was simply upholding the intent of that letter and the agreement that was reached by all the other parties. I also want to indicate that in this instance we were dealing with a procedural motion and the suggestion that anything other than a party vote should be taken on a procedural motion is I would have thought quite extraordinary.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): We too have seen the letter. It is our understanding in the Greens that unless we call for a personal vote no such vote will be held. There has been no express indication from the Chair or from any other official as to which parts of the legislation may or may not be considered appropriate for a personal vote. So we are in no position other than to call for a personal vote at every opportunity so that those personal votes will be held. If there is no indication then we may well unduly miss the opportunity to hold a personal vote which we consider as very important. So without further indication we have no choice but to continually call for a personal vote in these circumstances.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): Firstly I think that you did a good thing in providing guidance to all parties about how as the primary presiding officer of this Parliament you would see this bill being dealt with where there is clearly disagreement among parties about what should be a conscience vote and what should not.I have to say that we have heard from some speakers this afternoon on this point who were not present at the Business Committee yesterday where this matter was further discussed and it would be unfair and unreasonable to suggest that there had not been a discussion about which parts are most likely to attract the personal vote requirement or to see that called for. There were some understandings reached and I think that one of the difficulties that we are faced with now is that although that Business Committee has functioned extremely well for the last 5 years in my opinion we might be at a point where it is going to start turning on itself. I would ask that perhaps some of those who have spoken this afternoon speak to their representatives who were at the Business Committee to get a better understanding of exactly what I understood to be agreed positions.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): The first thing I would like to do is say that I think I received an indication from Mr Tisch that he did not use the words “Speaker’s direction”. If that is the case if he did not use those words I apologise. I thought that he had. The second point that I would like to make is that there is no provision in Speakers’ rulings or in Standing Orders for the Business Committee to remove the right of an individual member to vote on a personal vote on a conscience matter. You cannot trade away amongst senior members the right of individual members to have personal votes.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I made no such suggestion but the member Trevor Mallard has huge experience in this House and also in theBusiness Committee and knows the sorts of agreements that can be reached there. No one is suggesting that anyone’s rights are cut off but on a procedural motion it would seem rather unusual to expect there to be a personal vote unless there was some compelling reason for there to be so.Mr SPEAKER: Can I just ask whether the Chairman wishes to make any further comment. Can I thank all members for their contribution. I thought long and hard about the letter that I sent out and in actual fact if you follow a previous gambling bill that was before this House a member’s bill in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell we on that occasion followed a very similar system to what I have established today. I took substantial advice from the Clerk in determining whether Part 1 was largely procedural and on the basis of that advice that was my conclusion.I then sent a letter out that I think is relatively specific to members and I appreciate that at the time the Hon Trevor Mallard recalled the Speaker he had not actually seen a copy of that letter. But that letter quite specifically says that I will allow a personal vote on the second part. I refer members to Standing Order 139 which states: “Where the Speaker considers that the subject of a vote is to be treated as a conscience issue the Speaker will permit a personal vote to be held instead of a party vote.”I can assure all members of the House that I respect the role of the Chairman and I certainly did not instruct Mr Tisch in any way. Having said that I say that this matter was discussed at the Business Committee. I was personally not at the Business Committee yesterday and I think it would be a very dangerous situation having followed the way this House has evolved over a period of time as we have adjusted Standing Orders to our electoral system if at any time the working and the consensus arrangement of that Business Committee were put at risk. On this occasion there will be adequate opportunities for people to cast personal votes where I have determined that there is more of a gambling issue at stake rather than a procedural matter. So on this basis I adhere to the ruling made by Mr Chairman and the House will return to being in Committee.In CommitteeDebate resumed.Part 1 Preliminary provisions(continued)The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The Committee is resumed. I had accepted a closure motion from a Government member so the question is that the question be now put. Those of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No. The Ayes have it.Hon Trevor Mallard: Personal vote.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I will not accept a personal vote. A party vote has been called for. I will accept a party vote.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan; Other: Mallard.Motion agreed to.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The question is that Part 1 stand part. Those of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No. [Interruption] The Ayes have it. A party vote is called for. I will ask the Clerk for a party vote.Hon Trevor Mallard: Personal vote.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We are having a party vote—it has been called for. I am giving a party vote.A party vote was called for on the questionThat Part 1 be agreed to.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes59New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; Independent: Horan; Other: Mallard.Part 1 agreed to.Part 2 Substantive provisionsThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We now move to the debate on Part 2 and this includes debate on schedule 3.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): This is the substantive part of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill and the part of the bill that we expect to debate today and through tomorrow if the Government decides to put it up again. What this part does is put into place the regulatory concessions. What it does is put part but not all of the contract into law. What it does is take out a number of the obligations of the Gambling Commission. It puts in and takes out some obligations of the Secretary for Internal Affairs.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think it is fair to say that we had just got started and I was beginning to remind members about the precedent set by that honourable National member Josiah Hanan a former member for Invercargill and the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General in the Holyoake Government. On a matter of party policy following the 1960 election he put a bill into the House as the Minister in charge to reintroduce capital punishment and then he had the courage of his convictions to vote against that bill because he knew it was wrong. My challenge to National members opposite is to apply their consciences in the same way and notwithstanding what their leader said on the hustings and the pressure he has put on them in their caucus to stand up for what they believe in. I cannot believe that members like Jonathan Young truly believe that the lost family homes the lost marriages the suicides and the murders that will flow from this bill are in fact an appropriate thing for a National Party person to be voting for.I want to say that even in my time in the House there used to be a tradition of independence of thinking in the National Party and the ability to vote according to one’s conscience in a way that I think for many years—in fact for most of the party’s history—has been wider and more flexible than in the Labour Party. But under Steven Joyce and under John Key that traditional ability to think for oneself appears to have gone. I have made it clear to the House in the past that I voted for the introduction of the original casino legislation. Members opposite might say: “Shame on you!” but the point is that I then looked at the evidence. I listened to submissions and I read what people had to say and I had the courage of my convictions to reverse my position and to vote against the final reading of the bill because I thought that was the right thing to do. I challenge members opposite to find their consciences.The next point I want to make is one that might be described as being “only in New Zealand” or in some other banana republic and that is the position of the Hon JohnBanks with regard to this legislation. People will remember without going into any of the detail that a prima facie case has been established against Mr Banks for not declaring donations from Skycity. What do we have now? We have had in this House as recently as this afternoon a vote by the Hon John Banks in favour of the very people who gave him a donation that he attempted illegally—at least on a prima facie basis—to hide from the country.In any other country in the world in any other proper democracy in the world a person would say that the matter is before the court and they do not expect him to—well I think an honourable person might resign but I do not expect Mr Banks to do that. What I do expect the member to do is to say that it is not appropriate because of a vestige of integrity to vote in favour of the people who gave him the donation which he then hid from the public.This is the part of the bill that effectively tips over the sinking-lid policy of the Auckland Council with regard to pokie machines. I think it is fair to say it is uneven. Manukau led the way as far as the sinking lid was concerned but it is now across Auckland and working relatively well. We heard from Jonathan Young and Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga how well it was working generally across Auckland. I did have to point out to them of course that most of their colleagues when the sinking lid was introduced voted against it. They were not supportive of it then. They are supportive of it now. But what this particular part of the bill does is tip that on its head and it means that we will get the opposite effect. We will have a massive increase not just in the numbers of pokie machines but in the turnover from those pokie machines because machines within casino set-ups that are open 24 hours a day 7 days a week sometimes with queues to those machines have a much higher turnover than would otherwise be the case.I would like to refer to the schedule. This is an interesting bill. Missing from the schedules that are attached to the bill is most of the agreement which should be in the bill and which we are saying overrides the letter of the law in this case. How the Minister in the chair the Attorney-General can sit in the chair and say that this is adequate legislation I do not know. But what is clear is that things that are allegedly on a website somewhere on the Department of Internal Affairs site override the letter of the law in this bill. Well that is just wrong.But there is some stuff in here and I just want to refer to the first of it and that is clause 7.2 of the agreement” in schedule 1 and clause 7.2(a) of the agreement and the fact that “The initial term of the Venue Licence is extended from its current expiry date of 1 February 2021 to 30 June 2048.” The two reviews that were meant to take place during that time—massive reviews massive and important—are gone. The ability of the Government to re-tender to make decisions as to having another operator come in maybe on an exclusive basis or maybe to have a competitor is wiped. It is gone as a result of something that is sitting in a schedule of this bill and that is just wrong.And there are lots of other things. We know that people lose too much money because they fire $20 notes into machines and get credits. What does this bill do? It increases from $20 to $100 the size of the notes that are allowed to be fired into the machine one after another and another again and another and another and another. So people can flick away tens of thousands of dollars in $100 notes so that they can get their credits which they then generally go on to lose because that is what happens when people—Iain Lees-Galloway: The house always wins.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well the house does always win and I tell you what. The house has won exceptionally well out of this deal because it was playing poker with people with their eyes shut.You know I have criticised the officials for some stuff but I do want to give the officials praise because I think the advice that the officials kept on giving to Ministers was: “You’re being done over here—you’re being done over. The house is beating you. You should not accept this deal.” I believe that the officials from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Enterprise passed on the Treasury advice as to the private benefit of this to Skycity. I believe that they had honesty and integrity and gave the right advice to the Ministers. I do criticise them for not showing the same independence at the Commerce Committee.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I have spoken on this bill the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill before and I have to say that each time I do this I realise more and more that this is an abhorrent piece of legislation. It is wrong in so many ways. It is wrong morally. It is wrong in the way that the process was followed. But I just want to say as perhaps many people in this House have not gone there that when you go to that casino and you walk through that main gambling area where all the pokie machines are stacked up you see that the people who are putting their money into those machines are not the high rollers whom we are trying to attract from overseas.These are the people from my electorate and from South Auckland and from west Auckland who cannot afford to give away their savings their salaries and their benefits into those machines. To think that this bill—this Act—will bring about another 230 of those machines it obviously can only mean that more of those people are going to be trapped. As my colleague Trevor Mallard just said those machines are no longer just the simple machines where you put money into them; they are machines that operate on cards. They are machines where many of them at more than $20 at a time can fleece you and take that from you which is basically preying on those people who are unable to ensure that they able to step back from that and say: “No I can’t do this any more.” That is the real worry about this convention centre: it is being built on the backs of those people. There is the harm that it is doing to those families and to those people who are unable to resist putting their savings through those machines—230 extra machines. Those machines are programmed to take more money off people faster.When this agreement was being talked about many months ago I spoke to somebody who was a former senior employee of Skycity. I said to them: “What’s the deal going to look like?” and he said: “Well if it was me what I’d be looking for is an extension of my gambling licence by about 10 years I’d be looking for a lot more pokie machines and I’d be looking for the pokie machines that are able to take money off people much faster than the ones that we’ve got currently.” Well Skycity certainly got a really good deal out of this because it ticks all the boxes. But even he—even he—was shocked by the fact that it was a 35-year licence rather than the 7 or 8 years that he anticipated and even he was shocked by KordaMentha’s conclusions about how much money was coming back to Skycity. I believe that that amount has been grossly underestimated and other analyses that I have seen seem to demonstrate that it is actually well under what Skycity is likely to make from this deal.That is one part of it—the ability to take more money off people faster more money off the people who can least afford it more money to line the pockets of Skycity for 35 years. But the other part of it of course is how this deal actually came into being. Although this is all part of Part 1 I want to touch on the fact that the deal was done without the other companies that were tendering for this contract having the same information that Skycity had. So instead of the Skycity deal being a Skycity deal and it being a Vector deal or a Ngāti Whātua deal or an Infratil deal with their having an ability to actually put up a proposal that might have satisfied the Government they never even got that opportunity. They did not even know that the rules had changed. SoSkycity was set up right from the very beginning. That is why the Auditor-General said that the process lacked transparency it was not even-handed it was flawed and there were deficiencies on both the part of officials and on the part of Ministers and to say that somehow this arrangement this deal has totally vindicated the Ministers of course is absolute nonsense.The other part of this is what exactly we are getting out of it: the convention centre. At the moment most of us would support having a convention centre but Treasury documents and Treasury analysis would indicate that actually the peak for a convention centre of this type may have actually passed and the economic returns that we are expected to get are actually going to be somewhat lower than what we expect.But I want to come back to the issue of the harmful effects because most of the problem-gambling organisations that I have spoken to talk about problem gamblers being in the order of about 40 percent of those people who are pulling the levers or pushing the buttons of those pokie machines—40 percent. It means that there will be a huge increase in the number of people who are actually going to be going to the Skycity Casino and being involved in that addictive behaviour. As we have tried in the past to decrease the number of pokie machines and we have heard all about the issues and the problems at the bowling clubs and the rugby clubs around Auckland that are slowly but surely decreasing—some would say that we need to do that more quickly but they are certainly decreasing in number—here we are increasing to dramatic effect the number and going in the other direction. Let us remember that those machines at the rugby clubs the bowling clubs etc. give about a third of their income back to the community whereas Skycity gets to pocket that income and it pays about 2 3 or 4 percent of its returns back to any sort of community fund.This is not just bad for the people who are addicted to gambling and are sitting there putting their money and their life-savings into it supporting and backing and financing a convention centre that I have to say is based on some pretty dubious economics but it is also not giving anything back to the community whatsoever. On top of that the number of jobs that were supposed to be created by this which Grant Robertson talked about in his earlier intervention is grossly—grossly—exaggerated by this Government in terms of what it is going to be producing. Any analysis of what has happened in Australia with regard to the numbers of jobs created by these casinos will tell you that they are nothing like what the Government is proposing. In fact the figure will possibly be well below 100 and many of those jobs are actually going to be for cleaners or bar workers in the lower-paid proportions of our community.Do not get this wrong. This is not about economic development in the grand scheme of things that Steven Joyce has always talked about; this is about furthering the profits of a city through the back-door deals of Ministers and more specifically the Prime Minister. This is a shonky deal. It is a dishonest deal. It takes money from the pockets of ordinary New Zealanders. It creates harm in our society and that is why when most New Zealanders look at this deal they know that this is wrong. They feel that they have been duped and wronged by this Government in ensuring that this sham gets put into our city. It is in the middle of our city. It takes up several blocks—several blocks—of land where people are going to be going in in their tens of thousands and putting their money into machines money that they can ill-afford to spend. So this is why I feel particularly aggrieved by this happening in my city. When I go through that hall and I see the sorts of people who are putting money into those machines and I see the sorts of people who are going to be putting money into those machines in a multiple increase on what we have today then that is why I am standing here with my colleagues and absolutely opposing this deal.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to refer to the first clause within Part 2 of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. That is where we have a discussion about the regulatory concessions that have been authorised. I particularly want to refer members of the Committee to clause 6(2). It says: “The regulatory concessions prevail if a regulatory concession is inconsistent with any provision of the gambling law and the application of the provision of the gambling law is modified accordingly.” Let us just stop and think for a minute what that clause means. It means that the deal as we have traversed—a dodgy deal done without the proper information going to other applicants with the Prime Minister’s paw prints all over it; an appalling deal done by the Government which is costing the taxpayer costing New Zealanders—trumps gambling law.That is the message the National Government is sending out tonight. The Gambling Act 2003 with its purpose to “minimise the harm caused by gambling” is trashed by a shoddy agreement that lines the pocket of Skycity and that takes away from many New Zealanders money that they can ill-afford to have taken away. That is the point of clause 6(2).The National Government should be ashamed to be supporting a clause that says the will of this Parliament is out the door. The National Government did not even have the gumption to come in and amend the gambling law because it could not because this bill is against the purpose of the gambling law. So instead it overrides that law with an agreement signed in a back room—a deal done with National’s mates is more important to it than the sovereign right of this Parliament to make laws.National should be ashamed of clause 6(2) because the regulatory concessions that are being talked about in clause 6 are not minor. Let us run through them again and make sure people understand what we are talking about here. There is the extension of the licence until 2048. As my colleague Trevor Mallard has said within that period where that licence has been extended there should have been two full reviews of that licence.I had a bit to do with the Gambling Act 2003 as an official or a person who worked in this building and I can tell you that one of the main roles that was to be played in the review process was taking a thorough look at the levels of gambling harm that were being caused. Those two reviews are gone on this licence and that is shameful. There will be 40 extra gaming tables a 17 percent increase in the number of gaming machines that can take more than $20 notes and ticket-in ticket-out cashless gaming. These are the kinds of regulatory concessions that are being talked about here—a huge increase in gaming machines. These are the concessions these are the things that break the spirit of the Gambling Act that clause 6 says are fine.On this side of the Chamber we do not believe it is fine and neither do the officials because the regulatory impact statement makes that absolutely clear. I will read it from paragraph 33: “The proposed gambling concessions raise concerns about a potential increase in the incidence of problem gambling due to the subsequent increase in gambling opportunities at Skycity’s Auckland casino.” David Shearer just said it—if this is all about the high rollers the people who will come to these international conventions from around the world they do not play the pokies. They do not go into places like this to play pokie machines. The people who will be lured in to play those pokie machines will be the people who can least afford it. We know this about pokie machines. Class 4 gambling is the most addictive there is. This bill and these concessions that are now being put in place by clause 6 mean that there will be more pokie machines more opportunities.But then we go on to the question of cashless gaming. There has been a lot of research around the world about the impact that it has to actually put money into amachine—it is an action you have to do. Once you move to cashless gaming to cards to ticket-in ticket-out machines you take away from people the decision that they are going to put money in. Here we are in clause 6 of this bill saying it is OK to have 17 percent more machines that will take higher denominations and that will lead to cashless gaming. Cashless gaming will make problem gambling worse and that is what is put in place with these concessions.Here is something that I do not know whether I ever thought I would see in a regulatory impact statement. This is what the officials said in paragraph 97: “There are aspects of the regulatory concessions that potentially raise the risk of money laundering through Skycity.” Oh well that is just a casual little comment there from Treasury officials—we are looking at money-laundering! This is the result of the ticket-in ticket-out arrangements which do allow for the prospect of people using them to put money in. Trevor Mallard has already raised concerns about the kinds of pressures that can be put on people in a venue like Skycity in the case—the very unfortunate case—of the Chinese student from a couple of years ago. Well here we have got the officials telling us that money-laundering is on the way at Skycity.So there is another risk not accounted for by the Government not defended by the Government. It was simply put into this deal with Skycity which frankly had a ball negotiating this. It has done extremely well for itself and its shareholders. Where was the Government? Where was the Government defending New Zealanders? Where was the Government saying: “No we have actually got gambling laws that are about reducing gambling harm. We have got an Auckland Council that has a sinking lid policy on gaming machines. We are going to defend that.”? That could have been the response of the Government. It could have said: “Actually do you know what? We really want this convention centre built but these regulatory concessions go against the spirit of our laws against what the Auckland Council has been trying to do. We are not going to agree to it. Sorry Skycity it was nice negotiating with you but we are going to go back and talk to the other four people who actually did want to build this convention centre.”But no the Government did not do that because it was neck-deep in this dodgy deal led by the Prime Minister who directed his officials to work with Skycity in a different manner to how other groups who were tendering were being worked with. Meetings were held with the Prime Minister’s chief of staff and information was handed over to Skycity. Again the officials started raising concerns about this—ploughing on went the Government to do this dodgy deal. In clause 6 we now have the sight—the shameful sight—of the regulatory concessions which I have just worked through prevailing above and beyond gambling law. That is a completely shameful position to find ourselves in in this Parliament.It is worth noting on the question of the licence and the licence extending through to 2048 that Skycity has completely done the Government over here. All of the calculations show us that Skycity will make its money back miles in advance of 2048. It has got a great deal here. Not only has it got a great financial deal; New Zealanders are done out of the reviews. Why? Why on earth has the Government decided to not even have the reviews? All right extend the licence as part of your deal but still review it—still give New Zealanders the reassurance that this outfit is operating in accordance with the law; that it is actually doing the problem-gambling harm minimisation initiatives that it said it would.But no we do not even have this review. It is a blank cheque written by the National Government to Skycity against the wishes and values of New Zealanders. Part 2 of this bill is the guts of it. This is where the rubber hits the road. It is time for somebody on the National side of the Chamber to stand up and say why New Zealanders should agree to regulatory concessions that are against the gambling laws that we currently have.Why not have the gumption to come into this Chamber and say: “You know what? The Gambling Act 2003 is wrong. We want to liberalise it.”? That is not what those members have done. They have picked off Skycity and they have said they are going to give Skycity power above and beyond the Gambling Act 2003.Well that is not what I came into Parliament for. I did not come into Parliament to sit here and have a National Government do a backroom deal and come into this House and tell me that the laws that have been previously passed do not matter; that it is just going to do everything by deals and agreements. That is not democracy. That is not how this House is meant to work.Dr JIAN YANG (National): I rise to support the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. I would like to follow up on the speech of the previous speaker Grant Robertson. Throughout its 35-year extension of its casino licence Skycity Casino will continue to be subject to existing and any new casino laws and regulations. In the event that Skycity Casino fails to meet its obligations as set out in the terms of its licence its licence could be suspended or cancelled under the current Gambling Act. The agreement will not change the operation and enforcement of the existing gambling regime.According to the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment the size of the international business events market is growing. The International Congress and Convention Association estimates that there are approximately 19000 non-government international association conferences organised in the world on a regular basis with approximately 11219 held in 2012 compared with 10070 in 2011 and 9120 in 2010. Last year only 45 of these events were held in New Zealand partly because of New Zealand not having the right facilities to attract large conferences. I have talked to a number of conference organisers and they find it hard to believe that New Zealand is unable to host such conferences. It is clear that we have been missing out on many opportunities for the growth of our economy.Casinos in New Zealand were first introduced over two decades ago. Research shows that there is indeed a link between the availability of gaming machines and opportunities to gamble and the incidence of problem gambling. However the research does not demonstrate a direct causal relationship between an increase in gaming machines and a commensurate increase in problem gambling incidents. The 230 new pokie machines is the same number granted to Skycity Casino under the previous Labour Government in 2001 for the development of the existing and much smaller Auckland convention centre.Under the agreement Skycity Casino will have to introduce a number of preventative measures to reduce the risk of problem gambling—measures such as a predictive modelling tool that conducts analysis of data to identify players at risk of problem gambling as well as a voluntary pre-commit card system where players can elect to restrict the amount of time they play or the amount they spend. Skycity Casino will also have to introduce player identification requirements when amounts over $500 are being put on to or cashed from ticket-in ticket-out machines in non-restricted areas as well as doubling the number of host responsibility specialists to deliver 24 hours a day 7 days a week coverage. These actual harm minimisation requirements will become part of Skycity Casino’s host responsibility programme which is monitored constantly by experienced and professional Department of Internal Affairs inspectors. The Gambling Commission is also required to review this every 2 years. It involves a wide range of independent experts in those reviews. The method of review is entirely up to the commission which acts independently of the Government.The National Government has been working hard to build a more competitive and productive economy. The New Zealand International Convention Centre is just one ofthe Government’s around 350 initiatives to create jobs and grow our economy for all Kiwis. The centre will be a major asset for New Zealand and will generate significant spin-off benefits including a projected $90 million annual injection into the economy an estimated 1000 jobs during construction and 800 jobs once it is up and running. So it is expected to attract about 33000 more conference delegates to New Zealand each year.To conclude my speech I would like to quote Mr Brett O’Riley Chief Executive of Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development. Mr O’Riley says: “The International Convention Centre will be a positive signal to investors who we know are already interested in hotel development and are analyzing future demand trends.” Thank you.DAVID CLENDON (Green): Thank you Mr Deputy Chair.Catherine Delahunty: He just got here.DAVID CLENDON: Of course. Yes excellent choice. I am pleased to take a brief call on this unfortunate piece of legislation the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. I think there is one thing that we can be sure about: if this bill passes we can be sure there will immediately be an increase in visitor numbers to Auckland. Even before the convention centre is built every casino operator and every gambling operator around the world will be coming to Auckland to ask Skycity: “How did you negotiate such a sweetheart deal where you cannot possibly lose?” because that is the nature of this legislation. Skycity cannot lose on this legislation. The regulatory concessions are very carefully set up in clause 6 to ensure that any regulatory or legislative change can work only to the advantage of Skycity.You have got to give it credit in a perverse sort of a way for having achieved that. It will be the poster boy of the gambling industry internationally for having pulled off this incredible coup and for having got this extraordinary set of concessions from a Government that is basically giving Skycity an open ticket. It is not even having a dollar each way. Skycity is guaranteed to win whichever way future legislation goes. It is a win-win deal for Skycity. It is a lose-lose deal for New Zealand for people with gambling problems and for the social services which will have to pick up the residue the mess that this increase in gambling and problem-gambling behaviour will leave behind.I think it is very instructive to go back to the feasibility studies that were conducted between 2007 and 2009 over that period. All of the international evidence says that building convention centres in the current era in the current situation means that you will never recoup your cost of capital. You might make money on the operation of such a thing but the capital investment is sunk. You simply cannot generate enough income to pay for that which is why the Ministry of Economic Development feasibility study recommended some sort of public-private partnership: the public sector which could meet some of the capital cost with the trade-off obviously that there are wider benefits attracting people to the region—tourists who will come and spend money outside the convention centre—and a private operator.Ngāti Whātua would have been an ideal partner for example. It is an entity that has cash and that has land already. It is an organisation that is not going anywhere and that is not looking for a short-term return. Instead it did not have an opportunity to put a bid on the table to put up a business case. Unfortunately it was trumped very early in the piece by this extremely shoddy deal that enables an operator Skycity to come in with a guaranteed win—better odds than any casino anywhere in the world has or would ever offer.I would like to speak to some of the Supplementary Order Papers and some of the changes we would like to see made to this legislation. I take Mr Mallard’s point madeearlier that this bill is probably irredeemable in a sense but we must endeavour to at least make it somewhat less bad than it is. Clearly our first—Hon Trevor Mallard: Why don’t you say what I said?DAVID CLENDON: I am much more polite than you Mr Mallard. Yes sir.Hon Trevor Mallard: Polish it up.DAVID CLENDON: Polish it? Well yes. We will not go there just now. Supplementary Order Paper 379 in the name of our co-leader Metiria Turei suggests that we do away altogether with clause 6 because that is the clause that is basically the win-win. It ensures that Skycity cannot lose and that it can ignore any legislative change if it is to its advantage or it can accept if it is to its advantage. There is no way it can lose in any future change in the gambling legislation. This shoddy document overrides the gambling law which everybody else must obey but Skycity can gratefully accept any changes to it that are to Skycity’s advantage—though it is actually hard to see how any law could improve on the deal it has already cut. Our Supplementary Order Paper 379 suggests we do away with that clause and at least put Skycity on something like an equal footing with other gambling operators other casino operators and introduce just a tiny element of risk. At the moment this deal is absolutely risk-free for Skycity.We might assume that it is planning to build this thing in the spirit of altruism to give the people of Auckland a gift—a convention centre that may in time attract more visitors high-dollar-spend visitors which would do our tourism industry no harm. But call me cynical I do not think it did this in a spirit of altruism. It knows very well that the return on the extra gambling capacity that it is being gifted by this legislation will very quickly recoup the capital cost through its gambling machines through the extra capacity that this entitles it to. That is a very unfortunate situation. Every business ought to accept a little bit of risk. It stimulates and it motivates good thinking and good business practice. There is no risk in this deal for Skycity.Supplementary Order Paper 385 again in the name of Metiria Turei suggests we should introduce compulsory pre-commit cards. I am a person who has never entirely understood gambling. I can think of many more interesting and exciting ways of wasting money than poking it into a machine or hoping that a particular card is going to come up.Dr David Clark: Motorbikes.DAVID CLENDON: I will not go into what those ways happen to be but the fact is that motorcycles might be high on that list yes. If Skycity or any casino operator is genuinely committed to reducing the harm associated with gambling does it not make sense to insist that people must make a decision when they are still thinking clearly before the heat of the moment the excitement the adrenalin or whatever else it is that attracts people to gambling and locks them into spending much more than they can afford? Would you not want people making that decision up front? “Tonight I will spend $100.”—which somebody else might spend at a movie at a club at a theatre or whatever it might be. Making pre-commitment compulsory would ensure that people would make the decision when they are thinking relatively clearly before they get into the excitement the heat of the moment at which point all bets are off and they start spending way beyond their capacity and way beyond what they can afford.There is a proposal from the Department of Internal Affairs in fact that all gaming machines should display the odds of winning and how long a gambler has been playing. We know from the literature and from observation that people do completely lose track of time and of course the environment is very carefully managed to ensure that people lose track of time. The lighting the absence of any clocks or any other record the music and in many cases the provision of food alcohol and all of the comforts of home ensure that people completely lose track of how much time they are gambling for andhow much money they are spending until they reach the point of no return. By then they have cleaned out their bank accounts and maxed out their credit cards and that is when the trouble starts. That is when the criminal behaviour starts. People start stealing from their employers from their families from friends or whoever it may be.In that sense we have a further proposition: that Skycity should actually be liable. I refer now to Supplementary Order Paper 378—that the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act should have a new section to extend the definition of “unlawfully benefited from significant criminal activity” to Skycity. It is peculiar that if people—through fraud through outright theft or through whatever means—illegally obtain money and gamble that money and even if they are prosecuted convicted and pay whatever price they pay again the only winner in that is the casino. It bears no cost for that. It may have a very shrewd idea of who the people are who seem to have endless amounts of money—people who are laundering money people who are spending the proceeds of crime and people who have defrauded and stolen cash from employers from their families and from friends—and yet the casino has no responsibility to manage that.We think that inserting something into the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act would put a little bit of discipline around Skycity and perhaps incentivise it to be a bit more thoughtful. Again if it was carrying any risk around this behaviour which currently it is not that would be a considerable discipline to put on it. It is simply unacceptable that the means by which people spend money that has been illegally gained people laundering money—the entity the casino that enjoys the profit of that carries none of the risk and none of the responsibility for endeavouring to see that that does not continue.I will just return to the point that we have been accused of being anti - convention centre per se. I do not believe that there is a strong feeling opposing the idea of a convention centre in Auckland. Why would you? There are arguments from within the tourism sector that it would be an asset that it would attract visitors to Auckland who otherwise may not come and that there is an international market. It is a line call. If somebody wants to make the business case and put their own money on the line to ensure that happens—Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): I want to pick up where my colleague Grant Robertson left off. I want to focus on clause 6 in Part 2. Part 2 of course is called “Substantive provisions” and that is for real. That is true. These are in fact the substantive provisions of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill in Part 2. Grant Robertson drew people’s attention to clause 6(2) which details as he said that “The regulatory concessions prevail if a regulatory concession is inconsistent with any provision of the gambling law”. So the regulatory concessions which we will pass into law if this bill goes ahead become law and they supersede the gambling law. But just in case the Government has not quite skewed the bill enough in favour of Skycity it backs that up with clause 6(3) which says: “Despite subsection (2)”—the one to which I have just referred—“the provision of the gambling law prevails if its application would be more favourable in relation to SKYCITY Casino than the regulatory concession.” So if we have got it wrong and we have not put enough in there in regulatory concessions that supersede gambling law and that work in the favour of Skycity do not worry because we will make the law apply if it is more favourable. Talk about belts and braces for Skycity! Who would not want to go into a deal with this Government if you can walk out with a deal of that sort? It is just extraordinary. The law does not prevail unless it is better for Skycity in which case it does prevail. So every which way Skycity wins. That has got to be one of the most pernicious things I have ever seen in legislation that this Government has put up and there have been some bad ones.I want also to talk about clause 7 because this is talking about clause 7.3 of the agreement which has the force of law. I just want to draw that to members’ attention because this says that “Clause 7.3 of the Agreement as set out in Schedule 3 of this Act has the force of law to the extent necessary to give effect to the regulatory concessions and to the Agreement.” So here we are tonight in the Committee stage addressing a piece of legislation that will become law and that will encapsulate an agreement and put it into law if and when it is passed. That piece out of the agreement clause 7.3 I want to spell out for members of the public. I know that others have talked about the numbers of machines and the numbers of gambling tables and so on but I just want to labour this point again.Here is the agreement. Here are the nuts and bolts of the agreement that Skycity has procured with this Government. First of all it says: “Notwithstanding anything in condition 5”—well we have not quite got condition 5 because we are only talking about clause 7—“the Licence Holder may install and operate in the Gambling Area in addition to the gaming machines specified in condition 5 up to 230 additional Single Terminal Gaming Machines.” That is another 230. Then it goes on to say: “the Licence Holder may install and operate … up to 40 additional gaming tables.” So that is 40 more gaming tables on top of what it already has and 230 additional single terminal machines on top of what it already has. Then in addition to the gaming machines already talked about “the Licence Holder may install and operate … up to 240 additional Automated Table Game terminals …”. So here are another 240 or “up to 12 further gaming tables if each such gaming table is substituted for 20 of the Automated Table Game Terminals …”. It goes on to say that “at no time shall the number of Single Terminal Gaming Machines in the Gambling Area exceed 1877.” This number is truly astonishing. The size of this is truly astonishing.I want to emphasise the size of this because of the fact that the Government has taken out any requirement to measure gambling harm. In fact the harm minimisation provisions are abandoned and there was not allowed to be any representations to the Commerce Committee debating this from the Ministry of Health or anybody else who might have talked about gambling harm.I want to just punctuate that comment with a little story from a woman in Nelson whom I admire greatly. We will call her Irene. Irene has twice in my hearing spoken up as a problem gambler as she has advertised a tool kit for problem gamblers put out by the Problem Gambling Foundation. I have been to launches of that tool kit at which she has spoken. She has spoken honestly and heart-rendingly about the harm that gambling did to her and to her family and her home as she squandered every mortgage payment every pay packet and everything that came into that house on a hopeless futile but addictive behaviour. She is a hero. She has stood up and been heard by the people in Nelson who campaigned to get pokie machines taken out of one pub—pokie machines taken out of one pub. They contradicted the council which said: “No we’re OK—we’ve got the sinking lid thing.” And the people said: “Well we don’t want the pokie machines here in our community.” The council listened to that in the end. The pokie machines were dismantled and they are no longer operating inside that community.But does this Government listen to people? Does this Government care about those families who are going to be harmed by this vast array of opportunities to feed some delusory hope that is inspired by an addiction that needs treatment not an opportunity for people to squander the little that they have. So this Government has deliberately made itself deaf and blind to those representations from the people who are to be harmed by this facility and by the people who would represent them—those who know about addictive behaviour who know what harm it does who know what is required inorder to assist people to break addictions and who know how very difficult that is. This Government has paid no attention at all to the welfare of people—no attention at all.So do not give us this nonsense about high rollers. Do not give us this nonsense about economic development and economic benefit for the country. This is just stark dealing which is the kind of thing that the Prime Minister has been adept at in the past in his former career. It is not his right to strike deals that harm the citizens of this country. It is not his right. His responsibility is to defend the people of this country not to expose them to harm and disregard any procedures or monitoring that might assess harm in the future. He has abrogated his responsibility because he prides himself as a deal-maker. Well a deal-maker might be fine in the corporate sector; that is not how to run a country. It might be how to run a company but it is not how to run a country. Time and time again that accusation can be sheeted home to this Prime Minister. The dealing—the shonky dealing the “behind closed doors” and “talk to your mates only” kind of dealing—that the Prime Minister is used to is not what the citizens of this country require or expect from their Prime Minister.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I have a number of Supplementary Order Papers in my name that are changes and amendments to the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill that we—Dr David Clark: Very good ones.METIRIA TUREI: Thank you very much. I do appreciate my colleagues who have indicated to us already—Labour New Zealand First the Māori Party Mana Brendan Horan—that they are all voting in favour of these Supplementary Order Papers. Each individual member is voting in favour of I understand at least most of these—I do not think in favour of all of them but at least most of them which is great news.So I do want to be able to describe them for the Committee because I do think that there is still an opportunity for members who are considering supporting the bill to change their view. That is because it is a conscience vote on these issues particularly on the Supplementary Order Papers we have put forward because they concern the issues of gambling and gambling has traditionally been a conscience vote in this House. We appreciate that the Speaker has agreed that a conscience vote will be held on a number of these provisions and these Supplementary Order Papers.My colleague David Clendon has described a couple of the provisions already particularly clause 6 which is the provision that authorises the regulatory concessions. They have been described: the 230 pokie machines; the 240 automated gaming table terminals which operate very similarly to pokie machines; the additional gaming tables; plus the ticket-in ticket-out technology and the extension of the licence of Skycity. In cashless gaming there have also been a number of concessions.Clause 6 as set out says that the regulatory concessions will apply even where the Gambling Act prohibits them. So there are absolute prohibitions in the Gambling Act that say no more pokie machines at casinos but because this bill says that Skycity can have another 230 then this legislation will take precedence. Clause 6 also says that if there are any decisions of the Gambling Commission or provisions in the Gambling Act that give Skycity a benefit then Skycity gets the advantage of that.So Skycity suffers none of the controls—this is what clause 6 is about—of gambling harm minimisation that are built into the Gambling Act and that have already been passed in this House and accepted by the community as the right way to manage the harms caused by gambling and casino gambling. It does not suffer any of those constraints but it gets all of the advantages. So as my colleague David Clendon has said there is absolutely a win-win for Skycity in clause 6. We do not believe that that can be justified at all even according to any kind of deal-making that John Key wants to engage in and certainly not from a public health point of view.So we have three Supplementary Order Papers that deal with that. Two will amend clause 6—Supplementary Order Papers 377 and 379—and one Supplementary Order Paper 380 inserts a new clause 6A to the effect that Skycity cannot retain any of the concessions in the legislation if the contract is terminated. At present it is quite possible for some termination event in the contract to occur—for example if it is unable to get its resource consents or where there is a Treaty of Waitangi claim that stops it from being able to proceed—but the regulatory concessions apply effective immediately. Those concessions will continue to apply and Skycity can continue to get the benefit of those concessions even if there is a termination of the contract. It is not clear in the legislation that that is not the case.So we want to make it absolutely clear that if the contract is terminated for any reason then those concessions if they are already in place are gone. There is no justification for Skycity being able to keep its 35-year licence and being able to keep 230 more pokie machines if the contract itself is terminated. This is just another one of the little examples in the bill of how there has been a real failure to make sure that the public interest is protected at every step of the way. We can help to remedy that if this bill is passed.An additional Supplementary Order Paper we have Supplementary Order Paper 381 concerns clause 7. Again this is about the regulatory concessions. What our amendment will do is delete clause 7 because clause 7 provides for the regulatory concessions to effectively have the force of law. The regulatory concessions are part of a deal. They are not expressly included in the legislation. They should not therefore have the force of law. The reason I think that they do have the force of law in the deal in the way that it has been written is that Skycity—and John Key and Steven Joyce have agreed with this—wants those concessions to be absolutely locked in. That is why it is unclear about what will happen to those concessions if there is a termination of the contract.So in addition to it being unclear around what should happen if the contract is terminated there is a further locking-in of those concessions and of the money that Skycity will make from those concessions. Skycity is not getting 230 extra pokie machines and a 35-year licence just because it just wants to; it is getting this because that is going to make it hundreds of millions of dollars at least 40 percent of which will come from problem gamblers who are harmed as a result of having spent that money. So this is because there is money in this. The Government has allowed Skycity to lock in as tightly as possible the regulatory concessions so that under almost any circumstance Skycity can keep the benefit of the deal keep the value of those concessions and continue to make more and more money off the backs of problem gamblers.My colleague David Clendon also talked about another one of the Supplementary Order Papers that we have Supplementary Order Paper 385 and that is the one around harm minimisation measures. They also go to the regulatory concessions. There is no doubt in all of the evidence despite what the National Government’s advisers have written as notes for their MPs that if you increase the number of pokie machines if you increase the number of automated gaming table terminals—which is 240 for Skycity—and if you increase the number of gaming opportunities then there will be an increase in gambling harm. That is all of the evidence. International evidence and evidence from New Zealand shows that that is the case.The whole point of the Gambling Act of course was to stop the increase in gambling harm by stopping the increase in gambling opportunities. That is why the prohibitions in the Gambling Act are so strict. It then becomes critical that if there is going to be this deal that then gives Skycity this significant financial opportunity by increasing gambling opportunities on its site there must be even stricter controls onproblem gambling to make sure that the risk of problem gambling is significantly reduced. That is a fair quid pro quo.Under any circumstances when you are doing a deal like this or any other kind of deal you would look to balance out the interests. If John Key really believes that Skycity is so desperately poor that it urgently needs more machines to help it maintain its business then part of the responsibility that John Key has as Prime Minister is to also address the public interest in reducing the harm that would be caused by that increase. So that is why you should have stronger measures as a result of this legislation not softer ones.The problem is of course as we know that the harm minimisation measures in the agreement are soft measures. So let us take the voluntary pre-commitment technology that was mentioned earlier. Our Supplementary Order Paper 385 will require pre-commitment technology in all pokie machines to be mandatory with a strict time line for when it needs to be introduced. The best analogy I have heard about pre-commitment technology is that it is like a seatbelt. Not everybody is going to need one. You do not necessarily need one all the time but there is no point in having one in your car if you are not going to use it. We know that the risk of injuring oneself in a car accident is reduced if one wears a seatbelt. Therefore we have made it mandatory for everyone in New Zealand to do so and we have just increased the mandatory provisions for young children because it helps to significantly reduce the risk.This is what mandatory pre-commitment technology does for problem gamblers. It significantly reduces the risk that any individual person will develop a gambling problem. But if it is only voluntary like this current agreement requires it will not work because the people who need it the most—Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): What the Government has tried to do with this legislation is frame the argument around whether or not we should have a convention centre. That is an argument in its own right. It is not what the debate on this bill the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill is about. There could well be a good argument for a convention centre but if you are going to set up a convention centre this is not the only way it is certainly not the best way and actually it is not an acceptable way to fund that convention centre. Labour does not oppose having a convention centre but we oppose the process and we oppose the implications and the consequences of the Government acting in the way that it has.What I object to first of all about this deal is that it was a dirty deal carried out by the Prime Minister in contravention of the ethical transparent open and fair processes that one would normally associate with the public sector. The Prime Minister did not take simply a casual approach to his involvement in this; he himself met twice with Skycity. He had his chief of staff meet with Skycity. His staff met on five occasions with Skycity and the Prime Minister issued an instruction. The instruction was to put on hold any dealings with other bidders for the convention centre until he worked out a dirty deal with Skycity. That is not proper. That is not correct. It is wrong. It is so wrong that the Deputy Auditor-General decided that she would hold an inquiry into how this was carried out.John Key breaking ethics again long before the report came out said: “This report will totally vindicate me.” That was the language that he used—“This report will totally vindicate me.” It did nothing of the sort. Instead the Deputy Auditor-General said that there were clear deficiencies on the part of Ministers and officials. She used very considered language but the meaning is very clear. Listen to this. The Deputy Auditor-General said that “… we do not consider that the evaluation process was transparent or even-handed.” That is the Deputy Auditor-General’s considered language. What it meant was that in effect she was saying that the Prime Minister was doing a dirty dealfor his cronies and that is exactly what this deal represents. It is a mark of shame on this Government.The second concern that I have about what this bill encompasses is that it binds this Parliament for 35 years. It gives special privileges to Skycity that will last until 2048. I warrant this: you will not be here in 2048 Mr Chairman. I will not be here. In fact there will not—Hon Trevor Mallard: I might be.Hon PHIL GOFF: Well maybe Trevor Mallard. He has incredible longevity. But I warrant this: there will not be a single member of this House in this Chamber while this deal continues to provide benefits to Skycity. There will not be any of the officials who are currently working here. It is unprecedented that a Government would enter into a deal that gives privileges for 35 years and tries to lock it in so that any future Parliament that looks back at this deal will say: “This is crazy. This cannot in any way be justified.” It makes it really hard for Parliament to get out of that deal. In fact it puts a financial penalty on the taxpayer when this contract is replaced as it most certainly needs to be.This Government will be remembered in the same way that Robert Muldoon is remembered for what he did about superannuation in 1976. This National Government will be remembered for a deal that was wrong a deal that was inappropriately negotiated a deal that was a millstone round the necks of New Zealanders and a deal that will cost them just to get out of it.I want to say that the critical clause in this bill is clause 6(2). It reads: “The regulatory concessions prevail if a regulatory concession is inconsistent with any provision of the gambling law and the application of the provision of the gambling law is modified accordingly.” That is very clear language that says that this dirty deal prevails over the provisions of the Gambling Act 2003 which will cover every other institution and individual that is involved in the business of gambling. This is a special deal for Skycity.But what I object to most about this is that it ignores the costs of gambling. I have got in my hand the regulatory impact statement. It says right up front in the beginning that “the potential impact this may have in increasing the incidence of problem gambling and its associated harm for New Zealand society …” is a key concern. On the front page it tries not to quantify that but it does it later on in the report. This is the impact of the deal that every one of those National members is seeking to impose on New Zealand. It makes this point in paragraph 85 of the regulatory impact statement by the Government’s own officials: “most of the money spent on gambling in New Zealand is spent on gaming machines and substantial proportions of it by people who play machines frequently. New Zealand studies have found that gaming machines are associated with harm more often than any other form of gambling.” There it is in black and white—a very clear statement that the Government is imposing on New Zealand another 230 gambling machines that its own officials have told it cause more harm than anything else. On top of that is the bonus of another 40 gambling tables.In section 91 of that report it does quantify the impact of that. As a result of this bill there will be more than 8000 New Zealanders who will suffer problems as a result of someone else’s gambling. It will have an impact. Mr Chairman you have seen it. Every member in this Chamber who has gone into an institution that offers gambling machines will have seen the poor pathetic people stuck on those machines for hour after hour as they spend the housekeeping money and they spend the money that they should be spending on their kids. Officials from the Ministry of Health and the Department of Internal Affairs said that it would have that sort of impact. In fact the Department of Internal Affairs said it would affect something like 6000 children.The great irony of this is that those people on the benches over there will be the first to condemn the unfortunate individuals who suffer from gambling addiction for spending their money and depriving their kids and then they will take away the benefits which will hurt the kids further as all the while they increase the millions and tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars of profit that Skycity will make out of people who cannot afford it to fund Skycity and its exorbitant profits. If you want an international convention centre either it pays its own way or you put the bill on those who benefit most from it. You do not put the bill on the backs of those individuals who cannot afford to be gambling but who are trapped by the nature of the machines that are set up particularly to keep people feeding money into them. It is rank hypocrisy to condemn the victims of gambling while you reach dirty deals that increase the number of machines that increase the incidence of problem gambling. That is what the officials say about that.The other point that I want to make about this is that the economic benefits of this programme have not been demonstrated. The members of the Commerce Committee from the Opposition wanted to have Treasury the Department of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Health come before the select committee to spell out what the costs and the benefits of this programme might be. In the true spirit of National Party democracy the chair denied the right of select committee members to hear from those officials to challenge the nonsense that Steven Joyce talked about—1800 jobs. But we actually read the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research paper that says the figure was wrong. He did not know where to put the decimal point. Do you know what the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research says? The real number of jobs—net long-term—was 18 Minister Joyce. You were out by a factor of about 100 percent—18 jobs permanently not the 1800. That is a factor of 100 percent.DENISE ROCHE (Green): It is my pleasure to speak for the second time this evening on this Part 2 of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. This is where we get into the guts of the deal—the regulatory concessions. I think it is worthwhile to have a look at those regulatory concessions once again because essentially this deal is a memorial to greed and to deprivation. The regulatory concessions include as we have heard 230 extra pokie machines and 12 automated tables with 20 seats at each. So that is 470 pokies effectively plus 40 gambling tables. It also includes a 27-year extension to the existing licence and it calls for a couple of concessions I guess around the technology for paying for gambling and that includes ticket-in ticket-out.I have no idea why the Government agreed to this. Also it ensures that 17 percent of those machines can accept money denominations of $20 notes and higher. This is money for jam for money-launderers. They love this stuff. They absolutely love it. It came through in the advice that was offered to the Commerce Committee that if you want to prevent crime if you want to reduce crime then do not do this because this is how the P cooks launder their money. They are going to be having a field day with this. But at least the police—who will be working harder than ever because of the increase of problem gambling from the increased number of gambling machines and gambling opportunities—will know where to find the P cooks. They will be in the casino the casino that will be paid for by the cost that we will all bear as taxpayers through problem gambling and through crime.If this Government were serious about a deal for a convention centre and if it were serious in negotiating with a good corporate citizen then that good corporate citizen would not negotiate and the Government would not allow an increase in crime as a way of paying for a convention centre that is supposedly—Mike Sabin: Social harm from gambling but none whatsoever from cannabis.DENISE ROCHE: —to benefit the economy for all New Zealanders. It is not going to do that Mr Sabin. Skycity is laughing all the way to the bank and we as a Parliament we as MPs look like fools because we are the ones who will have to agree to this ridiculous deal with no handbrakes on it whatsoever to reduce harm from gambling.The ticket-in ticket-out technology is one of the best ways to increase money-laundering. It is also one of the best ways to increase problem gambling. One of the Supplementary Order Papers that my co-leader Metiria Turei has put up is around reducing harm from gambling. If we were serious about wanting to reduce gambling harm then we would take on board the restrictions that we are attempting to place on Skycity and the way it deals with problem gamblers in order to reduce the amount of harm that we have in our communities. If we do that it may well impact on Skycity’s profits but that should not be part of the deal. Supplementary Order Paper 385 suggests that there will be mandatory pre-commitment cards for everyone and Metiria Turei has already described them as the seatbelt. The other measure is real-time player tracking. In the concessions that were negotiated Skycity says that it will provide some measure of host responsibility which will include predictive modelling. Predictive modelling is not player tracking. Player tracking works only if you actually intervene in what is going on. The player tracking that Skycity already has is called the loyalty cards. That player tracking that predictive modelling ensures that Skycity will contact people who have developed a gambling problem who have spent all they have got and attempt to lure them back to the casino so they can spend more so that Skycity can make more money. This is the corporate citizen that—Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): I have to say when I was listening to the debate tonight there is a very straightforward question for the members of the Opposition—a very straightforward question for the members of the Opposition. Where were they in 2001? Where was Trevor Mallard then with his anger and his upset? Where was Phil Goff? Why were they not winding up Helen Clark and saying “Don’t you dare Prime Minister. Don’t you dare support that horrible convention centre deal with the Skycity Casino.”? Where were they then? They did not say a word. And with that knowledge we all know that what they have been getting themselves wound up about tonight means absolutely nothing. It is pure rubbish politics—“I did not care 10 years ago. Now that I am on the other side of the House I care passionately and deeply.” That is what they are saying. Trevor Mallard in 2001—[Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member cannot say that. These are debating points [Interruption]—no—and the member cannot use the words “You’re a liar.” [Interruption] Order! I am on my feet. There is a Speaker’s ruling on page 42 that says you cannot call someone a liar. I ask the member to desist from now on. [Interruption] I am the ruler in these matters and there will be no further discussion.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. You indicated that what the Minister said was a debating point. It is a matter of the record of this House—how I voted on that bill.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That is not a point of order. [Interruption] Order! The point I raised was that you used unparliamentary language and that is what I asked you to desist from doing.Hon Trevor Mallard: It’s a matter of fact.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The matter of fact is that the Labour Party was in Government in 2001 when a deal was done with Skycity to build a convention centre in Auckland in return for additional pokie machines and Trevor Mallard was silent. I didnot see any protests from Trevor Mallard. I did not see him crossing the floor. I did not see him doing anything to indicate concern about this and that is why everybody should ignore his false anger tonight. He is a specialist in false anger just like his friend Mr Goff. Where was Mr Goff in 2001 when Mark Burton and Helen Clark were getting positively excited and passionate about the new convention centre in Auckland? They were nowhere because they were not at all concerned at that point. But miraculously when they are on the other side of the House they are concerned.Where were the Greens? Where were the cardboard cut-outs of the gambling machines in 2001 Greens? Where were you then Greens? You were nowhere. You were not part of it in 2001. You were quiet as church mice sitting—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Don’t bring me into it.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Sorry. The Greens were quiet as church mice sitting quietly. Auntie Helen said it was all OK. “We will not be concerned about this. We will get something back for this.”—that is where the Greens were in 2001. We should ignore all their protestations tonight because they had none when it counted. When they were supporting a Government the Labour Party and the Greens were quiet and that is why this should be ignored. That is why all this false outrage all this excitement and all this standing up to claim the speaking slot is all a pantomime. It is a pantomime and it is time it was called tonight. It is a pantomime from the Opposition. Those members are lions in Opposition and they are absolute lambs when they are in Government and tonight we have seen it. Tonight we have had the proof.Not only that but they were poor negotiators. They have been having the Government on saying that the Government was taken for a ride. Well in 2001 the deal was for the same number of pokie machines and a convention centre one-quarter of the size. That is where they were at in 2001. It was the most appalling deal that this Government—Hon Trevor Mallard: Judith Collins did the deal.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It does not matter. You were the Government Trevor. Trevor was in the Government. You were in the Government at the time. Where was the law? Why did you not change the law Trevor? Why did Labour not put through a law to stop it happening? That is the question I have for you Mr Mallard and you did not do that because you did not object then. You were quite happy then and today it is suddenly the worst thing in the world. Well Trevor I have no respect for you for making those comments. I have no respect for you at all because it is the most appalling thing to oppose something so vehemently now when you actually allowed it to occur in 2001. It is sanctimonious claptrap—sanctimonious claptrap—and it is time this debate was brought to a conclusion.The other thing is—[Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! [Interruption] Calm down. The member once again—Speaker’s ruling on page 42 says you cannot say “Tell the truth.” I will ask the member again to not use that unparliamentary language in the Chamber.Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The Minister himself just used the phrase “Tell the truth.” so I ask you to call him to order as well.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Well if that is the case I did not pick that up. [Interruption] Order! When I am on my feet there is quiet. The Speaker’s ruling on page 42 is very clear. You cannot use unparliamentary language. I ask you to respect that ruling. This is a robust debate and I am happy with that. Everyone is going to get their say on this—they have had a big say so far—but let us keep it seemly and keep the language correct.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: There are some very straightforward questions for the Opposition to answer. Why is it such a bad thing now when it was not back then? For the Greens why are the Greens running a debate now when they were not back then?Grant Robertson: Judith Collins.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No you cannot hide behind—Grant Robertson: No!Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Where was the law Grant Robertson? When you were in Helen Clark’s office where was the law saying that we will not be doing this? Where was that then? You did not have one. You did not change the law to stop it happening. You actually went and supported it.Worse than that Labour members not only did not stop it but they went out and celebrated it. Mark Burton went to the opening as Minister of Tourism. He celebrated the success. He said what a wonderful thing it was. Helen Clark said what a wonderful thing it was to see that investment by Skycity in the convention infrastructure in New Zealand. Grant Robertson hates it because conveniently he has now become an opponent. Grant Robertson has become an opponent to Skycity which is very convenient given that half the caucus was in the hospitality box at Skycity saying that everything was OK. But he is now an opponent. That is why I cannot respect you in this debate Mr Robertson because in 2003—Dr David Clark: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I appreciate that the Minister is quite emotional about all this but on several occasions he has said that he has no respect for you and I find that to be abominable in this Chamber.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am listening very carefully to those points and I will rule on them appropriately at the time.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: That is why you cannot have respect for these people in this debate. In 2001 and 2003 this party to my left was not only quiet but was in favour of exactly this sort of deal. Its members did speeches on it—they did absolute speeches—and here he is now Grant Robertson absolutely denying it. He is in denial. He is a Skycity convention centre denier. That is the reality of where Grant Robertson is today.So over the course of this debate we have had incredibly small amounts of anything that is actually related to the bill. All we have had is a rerunning of all the hypocrisy between the Labour Party and the Greens and everybody who opposes this thing but who were quiet in 2001 and quiet in 2003.Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I take offence at the description of the Green Party as hypocrites which was made by the Minister when we voted against the Gambling Bill—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I have heard the points you have made. The Minister did not use the word “hypocrite”; he said “hypocrisy” and that is a word that has been accepted. I appreciate the point you make. The Minister has 3 minutes remaining.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Just to refresh Mr Robertson’s memory these are the lines that Mark Burton used in—Denise Roche: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I would just like to make the point that the Minister was factually incorrect about this.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No that is not a point of order. All you are doing is interrupting the flow of the debate.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Greens are feeling their silence from 2001 I feel. Here is what Mark Burton said—[Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I know what is going to happen. No one can comment on a ruling that I have made so let us carry on in a seemly manner without getting into these sideshows that we are having.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Mark Burton said in 2001: “Skycity’s $140 million investment into this facility will give it the capacity to compete for a whole new range of prestige events.” That does not sound like somebody opposing it to me. He went on to say: “The potential gains from this are widespread—not only for”—Grant Robertson: Is this the same deal? No—this is a whole different deal and you know it Steven.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Oh it is a whole different deal. This is a National Party deal as against a Labour Party deal. Oh of course! How silly of me! This is the hypocrisy that we are talking of. This is what Mark Burton said: “The potential gains from this”—Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I know you have ruled on this matter very recently. What he has done then is label a party as hypocrites. He said about a party “This is the hypocrisy.”The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No—Hon Trevor Mallard: That is exactly what he said. He pointed to members—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! He talked about the hypocrisy of the policies—he did not say anyone was a hypocrite—and that is an acceptable use of that phrase. I have already ruled on that this evening. The Hon Steven Joyce has the call with 2 minutes remaining.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Thank you. As I said Mr Burton’s comments—the Hon Mark Burton the Minister of Tourism for a Labour Government at the time—were that “The potential gains from this are widespread—not only for Skycity but for the Auckland city and region the tourism industry and the whole of New Zealand.”Hon Trevor Mallard: People have died as a result.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Unfortunately Trevor Mallard was not around at the time. He was not around at the time. I did not hear this in 2001 Trevor. I did not hear what I am hearing now. In 2001 Helen Clark—the saintly Helen Clark—the Prime Minister said: “In Auckland Sky City has pumped $140 million into its new Convention Centre and Auckland City has rebranded and upgraded its conventions facilities”. It has been pleasing to see”—pleasing to see—“continuing investment in the quality of our tourism infrastructure.” Labour once again are the “Yeah Nah Yeah Party”. Its members are not debating any of the points tonight. They are trying to deny their history. That is fine. They can do that. But the New Zealand public sees it for what it is.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I am looking forward to taking I hope all four of my calls as one of the members of the Commerce Committee and of course I would be happy to take them consecutively as I have something of an argument to develop. But as ever I am dependent on your grace and favour Mr Chair. On that select committee I have had the dubious pleasure of reading a number of the draft agreements and the negotiating documents and I would like to talk a little about them because they go into the agreement which is the substantive thing that is referred to throughout Part 2 of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. I want to discuss the agreement what it is what it could be and the way in which New Zealand taxpayers and New Zealand members of the public are disadvantaged in the course of this legislation.Before I do that I want to touch briefly on some of the earlier comments. Most recently obviously Mr Joyce as the Minister for Economic Development spoke. There is very little one can say about his contribution other than that it was mostly heat and had very little light. On that occasion the Minister appeared to be all mouth and no trousers.I want to engage more substantively with an earlier contribution because it was a more substantive contribution. That was the contribution of Mr Jian Yang earlier in thedebate. It was the first of only two National contributions so far. Its members are struggling to articulate what is on their consciences I suspect. That member referred to the Tourism Industry Association’s submission. I was on the select committee that heard that submission and I have to say that the Tourism Industry Association’s representative became decidedly uncomfortable when questioned about whether he was comfortable with the deal being funded off the back of problem gambling. Mr Mallard asked several pertinent questions on that front and the representative of the Tourism Industry Association was very reluctant—very reluctant—to commit himself to that proposition. I guess that the Tourism Industry Association’s submission was a line call for it because there would be some more jobs in the sector. But what it did not represent of course in that submission were the potential job losses in Taupō in Hamilton in Rotorua and in other centres that are recorded in the independent economic analysis which suggests that jobs will flow out of other areas of the economy and to that centre that is being built.Iain Lees-Galloway: More jobs out of the regions.Dr DAVID CLARK: So that is more jobs out of the regions—that is quite right—as my colleague says. It is a two-speed economy where Auckland is going ahead to some extent but the rest of New Zealand is being left behind. Unfortunately all of us are worse off with the pressure that that places on Auckland house prices and on various other things going on in that city such as job pressures while the rest of the economy suffers and everybody is dragged down.I come back to the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill itself other than those contributions that have been made. The agreement is mentioned right through the clauses and right at the start of the substantive provisions right up front. Clause 6(1) states: “The regulatory concession shall be operative at the times and on the conditions that apply to the regulatory concessions in the Agreement.” Everything in the substantive provisions refers back to the agreement. Clause 6(2) states: “The regulatory concessions prevail if a regulatory concession is inconsistent with any provision of the gambling law and the application of the provision of the gambling law is modified accordingly.” That subclause is the one that says that Skycity wins—Skycity wins every time. It trumps gambling law. This agreement that has been signed trumps gambling law. Clause 6(3) which follows that subclause says: “Hang on. If things turn out the other way round and it’s actually advantageous to apply the provisions in gambling law then Skycity wins again.” Skycity wins both ways. This is the ace up both sleeves this provision and this agreement.It is an agreement where the Government has put itself over a barrel—over a barrel of its own making. That is because it was a political deal because the Prime Minister committed to one of the parties that was wanting to bid for the deal early on. He was forced into a corner.The Supplementary Order Papers that have been put forward in the name of Metiria Turei and Denise Roche get to some of these points in the proposed law. They delete some of these clauses make them inactive and try to introduce some fairness for the citizens of New Zealand. I congratulate those members on putting forward a really really good set of Supplementary Order Papers ones with which I personally will be agreeing. I will be supporting them in my conscience vote when it comes time during the voting on the legislation.I want to focus back on the agreement and the concessions made by the Crown during the course of the negotiation of that agreement. Those papers are on the website of the Ministry of Economic Development so members of the public can access them. During the early stages of the negotiation we see the Crown trying to cover off those options that you would expect it to cover off in the interests of the taxpayers the votersthe citizens and the communities of New Zealand. Early on we see the potential for a blowout in costs. In the final agreement it gets to a point where this is to be negotiated over time. Over the stages of development of the proposal the Government can shovel further cash to Skycity if the proposal as it is drafted turns out to cost more than the $402 million currently budgeted. The agreement says that Skycity and the Government can agree to design modifications or walk away from the deal or either party may pay the other cash. They can just hand cash over if it comes to that. We know who will be in the stronger bargaining position in the election year. We know that Skycity will be laying its cards out. It will probably be supplying the numbers just like it did for the original agreement. There was no independent analysis and part-way through the deal Mr Joyce himself brought in extra negotiating muscle recognising the bad deal that was going on for the Government. He brought extra negotiating muscle in and still too much was given away.The bad news of course is that it does not stop there. Treasury warns that the conference market has peaked and that the chances are that in time in the future New Zealand may receive fewer international conferences. In part of course that is because of the rising price of jet fuel. We know that world travel is becoming more expensive and that people are staying local—they are becoming more environmentally conscious. That is one of the challenges that will be faced.The Government here—this Government—has given away the ability to recoup costs if the convention centre is not marketed effectively. It had in its earlier negotiating documents the hope and the sensible measure of saying that if the convention centre was not operated properly it could claw back some of the GDP loss that would accrue. It also had a clause in there saying that it could recoup some of the tax revenue that was lost. It could actually say: “Skycity you’re not doing your job correctly. We will take back some of what we might have expected to have had had you done your job correctly.” So if that conference business does not eventuate the taxpayer has no comeback.The incentives are on Skycity to set up a white elephant. Once it has built the centre—assuming that it builds the centre and it all goes ahead—it has no strong incentive to run it in a highly serviced fashion and to advertise it widely because it has got the concessions it wants. It has got the gambling machines it has got the cash flow and it has got the licence extension. The convention centre becomes just a cost centre for it. It is incentivised to minimise that cost. The worst-case scenario—the very worst-case scenario for the Crown actually not necessarily for Skycity—is that the Crown takes over the running of Skycity. That is what happens if Skycity chooses not to run a white elephant that loses it money once it has got the gambling concessions. It can hand the centre back over to the Crown just like Chorus sending the debt back to the taxpayer. There the Government goes again socialising the losses and privatising the gains. This is another example of that and it is written right here in the agreement that we are debating in the Committee. The Government has negotiated away the rights which it ought to have to ensure that the casino is run correctly—sorry not the casino; it gave up running the casino correctly a long time ago—that the conference centre is run in the interests of New Zealand. It has watered down its negotiating position.In the select committee we heard that class 4 gambling is the worst the most addictive. The pokie machines that are proposed to operate as a part of this deal are the worst kind of gambling. We heard from academics some of whom travelled from abroad to present to the committee. The one example that really stands out in my mind was a Scandinavian country that chose to ban pokie machines. The very interesting thing was that when they banned pokie machines gambling dropped off not just across that area of business but across all types of gambling and that is because problemgamblers are attracted to and are driven by the adrenalin that runs with those pokie machines. That spurs them on to other gambling and other types of gambling—those types of gambling that do not affect people in the first instance and do not necessarily make people problem gamblers. This deal unfortunately sets up a situation where problem gamblers fund the building of the convention centre but—IANMcKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I moveThat the question be now put.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): There are still a number of Supplementary Order Papers on Part 2 of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill that I want to describe for members in the Chamber. I very much appreciated the comments from individual MPs in the Committee that they will be voting for at least some of these Supplementary Order Papers and I invite members who are considering voting for the legislation to also vote for these Supplementary Order Papers at least some of them. Some of them do go to the heart of the deal—for example the removal of the regulatory concessions. But a number of them are designed to improve the legislation to make sure that should the deal proceed and the legislation go ahead that in exchange for Skycity getting 230 more pokie machines there are genuine harm minimisation measures put in place.I will refer to those harm minimisation measures again; they are set out in Supplementary Order Paper 385. The reason I refer to them again is that the advice of the Ministry of Health to the Minister for Economic Development concerning the harm minimisation measures in the deal was that they will not work. There is an argument as to whether or not they are new. They certainly do not appear to the Greens to be new and in some cases the Ministry of Health has said that that is the case; they are not new measures.The Ministry of Health has also said that these measures will not reduce gambling harm. It has said that some of them are worse than useless in effect. Given that there is going to be a huge amount of concession given to the casino to expand its business and to increase its gambling opportunities and therefore problem-gambling harm we should take advice from those who are directly involved in managing that harm. The Ministry of Health is the Government agency that is responsible. It is saying that the harm minimisation measures are not going to work that they will not make any significant difference to the harm that will be caused by the extra gambling opportunities. I believe that if the Minister is refusing to take the advice of the Ministry of Health and if the Minister is refusing to give the proper balance between the concessions that are given to Skycity and the public interest in reducing problem-gambling harm then it is the responsibility of Parliament to do so for the ministry.Given that we have the opportunity tonight to vote according to our conscience as opposed to along party lines we have the opportunity—each individual MP in this Committee—to say that we want to have stronger controls because we believe that problem gambling is a serious issue; that it is right for a Government for a Parliament to regulate to help protect against increases in problem gambling; and that we would like to see more stringent measures and here are some that can be chosen by individual MPs to be put in place. So it is not about opposing the deal itself; it is about making sure that the public interest versus the concessions that Skycity gets are properly balanced.We are very careful to make sure that there are different kinds of opportunities in these Supplementary Order Papers for members to individually consider whether each individual change is one that they are prepared to support because in their own conscience they believe that it is the right thing to do. There are a number of members particularly National members—John Banks even—who have in the past expressed extreme concern about the impacts of gambling who represent communities that areparticularly affected by gambling. We talked yesterday about Asian Family Services which is particularly concerned about the impact on its community and Pacific Island communities who are particularly concerned because they too bear the brunt. It gives the opportunity for those MPs who represent those communities to put in place stronger harm minimisation measures for those communities and yet still vote for the bill if that is what they want to do. There are those opportunities because of the conscience vote. We have provided MPs with those opportunities and hope that they take them up.I was very disappointed with the Minister’s contribution earlier. It was really just about shouting at everybody. It did not address the fact that there are some evidential holes in the justification for this legislation such as where the numbers of 1000 construction jobs and 800 convention jobs come from given that the information that is used to justify those numbers in the regulatory impact statement does not say that. Of course we then hear again another misrepresentation of the facts from the Minister who has been accusing the Greens of voting for the—CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am happy to take my first of what I am sure will be many calls on the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. I listened very carefully to the comments of the Hon Steven Joyce. I was listening very carefully to hear his defence of the bill and I did not hear one. What I heard was a whole lot of labels and a whole lot of bandying about of slogans where he basically talked about all of the people whom he did not respect. Well I want to say to Steven Joyce that there are some things that I do not respect as well. I do not respect a Government that is willing to trade off the misery of other people. I do not respect a Government that is willing to transfer wealth from the people at the bottom of the socio-economic heap to the people at the top. No doubt about it that is what this Government is doing and that is what this legislation does. It trades off the misery of people who suffer from problem gambling it trades off the misery of all of the people who are associated with them and it transfers money to the people at the top of the economic heap. That is what this legislation does and I have no respect for that.Steven Joyce talked about the convention centre deal back in 2001 and he asked where the Labour Party was then. Well the Labour Government changed the law as a result of that decision. That was not a Labour Government decision; that was a decision made by the chair of the Casino Control Authority. Who was that? Who was the person who made that deal? Who was the person who signed off the last deal with Skycity? Anybody want to hazard a guess? Who was that person? It could be Judith Collins. It could have been Judith Collins who signed off that deal. That deal was signed off by Judith Collins and was opposed by the last Labour Government and the Labour Government changed the law to stop that happening again. That is the reason why we are in the Chamber tonight debating this legislation. National cannot do another dodgy deal like the one Judith Collins did back in 2001 without changing the law because the Labour Government closed that loophole. The Labour Government closed the loophole and that loophole is why Steven Joyce is here today pushing legislation through in order to open it up again so that those members can do another dodgy deal which plays off the misery of problem gamblers to build another convention centre.The Labour Government changed the law in I think it was about 2003 to ensure that the legislation was robust and to ensure that we balanced up all of the various interests that we needed to balance up when it came to debating and considering issues around gambling. This Government is changing the law. It is changing the law about that. If the Government was so proud of its casino deal and if it thought that this was the best that the taxpayer could get why did it shut out all of the other potential applicants? Why did it say that it did not want to hear from anyone else who might want to build a convention centre? It was going to shut them out completely and it was going to dealwith only Skycity. If it is true that the Government thinks that this is the best possible deal that New Zealanders could get why is it that it was not willing to hear from anyone else? I ask why it was that the Government stopped any of the other potential operators of a convention centre from being able to put forward their proposals because that is exactly what this Government did.I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I believe that this bill is in the name of the Hon Steven Joyce and he is in the Chamber.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes that is correct. If the Minister is in the Chamber he must be in the chair.CHRIS HIPKINS: Thank you Mr Chair. There was a time in the National Party when there were limitations. There was a time in the National Party when it had high ethical and moral standards. National may have been willing to trade things off on economic grounds which it has always been willing to do and it may have been willing to effectively accept that there are poor people and rich people and that there are different opportunities but there were limits to what National was willing to do. There were limits. It still subscribed to a set of values. Those values have been woefully absent on that side of the Chamber in this debate. National is willing to trade off the problem gamblers in order to reward people at the top of the economic spectrum. Once upon a time that would have been a bridge too far for members of the National Party. Tonight what they are demonstrating in this conscience vote when every member of the National Party has the opportunity to listen to the voices of their constituents—to go out there and listen to the voices of the community—and they have an opportunity to cast their own individual votes on this legislation is that they are turning a deaf ear to all of the very legitimate concerns that are being raised by the people in their community.I think that that is very very disappointing. I think it is very disappointing because National members are doing one of two things. National members who are willing to vote for this legislation are doing one of two things. They are either turning a deaf ear to the concerns or knowingly and willingly voting against the interests of the people in their constituencies. I think particularly of those National Party members who represent some of the constituencies around the Auckland area. I think of Sam Lotu-Iiga who as far as I know has not spoken on this legislation tonight. I may have—COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura): I moveThat the question be now put.DENISE ROCHE (Green): I would like to speak briefly on some of the Supplementary Order Papers on the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill that we have put forward that do deal with harm minimisation. In the regulatory concessions as we have heard the deal includes a nod towards harm minimisation including increasing the number of Host Responsibility staff that Skycity will have on the floor. Currently it has three and it is going to very generously double that figure to six to cope with the extra 230 pokie machines and the extra 12 automated gambling tables which have 20 seats each as well as the 40 extra gambling tables. So it is going to have six people who will be responsible for checking to make sure that people are not harmed by the gambling that is taking place on those gambling machines.The interesting thing though is that it has not done very well so far. It has not done very well because as we know 40 percent of all the profits that Skycity makes comes from people with problems with their gambling—with no control over their gambling. So increasing the number of staff that it has on the floor is not going to do much at all to reduce gambling harm.As well as that Skycity has introduced as part of the concessions the ticket-in ticket-out system which as I have said before is money for jam for money-launderers. However that is one of the things that it is wanting to introduce. But that means that there are fewer staff actually dealing with money so there are fewer staff on the flooranyway looking at what is going on in terms of being able to identify people who are experiencing difficulties with their gambling behaviour.Some of the Supplementary Order Papers that we have put forward which my colleague co-leader Metiria Turei has already discussed are about the harm minimisations around real-time player tracking and mandatory pre-commitment cards but another one in my name is about the hours of opening. I have Supplementary Order Paper 386 which is about ensuring that no gambling takes place between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. This to some extent is not a big issue. In fact Skycity should just do this voluntarily without it being in legislation because the only type of gambling that occurs between 4 in the morning and 8 in the morning is problem gambling. The person who is standing in front of a pokie machine crying at 4.45 a.m. is not crying from happiness. You can be sure of that.If we consider that inside a casino it is dark you cannot see the sky one does not know what time of the day it is there are no clocks and there are maybe three people lurking about somewhere or possibly six although they have to cover a 24-hour day who may be able to identify that this person has a problem—but we are not banking on that; well maybe Skycity is banking on that but we are not banking on that—as a way of being able to identify somebody who is experiencing difficulty with their gambling then giving a small break in the gambling between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. means that that gambler can go home and actually have a think about what is happening to their lives.The 24-hour operation and the opportunity to gamble 24 hours a day is one of the reasons why two out of five people who regularly use pokie machines become addicted. The absolute opportunity and this is a 24-hour opportunity to spend everything they have got plus more—Barbara Stewart: To win back the money they’ve lost.DENISE ROCHE: —and to carry on playing in order to win back the money they have lost as my colleague over here says and to keep going—these are very scary things that happen to people when they are in a casino.If we are doing a deal—which we are; this Government is doing a deal with Skycity—that will increase the opportunities for gambling harm then we should be ensuring that we have pieces of legislation inside this deal that reduce and attempt to put some controls and some breaks on the voracious desire to make a profit out of people’s misery.We also have Supplementary Order Paper 378 relating to the proceeds of crime. In previous speeches I have talked about the fact that casinos are basically a magnet for crime. They are places where money can get cleaned so it can be—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The Hon Damien O’Connor. Twenty years in Parliament—congratulations.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): Thank you very much Mr Chairman. I appreciate that and I thank you for the opportunity. It is 20 years ago today that I entered Parliament and I am privileged to be given the opportunity I guess to say a few words on the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. Can I say that I rise to speak against a couple of the amendments put up by the Green Party. I know that the amendments are well intentioned but I will explain why I do so.The first is that we are a party that has a conscience vote and I appreciate the opportunity given to each and every one of us by the leadership on this issue. I will choose to use that vote not to oppose Labour’s general position that it opposes this bill but it is to say that I do not believe that the passage of the Supplementary Order Paper 385 is the right thing to do. What it would do in bringing in harm minimisation measures is ease the conscience of those people in the National Government who think that they can pass this through and then feel a little bit more comfortable because thereare harm minimisation measures. Well no—each and every one of us is using our conscience to speak on this on the basis that we want the best outcome. There is an old saying you know “If you don’t use it you lose it.” Well that does apply to the National members because if you do not use your conscience you have probably already lost it. What Labour members say is that we will choose to use it for the right intentions in the ways that each and every one of us thinks are appropriate.The other Supplementary Order Paper that I will not support is Supplementary Order Paper 382. The idea that the Government can step in and dictate what sort of conventions can take place to me is going one step too far. If the convention centre is going to be built then all and sundry can come and use it. Once again it is no good feeling that we are a little bit more sacred or we have done less to harm the people of New Zealand by having a higher standard or a moral threshold for the kinds of conventions that can come in here. Let us face it: if this bill comes into being we may have conventions on anything from dentistry to armaments—who knows? Be that on the conscience of those people who have allowed this to occur.If I could go back to a speech made earlier in the Committee about the harm caused to individual New Zealanders by unemployment I accept that and I think that to be out of a job is a terrible terrible thing. It does affect the health of individuals. It does affect their outlook their positive attitude and it affects the well-being of their children but actually not as much as someone who is addicted to gambling. The National member Jonathan Young spoke of terrible things—about suicide about inferior health and about other things that are associated with unemployment. I accept that. I think Jonathan Young is absolutely right. But if you have a look at what happens to the 6500 children who will be affected by the additional gambling opportunities that this convention centre will offer—“offer” is the right word not force on people; we accept that. However addictive gambling is a disease. As a former Minister I had evidence brought before me time and time again that the addictive nature of pokie machines is far greater than that of racing because of the cycle time involved in the opportunities that people participate in. So let us not steer away from the reality of the harm that more pokie machines brought into Skycity will do to the people of Auckland.That is why coming back Mr Chairman—and I thank you once again for the opportunity—to the Supplementary Order Paper I do not think that I should ease my conscience by voting for a harm minimisation measure when in fact I believe we should not have the new opportunities for gambling in the first place. So the National members who might feel a little easier if this Supplementary Order Paper goes through should not be freed from their guilt should not be freed from the pangs of conscience—if they still have one—and should understand full well that if they vote for this harm will occur to people in Auckland to children in Auckland that need not occur. That is why—MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Motion agreed to.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): There are a number of amendments that we will be dealing with. If someone wishes to have a personal vote I will consider those personal votes. If you look at Standing Order 141 the process is that “A personal vote may be held following a party vote if a member requests one and the Speaker considers that the decision on the party vote is so close that a personal vote may make a material difference to the result.” As I mentioned during Part 1 the Speaker has agreed that there will be personal votes on some parts of Part 2. So I will put the party vote and if someone requests a personal vote then I will consider it at the time. There are a number that fall into that category.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 377 in the name of Metiria Turei to clause 6 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes58Ardern J (P)Graham (P)Martin (P)SioBeaumontHague (P)Mathers (P)StewartBrowningHarawira (P)Moroney (P)Street (P)Clark (P)HipkinsNorman (P)Tirikatene (P)Clendon (P)Horan (P)O’Connor D (P)TureiCosgrove (P)Hughes (P)O’Rourke (P)Turia (P)Cunliffe (P)Huo (P)Parker (P)Twyford (P)Curran (P)Jones (P)Peters (P)Walker (P)Delahunty (P)King A (P)PrasadWall (P)Dyson (P)Little (P)Prosser (P)Whaitiri (P)Faafoi (P)Logie (P)Robertson GWilliamsFentonLole-Taylor (P)Robertson R (P)Woods (P)Flavell (P)Mackey (P)RocheGenter (P)Mahuta (P)Sage (P)Teller:Goff (P)MallardShearer (P)Lees-GallowayNoes61Adams (P)Dunne (P)Key (P)Simpson (P)Ardern S (P)English (P)King CSmith (P)Auchinvole (P)FinlaysonLee (P)Tisch (P)Bakshi (P)FossLotu-Iiga (P)Tolley (P)Banks (P)Foster-Bell (P)McClay (P)Tremain (P)Barry (P)Goldsmith (P)McCully (P)UpstonBennett D (P)Goodhew (P)McKelvieWagner (P)Bennett P (P)Groser (P)Mitchell (P)Wilkinson (P)Borrows (P)Guy (P)Ngaro (P)Williamson (P)Bridges (P)Hauiti (P)O’Connor S (P)Woodhouse (P)Brownlee (P)Hayes (P)Parata (P)YangCalder (P)Heatley (P)Ross (P)YoungCarter (P)Henare (P)Roy (P)Coleman (P)Hutchison (P)Ryall (P)Collins (P)JoyceSabin (P)Teller:Dean (P)Kaye (P)Shanks (P)MacindoeAmendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 379 in the name of Metiria Turei to clause 6 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes57Ardern J (P)Graham (P)Martin (P)StewartBeaumontHague (P)Mathers (P)Street (P)BrowningHarawira (P)Moroney (P)Tirikatene (P)Clark (P)HipkinsNorman (P)TureiClendon (P)Horan (P)O’Connor D (P)Turia (P)Cosgrove (P)Hughes (P)O’Rourke (P)Twyford (P)Cunliffe (P)Huo (P)Peters (P)Walker (P)Curran (P)Jones (P)PrasadWall (P)Delahunty (P)King A (P)Prosser (P)Whaitiri (P)Dyson (P)Little (P)Robertson GWilliamsFaafoi (P)Logie (P)Robertson R (P)Woods (P)Fenton (P)Lole-Taylor (P)RocheFlavell (P)Mackey (P)Sage (P)Genter (P)Mahuta (P)Shearer (P)Teller:Goff (P)MallardSio (P)Lees-GallowayNoes62Adams (P)Dunne (P)Key (P)Shanks (P)Ardern S (P)English (P)King CSimpson (P)Auchinvole (P)Finlayson (P)Lee (P)Smith (P)Bakshi (P)FossLotu-Iiga (P)Tisch (P)Banks (P)Foster-Bell (P)McClay (P)Tolley (P)Barry (P)Goldsmith (P)McCully (P)Tremain (P)Bennett D (P)Goodhew (P)McKelvieUpstonBennett P (P)Groser (P)Mitchell (P)Wagner (P)Borrows (P)Guy (P)Ngaro (P)Wilkinson (P)Bridges (P)Hauiti (P)O’Connor S (P)Williamson (P)Brownlee (P)Hayes (P)Parata (P)Woodhouse (P)Calder (P)Heatley (P)Parker (P)YangCarter (P)Henare (P)Ross (P)YoungColeman (P)Hutchison (P)Roy (P)Collins (P)JoyceRyall (P)Teller:Dean (P)Kaye (P)Sabin (P)MacindoeAmendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 380 in the name of Metiria Turei to insert new clause 6A be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes58Ardern J (P)Graham (P)Martin (P)Sio (P)BeaumontHague (P)Mathers (P)StewartBrowningHarawira (P)Moroney (P)Street (P)Clark (P)HipkinsNorman (P)Tirikatene (P)Clendon (P)Horan (P)O’Connor D (P)TureiCosgrove (P)Hughes (P)O’Rourke (P)Turia (P)Cunliffe (P)Huo (P)Parker (P)Twyford (P)Curran (P)Jones (P)Peters (P)Walker (P)Delahunty (P)King A (P)PrasadWall (P)Dyson (P)Little (P)Prosser (P)Whaitiri (P)Faafoi (P)Logie (P)Robertson GWilliamsFenton (P)Lole-Taylor (P)Robertson R (P)Woods (P)Flavell (P)Mackey (P)RocheGenter (P)Mahuta (P)Sage (P)Teller:Goff (P)MallardShearer (P)Lees-GallowayNoes61Adams (P)Dunne (P)Key (P)Simpson (P)Ardern S (P)English (P)King CSmith (P)Auchinvole (P)Finlayson (P)Lee (P)Tisch (P)Bakshi (P)FossLotu-Iiga (P)Tolley (P)Banks (P)Foster-Bell (P)McClay (P)Tremain (P)Barry (P)Goldsmith (P)McCully (P)UpstonBennett D (P)Goodhew (P)McKelvieWagner (P)Bennett P (P)Groser (P)Mitchell (P)Wilkinson (P)Borrows (P)Guy (P)Ngaro (P)Williamson (P)Bridges (P)Hauiti (P)O’Connor S (P)Woodhouse (P)Brownlee (P)Hayes (P)Parata (P)YangCalder (P)Heatley (P)Ross (P)YoungCarter (P)Henare (P)RoyColeman (P)Hutchison (P)Ryall (P)Collins (P)JoyceSabin (P)Teller:Dean (P)Kaye (P)Shanks (P)MacindoeAmendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 381 in the name of Metiria Turei to clause 7 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes58Ardern J (P)Graham (P)Martin (P)Sio (P)BeaumontHague (P)Mathers (P)StewartBrowningHarawira (P)Moroney (P)Street (P)Clark (P)HipkinsNorman (P)Tirikatene (P)Clendon (P)Horan (P)O’Connor D (P)TureiCosgrove (P)Hughes (P)O’Rourke (P)Turia (P)Cunliffe (P)Huo (P)Parker (P)Twyford (P)Curran (P)Jones (P)Peters (P)Walker (P)Delahunty (P)King A (P)PrasadWall (P)Dyson (P)Little (P)Prosser (P)Whaitiri (P)Faafoi (P)Logie (P)Robertson GWilliamsFenton (P)Lole-Taylor (P)Robertson R (P)Woods (P)Flavell (P)Mackey (P)RocheGenter (P)Mahuta (P)Sage (P)Teller:Goff (P)MallardShearer (P)Lees-GallowayNoes61Adams (P)Dunne (P)Key (P)Simpson (P)Ardern S (P)English (P)King CSmith (P)Auchinvole (P)Finlayson (P)Lee (P)Tisch (P)Bakshi (P)FossLotu-Iiga (P)Tolley (P)Banks (P)Foster-Bell (P)McClay (P)Tremain (P)Barry (P)Goldsmith (P)McCully (P)UpstonBennett D (P)Goodhew (P)McKelvie (P)Wagner (P)Bennett P (P)Groser (P)Mitchell (P)Wilkinson (P)Borrows (P)Guy (P)Ngaro (P)Williamson (P)Bridges (P)Hauiti (P)O’Connor S (P)Woodhouse (P)Brownlee (P)Hayes (P)Parata (P)YangCalder (P)Heatley (P)Ross (P)Young (P)Carter (P)Henare (P)Roy (P)Coleman (P)Hutchison (P)Ryall (P)Collins (P)JoyceSabin (P)Teller:Dean (P)Kaye (P)Shanks (P)MacindoeAmendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 382 in the name of Denise Roche to insert new clause 8A be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes54New Zealand Labour 28 (Ardern J Beaumont Clark Cosgrove Cunliffe Curran Dyson Faafoi Goff Huo King A Lees-Galloway Little Mackey Mahuta Moroney O’Connor D Parker Prasad Robertson G Sio Shearer Street Tirikatene Twyford Wall Whaitiri Woods); Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 2; Mana 1; Independent: Horan; Other: Mallard.Noes65New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 4 (Fenton Hipkins Jones Robertson R); ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 383 in the name of Denise Roche to clause 9 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes58New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 2; Mana 1; Independent: Horan; Other: Mallard.Noes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 378 in the name of Metiria Turei to insert new clause 10A be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes58New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 2; Mana 1; Independent: Horan; Other: Mallard.Noes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 385 in the name of Metiria Turei to insert new clause 10A be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes56Ardern J (P)Graham (P)Martin (P)Street (P)BeaumontHague (P)Mathers (P)Tirikatene (P)BrowningHarawira (P)Moroney (P)TureiClark (P)Hipkins (P)Norman (P)Turia (P)Clendon (P)Horan (P)O’Rourke (P)Twyford (P)Cosgrove (P)Hughes (P)Parker (P)Walker (P)Cunliffe (P)Huo (P)Peters (P)Wall (P)Curran (P)Jones (P)Prasad (P)Whaitiri (P)Delahunty (P)King A (P)Prosser (P)WilliamsDyson (P)Little (P)Robertson GWoods (P)Faafoi (P)Logie (P)RocheFenton (P)Lole-Taylor (P)Sage (P)Flavell (P)Mackey (P)Shearer (P)Genter (P)Mahuta (P)Sio (P)Teller:Goff (P)MallardStewartLees-GallowayNoes62Adams (P)Dunne (P)Key (P)Shanks (P)Ardern S (P)English (P)King C (P)Simpson (P)Auchinvole (P)Finlayson (P)Lee (P)Smith (P)Bakshi (P)FossLotu-Iiga (P)Tisch (P)Banks (P)Foster-Bell (P)McClay (P)Tolley (P)Barry (P)Goldsmith (P)McCully (P)Tremain (P)Bennett D (P)Goodhew (P)McKelvie (P)UpstonBennett P (P)Groser (P)Mitchell (P)Wagner (P)Borrows (P)Guy (P)Ngaro (P)Wilkinson (P)Bridges (P)Hauiti (P)O’Connor D (P)Williamson (P)Brownlee (P)Hayes (P)O’Connor S (P)Woodhouse (P)Calder (P)Heatley (P)Parata (P)YangCarter (P)Henare (P)Ross (P)Young (P)Coleman (P)Hutchison (P)Roy (P)Collins (P)JoyceRyall (P)Teller:Dean (P)Kaye (P)Sabin (P)MacindoeAmendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 384 in the name of Denise Roche to insert new clause 10A be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes58New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 2; Mana 1; Independent: Horan; Other: Mallard.Noes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 386 in the name of Denise Roche to insert new clause 10A be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes54Ardern J (P)Graham (P)Mathers (P)StewartBeaumontHague (P)Moroney (P)Street (P)BrowningHarawira (P)Norman (P)Tirikatene (P)Clark (P)Horan (P)O’Connor D (P)TureiClendon (P)Hughes (P)O’Rourke (P)Turia (P)Cosgrove (P)Huo (P)Parker (P)Twyford (P)Cunliffe (P)King A (P)Peters (P)Walker (P)Curran (P)Little (P)Prasad (P)Wall (P)Delahunty (P)Logie (P)Prosser (P)Whaitiri (P)Dyson (P)Lole-Taylor (P)Robertson GWilliamsFaafoi (P)Mackey (P)RocheWoods (P)Flavell (P)Mahuta (P)Sage (P)Genter (P)MallardShearer (P)Teller:Goff (P)Martin (P)Sio (P)Lees-GallowayNoes65Adams (P)English (P)Kaye (P)Shanks (P)Ardern S (P)Fenton (P)Key (P)Simpson (P)Auchinvole (P)Finlayson (P)King C (P)Smith (P)Bakshi (P)FossLee (P)Tisch (P)Banks (P)Foster-Bell (P)Lotu-Iiga (P)Tolley (P)Barry (P)Goldsmith (P)McClay (P)Tremain (P)Bennett D (P)Goodhew (P)McCully (P)UpstonBennett P (P)Groser (P)McKelvie (P)Wagner (P)Borrows (P)Guy (P)Mitchell (P)Wilkinson (P)Bridges (P)Hauiti (P)Ngaro (P)Williamson (P)Brownlee (P)Hayes (P)O’Connor S (P)Woodhouse (P)Calder (P)HeatleyParata (P)YangCarter (P)Henare (P)Robertson R (P)Young (P)Coleman (P)Hipkins (P)Ross (P)Collins (P)Hutchison (P)Roy (P)Dean (P)Jones (P)Ryall (P)Teller:Dunne (P)JoyceSabin (P)MacindoeAmendment not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat Part 2 be agreed to.Ayes61Adams (P)Dunne (P)Key (P)Simpson (P)Ardern S (P)English (P)King C (P)Smith (P)Auchinvole (P)Finlayson (P)Lee (P)Tisch (P)Bakshi (P)FossLotu-Iiga (P)Tolley (P)Banks (P)Foster-Bell (P)McClay (P)Tremain (P)Barry (P)Goldsmith (P)McCully (P)UpstonBennett D (P)Goodhew (P)McKelvie (P)Wagner (P)Bennett P (P)Groser (P)Mitchell (P)Wilkinson (P)Borrows (P)Guy (P)Ngaro (P)Williamson (P)Bridges (P)Hauiti (P)O’Connor S (P)Woodhouse (P)Brownlee (P)Hayes (P)Parata (P)YangCalder (P)HeatleyRoss (P)Young (P)Carter (P)Henare (P)Roy (P)Coleman (P)Hutchison (P)Ryall (P)Collins (P)JoyceSabin (P)Teller:Dean (P)Kaye (P)Shanks (P)MacindoeNoes58Ardern J (P)Graham (P)Martin (P)Sio (P)BeaumontHague (P)Mathers (P)StewartBrowningHarawira (P)Moroney (P)Street (P)Clark (P)Hipkins (P)Norman (P)Tirikatene (P)Clendon (P)Horan (P)O’Connor D (P)TureiCosgrove (P)Hughes (P)O’Rourke (P)Turia (P)Cunliffe (P)Huo (P)Parker (P)Twyford (P)Curran (P)Jones (P)Peters (P)Walker (P)Delahunty (P)King A (P)Prasad (P)Wall (P)Dyson (P)Little (P)Prosser (P)Whaitiri (P)Faafoi (P)Logie (P)Robertson GWilliamsFenton (P)Lole-Taylor (P)Robertson R (P)Woods (P)Flavell (P)Mackey (P)RocheGenter (P)Mahuta (P)Sage (P)Teller:Goff (P)MallardShearer (P)Lees-GallowayPart 2 agreed to.House resumed.The Chairperson reported progress on the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill and no progress on the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill.Report adopted.