Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Talofa Mr Assistant Speaker. I'm pleased to stand on the Racing Reform Bill which the Green Party will be supporting. It's interesting; the Opposition recognises that there is a need for change in the racing industry but the Hon Nikki Kaye was effectively suggesting that this was going too fast a theme that was also returned to by the Hon Gerry Brownlee. What neither of those speakers appear to recognise is that this is a transitional organisation the Racing Industry Transitional Authority (RITA) and so the racing industry transitional agency will probably form around about June next year. So if you are making change in an industry you have a transitional agency to get on with the business of making that change and doing that reform. Hence the need for it to go through select committee in an expedited process so that we can get that change happening.Mr Brownlee your comments your concern about the fact—what the member seems to be saying was that there should therefore be no need for change and that it wasn't interesting to watch racing. That is why if you read clause 11 of the bill the membership of RITA specifically provides for those members who are appointed by the Minister the Rt Hon Winston Peters to have expertise in business marketing or economics to have knowledge and experience of the racing industry and sports administration at a national level. So I am trusting in the Minister that the appointments to the Racing Industry Transitional Authority will have the expertise to recognise what needs to be changed in the industry to make sure that you do get a bigger audience now whether it's at the track or whether it's watching television. That is why there are those specific criteria in there about what the membership of the new Racing Industry Transitional Authority should be. Amongst those up to seven members I am sure there will be the expertise to actually initiate this change process.One of the reasons the Green Party has supported the bill also returning to a theme the Hon Mr Brownlee mentioned is because there is specific provision in the bill for some of the proceeds to be used via regulation setting out the amount for the minimisation and prevention of gambling harm. That is absolutely critical and that is one of the agreements that was made by the Minister that we appreciate—that the revenue should be used to minimise and prevent gambling harm. That is being used for a community purpose.So this agency I understand is expected to operate until at least the middle of next year. In the meantime we will also see some quite significant changes that seek to recover from offshore betting operators a charge for their use of betting and sports code information from New Zealand so that it is essentially moving to more of a user-pays model which is good. The other thing that I think should reassure members of the Opposition is that there is to be consultation in relation to Sport New Zealand about the proceeds that go there. It's not something that RITA will just be making a decision on on its own account; there will be consultation.So yes there will be significant community interest in this legislation but this is the first step. There is to be further reform. If change is to happen it needs to start promptly and that is what this bill with the transitional agency is all about. It's ensuring that that agency has appropriate expertise on it to actually improve the governance of the industry as a whole to improve the way in which it generates revenue and to make it quite certain that some of that revenue has got to be used for the prevention and minimisation of gambling harm. So the Green Party supports the bill.