Roche Denise: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12063. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green):I have some questions that I think are fair to raise in the Committee about the economic benefits of the convention centre deal that the Government has negotiated with Skycity in Auckland. I have been perusing the appropriations and I have also been looking at the 400 or so pages that the Government released that were concerned with the negotiations around the Skycity deal. The most interesting aspect I have found so far in looking through the documents has been the way that the Ministry of Economic Development which is what it was before it was restructured into the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment did not want to give Skycity any money for promoting the International Convention Centre but then in this year’s Budget there was a fund set aside for promoting conventions. It was about $34 million or so if I remember correctly.What is not clear are the economic benefits to our country of this deal. The Government has constantly inflated the number of jobs that it thinks will result from the convention centre deal. It reckons there will be about 1000 jobs created to build the convention centre and another 800 or so to run it. The thing is though building is a temporary thing. Once you have finished building it those jobs are no longer there. They last just for the duration of the build. I have no idea where this figure of 800 or more jobs for running the convention centre came from because if you compare theconvention centre with an Australian one of a similar size the number of jobs is more likely to be 250 or so.Let us look at the tourism dollars attached to the convention centre deal—the major hype that we have heard from the Government about this. Once more we have had this assertion that the convention centre deal will result in more conventions in New Zealand with convention participants spending up large while they enjoy extended stays in our country. But this is not a certainty. The figures are not tested at all and the assertion that participants will stay longer and spend more has not been borne out by current convention attendees in New Zealand. What we can extrapolate from Australian figures is that it is unlikely that the tourism dollar will be shared evenly. What the Australian Productivity Commission has shown is that every dollar that is spent in the casino is a dollar that is not spent on shopping not spent on restaurants not spent on bars not spent on movies and not spent on other entertainment. The casino will be the main beneficiary of that spend. Skycity will have the monopoly on those tourism dollars.Skycity is pretty voracious about seeking to make profits. You have to just look at its request to have a City Rail Link straight to its premises so that it can freight people straight there. You can see it through its bending of the smoke-free laws which it has already done. You can see it in the special immigration visas it has requested for high roller overseas gamblers who would help facilitate money-laundering at the Skycity Casino.We need to ask ourselves whether having a convention centre attached to a casino is a good bet given that we already know that several international organisations particularly those in the health field are not happy to have their conventions in a casino because of the problems with public health associated with casinos. We really do need to examine the economic benefits of this deal. What for example are the economic benefits of the damage to our international reputation as a corruption-free country? Transparency International has warned us about that with this deal as have various legal experts who are concerned about democracy being eroded by the 35-year compensation deal that the Government is striking with Skycity. We need to ask ourselves about the economic benefits to New Zealand of this deal when the price we will be paying is much higher than what we will get from Skycity. What are the economic benefits of tying the hands of future Governments so that if a Government passes laws to reduce the profits of the casino it will need to compensate Skycity? What are the economic benefits of the increase in crime?