Young Jonathan: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is subject to correctionYoung Jonathan: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 06 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14426. Text is subject to correction.]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.