Young Jonathan; Borrows ChesterJONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very very happy to hear the comments—or some of those comments if not all—of the previous member Fletcher Tabuteau regarding the quality legislation that is now before the House. In fact I can tell you a story of my boyhood. When my family would go to the Bay of Plenty for our holidays from South Taranaki we would go out—wade out—into the Athenree Estuary with the flounder net and catch breakfast. Every night we would put it out and every morning bring it in and there were three four or five flounder. It used to be a wonderful breakfast when we were on holiday. Then one day we stopped catching fish. One day we would go out there in the morning and they were gone; they were not there. Day after day we wondered what on earth had happened until we brought in the net and at the end of it found a very large hole.So this bill is about making sure the net does not have any holes so that the fish do not escape—those slimy individuals who are slipping through the system who are taking their ill-gotten gains and laundering them to try to cleanse those funds. And what do I mean by cleanse"? That means to conceal its criminal origins.This is what this House does. It is necessary for this House to make sure that we have a system that protects the integrity of our financial systems but also protects our hard-working tax-paying businesses who comply with the law who make sure that they do their bit to make sure that New Zealand carries on and that we do not have individuals who take advantage of New Zealand businesses to try to make their quick buck look like a clean buck because it is not.We know that the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill—the former iteration of it—focuses mainly on banks and financial institutions but this one here extends the reach of that net into these phase 2 entities. It is talking about professions that have a high risk of being targeted: real estate agents and conveyancers people who take their illegally sourced funds and buy products and assets and therefore can then go on and resell them and give the form of legitimacy to those funds. Also lawyers and accountants betting on sports and racing—these are also these phase 2 areas and industries that can attract these sorts of people. So this bill is to reduce the risk of money-laundering and what it does is to tighten that net.We understand at this point in time that around about $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion gets through the net in New Zealand and we have got to stop that. It is from fraud and illegal drugs being bought and sold right through this country. We need to maintain this war on drugs. Not only do they destroy particularly our young people and make them unable to succeed in life but it is a black market that destroys our financial integrity and business base. This Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill regime is so important for us to meet our international obligations to close the gaps that international money launderers can exploit and to protect our reputation.We have got a great reputation in the world. We are first for prosperity. We are second for anti-corruption. We are second-best in the world for Government—let us keep it that way. We do have international obligations. We want to close the gaps that international money launderers are trying to exploit and we want to help protect our reputation as a good place to do business. Did I say that we are the best place in the world to do business? That is up there with all of those other great accolades that have come New Zealand's way under this National-led Government. So it is important to have this bill go through.Phil Twyford: Did the research unit not provide decent notes tonight?JONATHAN YOUNG: Phil Twyford has finally woken up. Perhaps it is a depressing day for him. Terrorism financing is where money-laundering methods are used to fund terrorism activities and here we live at the bottom of the world and we say that we are safe yet we are in the world where all sorts of activities take place. By and large across the Tasman Sea we see some of these activities; it has even been reported this past week. So we need to ensure that that cannot happen through our country and through our financial institutions. It cannot happen through our businesses and professions that have been targeted; through real estate agents conveyancers lawyers accountants and betting on sports and racing.I would say that it is important that we do not allow people to disguise the source of where their funds come from but that it is clear and transparent. And where there are suspicious activities we have in this bill the obligation for those to be reported. I believe there are compliance costs but the officials have worked with the sector and have been able to halve those compliance costs. We know that this is a responsibility; to have a good clean fair and integral system in this country and it is a good thing.The bill extends our obligations to these wider sector businesses and professions that will be better placed to detect red flags. In many regards these second-phase institutions are the first point of entry into the money-laundering process. They are the places where these people seek to take their funds take their money and take their cash in order to get them through into the system. But what we are enabling through this legislation is for those red flags to be lifted sooner and faster so that we can expand the scope of the Act and make it easier for police to access the relevant information the information they need when investigating money-laundering or organised crime.I want to say in my closing comments that by working with these affected sectors refining options to help them meet their obligations we have significantly reduced the predicted compliance costs. The initial estimate of up to $1.6 billion over 10 years has been lowered to between $800 million and $1.1 billion over a 10-year period. This is a good thing and I am very happy to commend this bill to the House.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Jan Logie—5-minute call on behalf of the Green Party."