Hipkins Chris: Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19772. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour - Rimutaka):Irony abounds in this particular debate on the Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill. How ironic that the Government brings this bill to the House the very week when John Key is trying to stitch up the general election result with his dodgy deals in Ōhariu and in Epsom. I want to turn to some definitions in this bill. For the purposes of this bill “deception” includes any act or omission that is done with the intent to influence a betting outcome of an activity of a kind which includes any rallies involving human participants. People do gamble—[Interruption] People gamble on the outcomes of general elections and John Key with his dodgy cup-of-tea deals is trying to fix the outcome of certain elections.Hon Trevor Mallard: Centrebet.CHRIS HIPKINS: Centrebet takes bets on elections. iPredict takes bets on elections effectively and John Key is trying to fix the results with his dodgy deals in Ōhariu and in Epsom.So what is the National Party doing in Epsom for example? It is saying to old Paul Goldsmith the man whom the National Party affectionately knows as “Goldie”—he should probably be called “Silvie” because he prefers to come second. But National is saying to old Paul Goldsmith “Don’t campaign. Don’t campaign at all.” National is basically trying to fix the deal in Epsom so that the ACT Party gets a free ride into Parliament. The party of independents the party that basically says that you should have self-reliance is basically relying on a dodgy deal with National in order to get an MP into Parliament in a deal that is fixed by John Key. What happens to people who are betting on that outcome? People take bets on outcomes of general elections. Will John Key be infringing this law if he is trying to fix the outcome and if he is trying to influence the outcome in a way that is not transparent that is dodgy all over and that is an absolute rort of the MMP electoral system? Where does that leave him? He is fixing that particular match in Epsom just as he is trying to fix the match just up the road from where I live in Ōhariu where he is trying to basically ensure that Peter Dunne can get back in—Peter Dunne the man who it has been well established now leaks sensitive information to journalists. John Key does not seem to have a problem with that.Match—Hon Trevor Mallard: “Stalker Peter”.CHRIS HIPKINS: Ha! Match fixing is a serious issue in New Zealand and it is important that we do something about it and that is why the Labour Party will be supporting this legislation. It is about fairness. It is about making sure that when people go and participate in sports it is genuinely competitive and it is a genuine competition. That is something that we believe in for the sporting community. It is something that we should believe in in politics as well. It should be a genuine competition. It should not be about dodgy deals; it should be actually about getting out there giving it your best and actually seeing what happens on the day.It is not about trying to stitch things up in back rooms which is what the National Party seems to think politics is all about. So how ironic that it is saying it does not want that happening in sports. We do not want that happening in sports. We do not want that happening in politics either unlike this current National Government which seems to think that general elections are something to be bought and traded not something to be fairly contested in an election campaign where the voters get a say based on the ideas that they want to have represented in Government and the people they want to represent them in Government. This Government seems to think that it can simply jack it up with dodgy deals that are done over cups of tea. I think New Zealanders have had a gutsful of that. They have had a gutsful of that. They have as much contempt for that kind of approach from the National Government as they have for match fixing.So I think that this bill is a welcome piece of legislation. It will ensure that New Zealanders can have confidence in fair sports and I think that is a very good thing but I think that we should make sure that the same kind of transparency and fairness that we are wanting to see in sports and particularly around betting around sports should happen around elections as well. It should not be the case that the Government can jack up particular election results that suit its interests; it should be the case that it is the voters who get to decide who they want to have representing them in Parliament and who they want to be the Government. This Government does not seem to have any respect for that whatsoever.This particular piece of legislation is very important because there have been international threat assessments that warn of increasing risk in New Zealand of match fixing and increasing risk that crime syndicates and individuals are targeting Australasia for sports match-fixing. There have already been high-profile cases in Australia. There have been one or two New Zealand sportspeople involved in allegations around this too and we want to make sure that New Zealanders can have confidence that that is not happening. It would significantly damage the credibility the value and the growth in New Zealand sport which is already contributing around $5 billion per year to our economy—probably more than that actually. So we should have confidence in our sporting institutions and in the players and make sure that there is robust legislation in place that makes it clear that match fixing is a crime under the Crimes Act. That is something that the Labour Party absolutely supports.I am going to leave my contribution at that and simply say to the Government that this is a good piece of legislation in the sporting arena. The Government should apply the same principle to the way it deals with politics.