McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I'm pleased to take the first call on the second reading of the Racing Reform Bill on behalf of the National Party and add that we will continue to support the bill. Needless to say I was actually on a racing club at the time that Sir Thaddeus McCarthy's report was considered and I remember the same nervous attention was paid to that as was paid to the report of John Messara. Nothing's changed in 40-odd years and that's of course the problem that a lot of our industry has in New Zealand particularly this one. The racing and more importantly the horse breeding industry has great potential for New Zealand in so many ways. We have heard of some of that during the course of the shortened select committee stage that was held a couple of weeks ago. A healthy racing industry in New Zealand will give the breeding industry the confidence to invest and grow. This is really where the potential for us is actually. The racing industry itself is just the reason that enables the breeding industry to take off. And of course we have the potential in New Zealand as one of the three best breeding areas in the world to produce horses of almost unique quality. That's I think one of our great opportunities and that's the great opportunity that this bill will create for the New Zealand racing industry—or it will enhance their ability to produce horses and a product actually—but I'll get on to the product in a minute. But it enables us to produce horses that will be marketed to the world.This industry has potential to bring people and attention to New Zealand—and opportunity actually—which most other industries don't readily have. You could compare it to the America's Cup for example because it does bring the same kind of interest to this country if we do it properly. The other area that we've got great potential for in the racing industry is to produce a product—in other words a racing product that is then marketable to the rest of the world. We've heard a lot of talk around the challenges of gambling and things like that in New Zealand but in fact this bill will not necessarily increase the gambling that takes place in New Zealand; it will increase the attractiveness of an outstanding product that we can market to the rest of the world. I think that's the exciting opportunity that we have in the racing industry and it's one that I think New Zealand should pick up. Interestingly another thing the racing or the breeding industry does for New Zealand is it diversifies our land use. Some of the members of this House will remember the days when every dairy farmer in Taranaki had a couple of horses on them. Those days have long gone. May they come back. I just want to reflect for a bit on the horse and what an amazing impact it's had on the human race. Frankly we wouldn't be where we are today if it wasn't for the horse and the use of it. It's taken us to war. It's taken us down the road. It took me to school. Couldn't catch the thing when I got there but it took me to school. So there's a whole lot of opportunity that the most extraordinary of all animals in my view has created for us. They are an extremely competitive animal—very like humans actually. I think that one of the really intriguing things about this industry—and about the horse in fact—is that it's the most extraordinary thing. For anyone who's ever happened to have a ride or be part of a good horse it's the most exciting thing in the world and I can assure you that the horse is just as excited as the person on top of it. Hard to believe that but it's a fact. Jonathan Young: How do you know?IAN McKELVIE: It's a fact I know. I've been there—all round the world. Interestingly dogs which are the other part of the racing industry are very much the same. They're very competitive and the greyhound of course is that sector of the dog community that races.During the select committee process we saw a number of concerns expressed and we had expressed a number of concerns ourselves during the first reading. Many of these were addressed by submitters and a number of them have been addressed as the bill is reported back to the House. I was pleased to hear the Minister just a minute ago talk about a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that will be introduced in the committee stage which will resolve another challenge that the industry particularly the racing industry had with this bill. I'll explain why that happens later on. But I just want to address the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) and the fact that it had no finite end to it. It was able to be enhanced or elongated by an Order in Council. That has been put to rest and as the Minister said himself it has been given a finite time. That's been done by amending clause 22 to insert new section 68A(1)(ba) in the Racing Act to limit the extension of the transition period to a date no later than 30 June 2022. We're supportive of that and I do think that it's necessary that the next piece of legislation get to the House in a timely manner. That is always a challenge of course. There was concern raised about the influence the Minister for Racing had in the distribution of betting profits. We're pleased to see the bill's been amended to ensure the Minister for Sport and Recreation is consulted in the process of this. This is achieved by inserting clauses 13 and 22 to insert new sections 17A(3) and 68A(2). That also gives us comfort that at least it seemed to be a reasonable process and a process that I think is very satisfactory from a sports perspective. We were concerned about the process of appointing the RITA as it allowed the Minister for Racing to appoint members without any cognisance taken of the sporting sector which is a significant player and beneficiary in this legislation. We'd have liked to have seen a clause introducing the need for the Minister for Racing to consult on this but having said that that hasn't happened. But having said that we're comfortable with the members of the ministerial advisory committee who I think are extremely competent people—talented and diverse as they are—and we assume that they will be appointed to the RITA as that RITA takes place. I hope they are in fact.I talked about the SOP the Minister talked about bringing the House. It just will make some alterations which I think are advantageous to the industry and will certainly short-circuit the process of setting the way that those services can be charged for and will also enable significant cost-saving because that process is really in place now. The piece of legislation that the National Party when in Government brought to the House refers specifically to this part of the legislation and that's around the use of information charges and that is kind of the charge for the use of New Zealand racing information or the charge for the use of sporting information and those events that go with them and that's where I assume that we will see some change. The other part of this of course is that there's a point of consumption charge which will occur naturally as part of this bill and that should return a significant amount of money to New Zealand racing but more particularly to New Zealand's sporting sector.Betting on horse racing—it's estimated that about 10 percent of all New Zealanders have a bet on a horse race probably the Melbourne Cup each year. Many more wager on sports events. Interestingly in Australia sports betting tends to attract younger people; racing older people. It's quite possible that the same trend happens in New Zealand and I wouldn't want to think the first two speakers on this were representative of the racing people in New Zealand. But it's certainly a fast-growing sport—well a fast-growing form of entertainment I suppose you'd call it—is gambling on sports betting. I just want to comment a little bit on gambling because I think that—obviously I'm a gambler myself in a small way and I'm a very bad gambler. But I think the point about it is that we gamble on horses on sport and we do so with the ability to gamble against ourselves effectively. We're trying to pick a winner and we're watching that thing and we're making a judgment on either the sports team or the horse or the dog or whatever. You go down to the poker machine down at the local club and you're making a judgment on nothing. You're just shoving your money in the thing and poking a button. You don't even poke the button actually—now you don't even have to think that hard. I think that there's such a difference between these two kinds of gambling that we shouldn't even compare the two frankly. This for those who don't have a problem with it—and I'll touch on that very briefly before I finish—is in my view great entertainment for a wide range of people. People on a Saturday night will sit at home and they'll watch whoever's playing—the Crusaders playing whoever—and they'll spend all night having the odd flutter on that. Rt Hon Winston Peters: Or the Blues.IAN McKELVIE: And I think that—ha ha! Anyone who gambled on the Blues is certainly in the problem gambling category. I think that just to touch on that issue so many people—thousands and thousands hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders—gamble with no problem at all. There are unfortunately a percentage of people who like everything else in life either have addictive personalities or they get to a point where gambling is a challenge for them. Again I'd like to say I'm sure that the poker machines are much more responsible with that problem than this type of gambling as well. But this bill does allow for further investment in harm reduction to take place and I think that's a satisfactory place we've got to. So all in all I think this bill will be good for the racing industry. It will be good for the sports industry albeit with some of those concerns we have about it. We in the National Party will support it and again some of those concerns will be expressed by speakers who follow me. So we look forward to the second tranche of legislation the Minister intends to bring to the House but in the meantime we do support this bill. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker.