McCully Murray: Major Events Management Bill — First Reading 
McCully Murray: Major Events Management Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:637;Page:7496] 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 I indicate to the House at the outset that the National Party will be voting for the Major Events Management Bill to receive its first reading and be referred to a select committee for further study—a process that will be more meaningful in respect of this bill than is usually the case. As the Minister David Parker has already indicated to the House there are some fine lines that are required to be drawn between the interests of event organisers and the commercial and private interests of members of the public. The select committee will have the delicate task of ensuring that those lines are correctly drawn if the bill is to enjoy the support of members when it comes back to us. 
I will say a few words about why I think this bill is welcome and why the House should give it serious consideration. The Minister ran off a list of important events that are upcoming over the next few years. I am bound to say that some of them will probably not meet the criteria that are set out in the bill although some of them undoubtedly will. Looking back into the past we see that the America’s Cup event which we hosted in New Zealand in 1999-2000 would have met the criteria set out in the bill. Clearly the Rugby World Cup in 2011 would meet the criteria. A range of smaller events may or may not make the cut as the case may be. But the simple fact of the matter is that events of that scale—as large as the Rugby World Cup and the America’s Cup—cannot be hosted or conducted without very substantial commitments of sponsorship. 
The reason for this bill being before the House today is that sponsors are not prepared to make those commitments in today’s world unless they can see that certain protections are going to exist to make good their investments. We have confronted those problems before in relation to the America’s Cup and found our way through them but as people have got more sophisticated in the marketplace and more clever at challenging the rights and investments of sponsors the need has become clearer for a framework of rules within which to operate in this respect. So I welcome the fact that the bill is at least an attempt to deal with such a framework. 
New Zealand has a simple choice: either we decide to listen to the needs of the sponsors or we just decide we will not be in the business of hosting those sorts of events. Again the Minister referred to a number of jurisdictions where similar issues have arisen. I am bound to say that we are somewhat behind the eight ball in relation to the hosting of major events in this country. I have been on public record for many years suggesting that this is an area of activity in which New Zealand should excel. There are examples of jurisdictions close to us that are not especially large but that have been very innovative and successful in the hosting of major events. 
The most successful I can think of going back over a couple of decades are major events in Melbourne in the state of Victoria where a large number of highly successful events not only have been encouraged but have frankly been bought by the state using taxpayers’ money because there has been a recognition that the spin-off benefits of hosting those events—in terms of tourism trade promotional activity and investment opportunity—make valid the scale of the investment of taxpayers’ resources. The state of Victoria has over many years developed this to a fine art. Other jurisdictions in Australia have been participants—some on a lesser scale; some on a more significant scale—but I think the shining light in this regard is unquestionably the state of Victoria. 
I refer the House to the fact that the bill before us today is but a very small part of the fabric that is required to be dealt with if we are to become true players in this respect. The most important leading edge in this area is the process of bidding for and attracting these events. Currently in this country that is a relatively haphazard process. True the Government at a very high level participated in the bid process for the Rugby World Cup—it being for New Zealand the premier event of its type—but many other events are left to the preserve of the sporting code concerned or a group of enthusiasts as the case may be. I think there is room for greater recognition of the role of central government agencies in the bidding process for a start. Certainly there is scope for a greater investment of the funds that are available for trade tourism and investment promotion in New Zealand in this area. That too is an area where I hope there will be an added focus if this House is to take this bill forward because it will make that sort of attention more meaningful. 
The framework that is addressed by this bill relates purely to the area of ambush marketing and there is some attempt here to address the issue of scalping. Those are a very small part of the total vista that is the management of a major event. As I said in my initial comments there are some fine lines that are required to be drawn by the House and the consequences of getting those lines wrong will be serious. 
One of the obvious areas is the buffer zone which is provided for in this bill. Once the Minister has managed to persuade Cabinet and Cabinet has asked the Governor-General to sign off on an event as being a major event within the context of this bill it is not just the area of the immediate event that can be the subject of restrictions that are outlined in the bill; there is a buffer zone around it so that ambush marketing cannot be embarked upon by an opponent of one of the major sponsors of the event. Obviously some massive value judgments will be required around that. If for example New Zealand was to host the America’s Cup again—if Team New Zealand is successful—then some restrictions would apply to the Viaduct Basin and the area where the event itself is contested. But the judgment call about what sort of buffer zone would be required and what sorts of restrictions should operate within that zone calls for the most delicate of judgments as to the competing rights of the event organisers and its sponsors on one hand and those who normally conduct their business in that locale on the other hand. 
I say to the members of the select committee that this is an enormously complicated job and I hope they apply their minds to the task at hand in the way that is required if we are to get this matter remotely right. I commend to them the wisdom of looking at some of the examples from other jurisdictions. I emphasise again that we are far from market leaders in this respect; there is a lot we can learn from others. I welcome the fact that the select committee will have that opportunity. 
I have had the opportunity to discuss this bill with the Minister Trevor Mallard in whose name it sits and I know that he is of an open mind about these considerations. I encourage not just those who are in the event management business today but those who are involved in the many sporting codes that will have an opportunity over future years to bring major events of this sort to New Zealand to take an interest in this framework because it is something that will profoundly affect them if they do get to that stage. An investment in time and effort now to understand the bill and get it to some state of perfection—if it is to come back to this House for further consideration—is well warranted. We will see this bill go to a select committee and I urge the select committee to do its work well because it will be important to the final product that it does so.