Hutchison Paul: Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Bill — Second Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6893] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Bill. I note that the version of the genesis of the bill given by the Hon Lianne Dalziel and the Hon Pete Hodgson is quite different from the facts as I know them. The Labour Government had 9 long years to bring this bill to enactment and it failed to do so. 
It is highly relevant that in the first reading debate on the bill the Hon Simon Power pointed out that the cost to New Zealand is between half a billion dollars and $1 billion. That is a very significant amount of money lost in terms of money-laundering. I also understand that the situation is endemic right throughout the South Pacific if not throughout the world. There is no doubt that there is a great need to ensure that this bill becomes enacted and that New Zealand fulfils our international obligations and the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force. 
The Hon Pete Hodgson said that he believes that the Government was panicked into getting this bill through reasonably quickly. But once again I say that the Labour Government had 9 long years and failed to do anything whatsoever. 
I think John Hayes is quite right in suggesting that the Hon Lianne Dalziel is off the planet with regard to the bill. I note that the particular issues have been without reform since 1996. In that time there has been a rapid change in the technologies that criminals can use in order to launder money. That really backs up the total negligence and slackness of the previous Labour Government; it failed to do anything over those 9 years. I look across at the Hon George Hawkins a former Minister of Police and I think that at least he would have done something about this situation. But no he failed. 
The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee was extremely ably led by the chairman Mr John Hayes. I very much acknowledge that the Hon Pete Hodgson was very interested in the bill and that he took a great deal of notice of the detail particularly when it came to politically exposed people and various other aspects of the bill. There is no doubt that the committee set out to be forward-looking and to ensure that the bill was future-proofed that it was risk-based to minimise compliance costs and as far as is practicable that it harmonised with the Australian legislation. I believe that the initiative undertaken by the chairman John Hayes to get members of the banking profession to come in and have a dialogue with the Government officials was quite a unique process. It was something I had never seen before in my time in Parliament and it was very productive indeed. Four experts from the bank floor had a dialogue with the officials who obviously did not have the practical experience in relation to this very complex bill that the experts did. 
Although it is beyond the scope of the bill it is important to note that Australia has a single supervisory agency the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre—known as AUSTRAC. One recommendation that we thought was preferable was that the supervision arrangements of the four New Zealand entities—the Reserve Bank of New Zealand the Securities Commission the Department of Internal Affairs and the Police which are all involved at present—could in the future be wrapped into one body. That would ensure that there would be a smoother enactment of this bill. 
I will finish by making one technical point about Western Union which was one of the submitters on this bill. It was very concerned about the fact that in terms of designated business groups its 700 sub-agencies in New Zealand would all have to go through exactly the same transaction reporting that the central agency did. Fortunately that matter was solved in the select committee process and that is very very satisfactory. 
I am very glad to support the bill which does the things that we set out to do. It is forward-looking it is risk-based to minimise compliance costs and it is as far as practicable harmonised with the Australian legislation.