Andersen GinnyHon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister of Police): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. This is a bill that will make New Zealand safer and it does it by backing our police to do their job. It gives police additional powers—stronger powers—to seize assets from criminals. In a nutshell it hits criminals where it hurts the most—in their pockets. It flips the onus quite simply that instead of police having to engage forensic accountants to comb through accounts and prove that an asset was obtained illegally or through illicit means it is then put upon that person associated with a criminal network to prove that their high-value asset was in fact obtained legitimately. So it makes the task of police much easier to restrain illegal assets. Now I think that it's important to note in this space and acknowledge Mr Goldsmith and the fact that he is voting for this legislation and a potential reason why he is supporting the legislation was that this piece of legislation was in fact in National's gang action plan back in 2008 but unfortunately it was not delivered upon in the nine years that they were in Government so it's good to see this bill passing into law now. This bill will form part of a suite of legislation that will give police the rules and the tools to fight organised crime. Legislation that has already been passed to give police additional powers in this space is the firearm prohibition orders bill—another bill that was listed in the 2008 National Gang Action Plan and not delivered upon. The other piece of legislation I would like to refer to will receive its second reading hopefully in the next few days while the House is sitting and that's the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill which includes new powers to seize firearms to seize highvalue goods and also to target vehicles that are being used by organised criminal groups in motorcades. This change in the law will make it easier for police not only to restrain and forfeit property of gangs but also to help cripple organised criminal networks and this will work quite closely alongside the fact that police will have 700 dedicated front-line officers specifically to organised crime. Having this legislative change alongside more police will give ongoing operations such as Operation Cobalt more ability to continue the good work they do to seize weapons seize drugs and arrest organised criminal members. We've already seen record numbers in that space and with this legislation alongside additional investment in the front line we will continue to see results in that space. This Government has backed the police and that was part of a Budget bid in last year's Budget that invested $94 million to cripple organised criminal networks—the single biggest injection that we have seen in New Zealand. That investment will continue to see results as we see the front line being appropriately resourced to tackle organised criminal groups. The one other power I would like to mention is that power specific to respond to transnational offending. Just today I spoke at the transnational organised crime conference where groups from across the world have come to New Zealand to meet and share ideas on how we tackle transnational organised crime. This additional power will be welcomed. It will enable that when we have someone who is offshore and is using money-laundering and other tactics and using New Zealand as a platform it will enable police to restrain an item even if that person is offshore and require them to justify and verify where they got that asset from whether it be a house or a high-value good in some other form. If they are unable to do that then police will have additional powers to also restrain and forfeit that particular item. So it enables us to cooperate and work more comprehensively with our transnational organised criminal partners to tackle crime in this space. To conclude this bill delivers a law that will hit criminals where it hurts—in their pockets—by crippling them financially. That is a far smarter way of working and to dismantle organised criminal networks. It is just one bill in a suite of legislation that works to make our communities safer by tackling organised crime. This alongside additional police more tactical resourcing and investment in that space should give New Zealand strong confidence that this is a Government that puts New Zealand's safety first by backing our police to have the rules and the tools to do the job. Thank you Madam Speaker.