Worth Richard: Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill — Second Reading 
Worth Richard: Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1381] 
Hon Dr RICHARD WORTH (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I was particularly interested in the comment of a former member of the Government who is now of course a member of the Labour Opposition that the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill was a Labour bill. That seemed an intriguing proposition because it is partly right; on 20 March 2007 this bill was the subject of a first reading. It was then referred to the Law and Order Committee where it languished for a considerable period of time. It then came back to the House as recently as 2008—in fact on 25 July 2008. 
I have been intrigued by the comments that Labour members have made about the incredible output of Martin Gallagher and I would like to join for a moment in a short encomium to the work that he did. Unfortunately he is no longer with us but he was very much an exemplar of industry and an exemplar of competence. I think one of his great strengths was that he had the ability to identify issues that turned out not to be issues at all but he was sufficiently persistent to run with them. I would like to place on record the contribution that he made as the member for Hamilton West in what was a very extended period of service to the House. 
In connection with criminal proceeds recovery issues generally organised crime has changed hugely in New Zealand. We can think back 10 years to when we had jacketed thugs in New Zealand and see that there were significant problems as organised crime developed insidiously. But it is all so different now because today’s criminals in the organised crime sector are not wearing patches. Their tattoos if they have them are concealed by black pinstripe suits. The whole deal has changed hugely. In fact if we look at the international brotherhood of criminal activity—and I single out Hell’s Angels as a really good example of that—we see that we need only to reflect on the motto of Hell’s Angels when its members say that “Three can keep a secret when two are dead.” to realise the pernicious and insidious nature of organised crime. The Hell’s Angels organisation is actually a bit of a study in itself because its innovation seems to have no bounds. As members may well know one of the things it has done is set up a Hell’s Angels church in Los Angeles and its licensed parsons and vicars—by dint of their clerical association—can gain access to jails and collaborate with those who are behind bars. That is why I think this legislation is incredibly important and it was so disappointing that Labour did not see that there was a mischief to be cured and that expedition to advance this bill to its final stages was so important. 
So Labour’s good ideas fizzed and spluttered; they needed to be relaunched and revived under this National Government—and is this not just the reality of the situation that the Government has come to? We are doing that. When we look at the purposes of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill we see that they are to reform the existing criminal proceeds recovery regime and to repeal the Proceeds of Crime Act 1991. Others have mentioned—but it seemed to me in a very fleeting way—that under the current Act property that either represents the profits of criminal offending or is used to facilitate the commission of a crime can be confiscated once a criminal conviction is secured. That is clearly an unsatisfactory threshold position. The major change proposed by this bill is to provide that a criminal conviction would no longer be required for property representing the proceeds of crime or the value of unlawfully derived income to be confiscated. 
I want to add—at a high level; a macro-perspective if I can put it that way—just what this bill is about in the context of the policy of the bill as I have just sought to explain it. We are replacing the bill with a conviction-based forfeiture regime limited to the instruments of crime and—significantly I would say—a non - conviction-based regime to deal with all other property representing the proceeds of crime or assessed to be the value of a person’s unlawfully derived income. 
When we look around the world at this issue—and I am speaking to members opposite—we see what has gone on in Australia. We tend to take a lot of inspiration from our Australian colleagues as they have had huge success with these types of regime in Western Australia but in other parts of Australia they have not been so successful. Certainly in the past I have argued in this House at this time of night that we should be looking at something more patterned on the Western Australian model than some of the other models that are available. 
If we look for a moment at the non - conviction-based regime that as I said is going to operate independently of any criminal proceedings we see the situation where the same person may be the subject of both criminal prosecution and confiscation action under the civil process. Property acquired as a result of unlawful activity could be targeted even though it may not be possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the owner has committed a specific criminal offence. When we think about it we realise that is fair enough because when the police burst into a gang fortification and find substantial assets scattered around—or in many cases hidden away—it is very hard to determine in what circumstances a particular item has been acquired by the gang members involved. The beauty of this regime is that we do not need to get involved in that exercise. The umbrella of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill picks up those issues in a neat and clean way and it will not involve those issues of proof that can be incredibly burdensome in this particular field of criminal law. I say this to members opposite as well. There is also provision for a restraining order on property while the Crown gathers evidence to support its case for forfeiture. There can be a move in and action taken then the passage of time for the further orders that are necessary to support the forfeiture case. 
It is right of course to say in the context of this bill that the property must come from significant criminal activity. That has been defined in this bill—appropriately I think—as either an offence punishable by at least 5 years imprisonment or an activity that has generated profits of at least $30000. I suppose there could be an argument raised by cynics as to whether that threshold of $30000 is appropriate. Why was $30000 chosen and not some higher number? I hope that when this bill is enacted an opportunity may be taken at a later date to make a judgment as to whether that threshold figure of $30000 is appropriate. We could argue that a higher threshold number could more readily have been chosen but in the context of getting the legislation through we have decided not to change that number. We will run with $30000 and perhaps at a later stage look at it again. 
I was interested when Chester Borrows who was here a moment ago talked not so much about the policy of the bill in a broad way but about some of the more specific aspects. If I noted them correctly he identified four. The first was to confiscate property from persons who had engaged in or profited from significant criminal activity. There were three others: to reduce the rewards of crime for the individual to reduce the attraction of crime for potential offenders and to reduce the resources that could potentially be used for criminal activity. We need to get very serious about dealing with gangs; I think that that is one of the lamentable failures of the previous and failed Government.