Locke Keith: Major Events Management Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLocke Keith: Major Events Management Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 22 August 2007. Volume:641;Page:11371. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEITH LOCKE (Green): It is rather strange to hear the National Party backing up the Government in this Chamber and in this case supporting the force of the State being used to prevent businesses from operating and to prevent competition. That is what this bill is all about. It is about the heavy hand of the State and supporting it is hardly something I would expect from parties that claim they are in favour of the free market free competition and all the rest of it.When one actually looks at the definitions in this part one sees that in clause 3 “Purposes” a purpose is to “obtain maximum benefits from the major event for New Zealanders;”. I do not see how it gets maximum benefit for New Zealanders to say prevent Air New Zealand from advertising 5 kilometres out along a clean transport route as declared under this bill because say Emirates Airline is the official sponsor of the 2011 Rugby World Cup—as Emirates Airline is the sponsor of the Rugby World Cup soon to take place in France. How does it help New Zealand businesses if we stop them from advertising 5 kilometres away from an event venue—be it Air New Zealand against Emirates Airline or Lemon and Paeroa against Coca-Cola which is the sponsor of the Rugby World Cup this year and maybe in 2011? I think that is a bit strange.The clause further states in subclause (2)(ca) that the legislation “prohibits activities that might compromise the smooth running of a major event such as ticket scalping and pitch invasion;”. At first sight I wonder how ticket scalping—whether or not we like it—affects the smooth running of an event. I understood that ticket scalping was the selling of tickets and that is a bit different from what happens on a rugby field or in the stands. Again the anti-competitive streak in the National Party and in Labour seems to be motivating that provision.Of course we do not like people to make huge fortunes out of onselling tickets but do we really want to put in a whole bureaucratic procedure to stop what is effectively a trade in second-hand goods? Any decent organiser of a major event will distribute the tickets quite widely and some people may end up with one or two extra and may make a bit of a profit out of them but is that really such a huge problem in society? With regard to the Rugby Sevens to be held in Wellington next year the tickets go on sale next month. People can get them on the Internet and there will be a lot of competition for tickets. I do not think anyone is going to end up with a huge number of tickets to onsell so how will that affect the running of the event?And how will inventing a whole new offence of pitch invasion help with the smooth running of the event? Disorderly behaviour is already an offence on the law books. Sofar anyone who has disrupted a sporting event by running on the field has been charged with disorderly behaviour; we do not need that new offence in order to allow the smooth running of events. I think that this bill is completely unnecessary.The bill also defines what a major event is. The previous speaker said it would have to meet a high test but as I understand it the event—and there is flexibility about this in terms of the views of the Government of the day—has to have international visitors of some substance and have international advertising associated with it. That would apply to the Bledisloe Cup and to a Super 14 final if it had a foreign team and a lot of Aussies coming across the Tasman say. It would certainly apply to the Rugby Sevens which comes up next year.I turn to the definition in the bill of a clean transport route. Why do we need clean transport routes? That is the heavy hand of the State and I will be moving a Supplementary Order Paper to remove that. I hope to get support for it from other parties. I know several other parties will be supporting the Greens on that and I just hope that either Labour or National will too.