Goff Phil: Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:994. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):The Hon Nick Smith got to his feet I thought to answer my question. I thought: “That’s good. The Minister is on the ball. He’s well informed. He knows what the answer to the question is.” Did you hear Mr Chairman what the answer to the question was when we knew for 9 years that this was going to happen—why the regulatory impact statement says that options have been ruled out because the legislation has come so late to the House? We have not been obstructing this bill. Ask the chairman of the Law and Order Committee. We have been very cooperative in trying to pass it.I have got to say that this is a pretty shoddy job. The Minister says that the bill is well drafted. For heaven’s sake! This is a four-clause bill. One of the clauses they got wrong and it took the Legislation Advisory Committee in its submission to the House to bring it back to say: “Hey if you put this clause in you create a defence so that nothing could be match fixing for the purposes of making money.” The bill was not well drafted unfortunately. It had an out. It said that it does not apply to match fixing when match fixing is “for tactical or strategic sporting reasons”. Why Minister did you put that into the bill? The Legislation Advisory Committee said that that creates a loophole you could drive a railway train through—drive a railway train through.First of all this bill is late to the House—so late that the Government itself confesses we could not have a comprehensive piece of legislation to do the job. Secondly when the Government brings the bill to the House it has got only about 50 lines and three of them would have defeated the other 47. I do not call that effective. I do not call that good law-drafting. I do not call that a good job by the Minister.I want to come back to another point which was raised by Mr Mallard and that is that this bill by itself is of course just not going to do the job we want it to do. That is if this bill is to work you need a coordinated strategy. You need legislation. You need sporting codes in each of the major sporting organisations. They need to be mutually consistent and they need to be consistent with this bill. Sadly we did not have any of the sporting organisations before the committee to talk to the committee about that.Hon Trevor Mallard: Despite the undertaking from Mr Sabin.Hon PHIL GOFF: Yes. This is what I picked up. This is a note I took in the select committee. It was from the advice we got that the lifetime ban by a sporting body may be more effective in disincentivising match fixing than the penalties that are set out here under the match-fixing legislation which amends the Crimes Act. Obviously what we were told is that things other than this legislation would be absolutely vital. But I want to hear from the Minister not the sort of politicised response he gave before which said absolutely nothing; I want from the Minister some outline of what work has been done with those sporting organisations to find out whether the things that are really necessary to prevent match fixing have been done have been coordinated by the Government or Sport New Zealand and will be effective in stopping the scourge of match fixing and the money that can be made out of that.We were told of course that if things went wrong in this Cricket World Cup it would be badly damaging to the reputation of New Zealand. I accept that so what I wanted was comprehensive legislation yet the Government has said we do not have time to do it. Nine years is not long enough. Secondly I want to know that the other pieces of the jigsaw are there and do come together and we can go forward next year into an international Cricket World Cup knowing that all of the rules are in place because Sport New Zealand and the Minister for Sport and Recreation have done their job and can assure us that that is the case.I want a proper answer Minister. I do not want any political flimflam. I do not want an attack on this party or that party. I simply want to know whether you or the Minister whom you are representing have done their job. I have not heard that in your explanation to be fair. I have not heard it and I have not heard yet why you have taken so long. While you are thinking about those questions the regulatory impact statement says that this approach—because it is not the comprehensive approach—will only “substantially reduce the risk”. There is still risk there because it is not a comprehensive approach. I want to know how big that risk is. The regulatory impact statement says: “our preferred approach is proportionate to the level of risk.” What is the level of the risk? You know what the cost of match fixing was in 2010? It was $140 billion. That is a lot of money—$140 billion. Is this answer this rushed little piece of legislation proportionate?