Hudson Brett: New Zealand International Convention Centre Act 2013 Repeal Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHudson Brett: New Zealand International Convention Centre Act 2013 Repeal Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5228. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on this member’s bill. I think it is only appropriate when the bill is introduced that we should reflect on its intention and its content before arriving at a decision whether or not to support it. Alas it did not take terribly long to determine that this bill is certainly not worthy of support.Let us look at the intention that was expressed as to what this bill would achieve. The explanatory note purports that the deal the Government struck with Skycity to build the convention centre would expose the taxpayer to risk and that repealing the provisions—that Skycity would build a convention centre with no outlay of taxpayer money in return for some regulatory concessions—reduces risk to the taxpayer. I am afraid the reality is that it would have the absolute opposite effect because instead of a convention centre being built for an outlay of zero taxpayer dollarsin return for those regulatory concessions the taxpayer would in fact be in the gun for the $400 million full value of the centre. It is difficult to see how under any interpretation of English that that somehow places a lesser risk on taxpayers than spending nothing.Further than that if we were to pass this particular member’s bill we must also question what would happen to the reputational risk of New Zealand and the New Zealand Government if investors around the world—even our own citizens could not have confidence that a Government of theirs when entering into a commercial agreement would actually honour the terms of the agreement. So there is no question in my mind that the bill does not actually do what it would purport to do. For that reason alone it is not worthy of support. But I look even more broadly than that context and I look at why it is we even have the convention centre—what the impact of removing it or removing the way we can achieve that for zero taxpayer outlay would be.This is a Government that is working hard to grow the economy to provide more jobs and to build opportunities for New Zealanders. This convention centre will deliver growth and jobs to New Zealanders and mainly in Auckland. It is one that would help to place Auckland on the international map for convention destinations and the flow-on impact of that which we get from Tourism New Zealand is a greater increase in tourism dollar spend in Auckland. This is because more than half of the convention-goers would have a partner or a spouse with them and the daily spend of groups like that is about $3000 a head so we get a higher-value tourist a greater spend and Auckland on the map as a destination. It would certainly boost tourism for Auckland and perhaps even more broadly as many tourists when they visit Auckland will also pay side visits to the other parts of New Zealand.The convention centre itself if we look at other infrastructure of a similar nature that might have been built in the past would produce a capacity of about 3150 maximum delegates spinoff benefits of a projected annual injection into the economy of about $90 million 1000 jobs during construction and 800 jobs ongoing once the convention centre is up and running.It is worth noting that tourism is already 7 percent of our gross domestic product and this deal that we have reached would help to grow that further. We have heard in recent days members opposite trying to make a lot of noise about how our economy is exposed to one particular area of exports in terms of dairy which is not performing as strongly at the moment as it has in the past and they talk about diversification. Well all the more reason if they really meant what they were saying that they would leap in behind and vote against this bill in support of the deal the Government has done with Skycity to further raise growth in the tourism industry in New Zealand and help to provide that diversification.The bill simply will not do what it states its intention is. It is a poorly drafted bill a poorly directed bill and I do not support it.