Goff Phil: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 12 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14555. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): Jonathan Young who just resumed his seat chaired the select committee that considered this legislation the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. What Jonathan Young did not explain to the House was why he refused the Opposition the right to question the Department of Internal Affairs the Department of Health or Treasury by having them before the Commerce Committee to determine what the real impact of this bill would be—not the narrow impact that allows Skycity a generous $400 million subsidy to build an international convention centre but the cost to New Zealand of extra gambling machines and extra gambling tables which those officials would have explained to Mr Young and to the select committee would cost this country dearly by accelerating the problem of gambling addiction in this country.I listened with amazement to Bill English who moved that this legislation be read a third time—Bill English whose own Treasury department said this bill will be of immense private benefit to Skycity but of very little public benefit to New Zealand. It is no wonder Bill English and Jonathan Young did not come into this House to tell the truth about what this bill will actually do but rather glossed over the problems and tried to present this as a huge benefit to New Zealand. It is not that. This is a bad piece of legislation which has been passed through incredibly bad process and should not be passed by the House through this third reading today.This is not about an international convention centre. If we need an international convention centre according to this right-wing Government which believes in the free market then surely market forces will allow for the funding of an international convention centre. But no apparently this convention centre which will be of so great a value to New Zealand can survive only if it has the benefit of an enormous subsidy to Skycity: 230 extra gambling machines and 40 additional tables.Bill English tried to tell the House that the gambling machines accelerated under a Labour Government. I want Mr English to look back at the provisions of the 2003 Gambling Act because that Act caused a turn-round in the otherwise growth of gambling machines and gambling tables by setting a policy whereby the number of gambling machines would reduce as they did from a peak of 23000 before that Act to around 14000 today. The Gambling Act was about harm minimisation. The reason why this bill is a stand-alone piece of legislation and not an amendment to the Gambling Act is because this bill contradicts the very essence of the Gambling Act which is to minimise harm. This bill actually reverses the sinking lid on gambling machines for Skycity and gives it an incredibly privileged position which will last through to 2048. I cannot remember when we last moved legislation through this House to create a privileged position for a private sector profit-making enterprise that would be locked in for 35 years—and that is what this legislation does. It is a gift to Skycity that will keep on giving for 35 years through to 2048.I say this: the Government is doing this because it thinks it can get it cheap and it thinks it can provide positive benefit to its own cronies. Where does the National Party meet every election night? It meets at Skycity. Where does it get its funding from? Is anybody from the National Party prepared to stand up and deny that Skycity is a major funder of this National Party at election time? Is any one of them prepared to make that statement? Of course they are not prepared to make the statement.The fact is that something that should have been through an open competitive tendering process that was transparent to everybody was done as a dirty dodgy deal behind closed doors. It was done over a couple of bottles of wine and a fine meal no doubt supplied by Skycity. John Key met with them twice and he left there giving them a gold-plated deal—a gold-plated deal. John Key was the one who instructed officials not to deal with the other tenderers but to give preference to Skycity. That might befine if you are a wide boy working as a currency trader; it has no place as a proper process in the public sector. In fact it is a disgrace. So disgraceful was it that the Auditor-General thought that she needed to have a look at this so she held an inquiry. The currency trader tried to pre-empt her. A couple of days before the report was due to be delivered John Key said publicly no doubt at his post-Cabinet press conference: “This report totally vindicates me.” That is simply untrue.The Deputy Auditor-General’s report when it came out did anything but totally vindicate John Key. In fact the Deputy Auditor-General said she had found deficiencies in the role of Ministers and in the role of the officials. She said this: “we do not consider that the evaluation process was transparent and even-handed.” That is moderate language. That is language becoming a Deputy Auditor-General. But the intent of that language was in fact very clear. What the Deputy Auditor-General was saying was that this was wrongly done and it was cronyism and that is indeed what this process represents. It was biased it was done in secret and it was not on a level playing field. That sort of conduct has no place in a democracy and a country that is proud of the lack of corruption or the low level of corruption that exists within it. The Prime Minister of this country was saying that it is OK to do a deal behind the scenes it is OK to look after your mates it is OK to cut other people out by not having a level playing field and it is OK to give private benefit to a major multinational profit-making commercial enterprise at the cost of those who suffer from gambling addictions.This clearly increases the harm from gambling. This document was read by the Ministers who have pushed this bill through the House. It is called the regulatory impact statement and what does it tell us? It says: “most of the money spent on gambling in New Zealand is spent on gaming machines and substantial proportions of it by people who play machines frequently. New Zealand studies have found that gaming machines are associated with harm more often than any other form of gambling.” The Government in passing this legislation was told by its own officials that it was actually promoting the most damaging form of gambling there is in this country.There is not a member in this House who has not gone and watched those poor unfortunate people who bend over those machines for hours at a time. They do not move they feed the money to them they suffer from gambling addiction and this regulatory impact statement says that as a result of this Government’s legislation that it is trying to ram through today there will be another 8000 families who are affected by gambling addiction. Of those 6500 people will be children. They are people like the woman in my electorate who goes down and spends her benefit on the gambling machines. This will feed the problem that she and thousands of others suffer and that Government will come back and blame that woman take away her benefit further punish her kids when actually it is supporting the cause of the harm in the first place and that is intolerable.I want to say that this bill is dodgy. I want to say that this bill will result in more gambling harm. The evidence is there in black and white given to the Government before it did it. This bill should not proceed.