O'Rourke Denis: Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6653. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 I thought that Jonathan Young’s speech was utterly disgraceful. It was the epitome of National’s head in the sand approach to money-laundering in respect of casinos and it shows National’s pro-casinos approach—you can bet on that. This bill the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill has a very long title but a very simple purpose: to ensure that the proceeds of crime spent in and laundered through casinos are returned to those from whom the proceeds were originally obtained. That is what the principal Act the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was intended to do but does not clearly require. The purpose of the principal Act in section 3(1) is: “The primary purpose of this Act is to establish a regime for the forfeiture of property—(a) that has been derived directly or indirectly from significant criminal activity; or (b) that represents the value of a person’s unlawfully derived income.” 
So New Zealand First supports the bill to make the obligation on casinos to return the money obtained in these ways absolutely certain. It does this by amending section 7 which says: “In this Act unless the context otherwise requires a person has unlawfully benefited from significant criminal activity if the person has knowingly directly or indirectly derived a benefit from significant criminal activity (whether or not that person undertook or was involved in the significant criminal activity).” The relevant part of the section for the purposes of this debate is the word “knowingly”. This means that a prosecutor would need to prove specific knowledge that a benefit has been derived directly or indirectly from significant criminal activity and that is the problem with the current legislation which the members opposite do not seem to understand. It would be difficult to do in the case of casinos which can too easily claim no knowledge when a gambler uses stolen money in the casino or when the gambler sets out on a mission to launder money obtained illegally by gambling in the casino. 
Casinos attract criminals indulging in such activities like flies around a carcass. It is just one more way that casinos damage New Zealand communities in addition to the issues surrounding addictive gambling and encouraging excessive gambling. They also take money away from more wholesome and more beneficial activities. Casinos because of the scope for harm which they generally generate and inherently generate have a special duty of care towards those whom they potentially harm and towards the whole community. So it is appropriate that section 7 be amended so that for the purposes of section 7(1) as it would become a casino would be imputed with knowledge if it should have known that the money being used by a gambler came from significant criminal activity. For this purpose the new section 7(2) which would be inserted by clause 5 of this bill refers to international best practice in the detection of such activities and that is as it should be. The onus must be on the casino to adopt best practice. Plenty of precedents exist for this overseas. Best practice would require such things as surveillance recognition of gamblers’ behaviour recognition of known gamblers and their associates and so on. A very long list of things can be included in best practice for these purposes. 
So I think this bill is extremely well drafted and it will be extremely effective and I cannot understand why the Government would not enthusiastically support it—unless it is soft on crime and maybe that is the answer. Perhaps we have got a National Government that is soft on crime. I think that is the answer and I do not see any denials from those opposite. So here we have a National Government refusing to adopt this bill because it is soft on crime and because it supports casinos and all of the harm that they do. I am disgusted by the attitude of the Government on this bill. It should be enthusiastically embracing it as New Zealand First does.