Sabin Mike: Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSabin Mike: Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 27 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:940. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MIKE SABIN (National—Northland):I am glad to be able to take the opportunity to rebut some of the comments that Trevor Mallard has made. I will give the House an appreciation of what happened. I took over as the new chairperson of the Law and Order Committee. I went to the member because he held that portfolio as the Opposition spokesman. I explained to him about the truncated nature of the matter from this point because this legislation clearly needs to pass before the end of this sitting year. I asked him whether there were any concerns or anything he wanted to bring to my attention. He gave me a range of sporting bodies and said it would be good for these people to be approached.At that stage when I spoke to the member Trevor Mallard he told me that he did not know how long the bill had been open for submissions or whether it was open for submissions. At that point it had been open for submissions for some 3½ months. I took the names of those organisations instructed the clerk to make contact and I also spoke to the officials about whom they had been in contact with. As a result of putting out the requests to those people and to a number of others actually one further submitter came forward and said that they wanted to make a submission.When I spoke to the officials on that they advised that as a result of many months of consultation related to the sports codes of conduct work and the work that has actually been going on behind this—I think the honourable member makes a very good point about the fact that there has to be alignment between codes of conduct and this legislation. Otherwise you can get into a mickey mouse situation where the codes of conduct actually undermine what this legislation is setting out to do. But on checking with the officials in terms of the level of engagement and putting out a call to those additional groups and some others I might add to see whether or not they wanted to make submissions it was quite clear that they had been involved in heavy consultation and they had no matters to raise with the committee. I am not sure whether I am supposed to go and force them into the committee to make some conversation. I am sure that if the member felt they had some valuable contribution to make in terms of ensuring the process to align the codes of conduct and codes of ethics that sporting codes are working on the member would go and speak to them regardless of the select committee process.Hon Trevor Mallard: I have. I have.MIKE SABIN: Well then Mr Mallard why did they not want to come along to the committee?Hon Trevor Mallard: Because I saw them afterwards because you shut them out.MIKE SABIN: That is just simply not the case Mr Mallard. That is simply not the case. As a new chairperson I went directly and the first person I spoke to was Mr Mallard. He has come into this House and misrepresented the exact situation. I am a man of my word. I covered that off. [Interruption] That is absolutely the case Mr Mallard. What you are saying does not line up with what I did. I also spoke to you and advised you subsequently that they had come back and said admittedly via the officials that they did not want to not have any submissions.Hon Trevor Mallard: Just because the officials didn’t want them to come doesn’t mean—MIKE SABIN: It was not at all related to the fact that the officials did not want them to come. They never said that at all. Mr Goff was on the committee at the time and he will vouch for that.But I will come back to the bill. Obviously with the upcoming World Cup this is important and I do accept what the honourable member Trevor Mallard says about the fact that we are now pressed up against Christmas-time and this bill needs to be passed.In a perfect world we would be in a position where all the legislation that we want to have in front of the House is passed through in a timely manner and there would not be delays. But I have to say that members on the other side of the House will stand there and occupy as much time as they can with hot breath not adding value to anything to try to stall that very legislation and they then turn round and say it should have been happening faster. I am not privy to why it was that this legislation has not got to the point where it should have but I accept that it is important legislation and it must pass. But it is also clear that the submission process was open for 3½ months.It is a very simple piece of legislation. I actually think that although it is an important piece of legislation the most important work that is going on alongside it is the work of Sport New Zealand with the governing bodies of sporting organisations to ensure that the codes of ethics the codes of conduct the rules are actually such that we get people on to—no pun intended—a level playing field. I think it is fair to say that that has not been the case.It is also the case that this bill is relatively narrow in that it does not set out to criminalise behaviour that we would consider to be just cheating. I am reminded of the famous line-out episode of one Andy Haden although I am not sure he would accept it was cheating. But if a sporting athlete gets into a situation where they are collapsing a scrum or where they are taking a fall a dive or what have you to influence an outcome that may give them a better position in the following round or so on and so forth clearly that is gamesmanship and arguably something that should not happen but it does. But when someone does that and there is a pecuniary advantage or they bet on the outcome—Hon Trevor Mallard: What about a win bonus?MIKE SABIN: Well I guess that falls into a similar category.Hon Trevor Mallard: No it doesn’t.MIKE SABIN: No no it does. It is quite clear that this legislation does not set out to criminalise the sort of behaviour that could result in people dropping a game to put themselves in a better round to get a better draw to win a bonus. That is the challenge. If you look at this—and it is considered world-leading legislation—it is a very complex area because the depth and layers of match fixing particularly are quite substantive. But this is very clear and it is very narrow in its intentions. It is about a bet a pecuniary advantage and someone trying to leverage an outcome of a match simply for that.Although the honourable member regrettably is obviously concerned about the select committee process I can put my hand on my heart and say that I was setting out to achieve exactly what he wants. This is not only important for match fixing it is actually also important for sporting codes to ensure that the sort of gamesmanship and nonsense that we can sometimes see is eliminated as part of this. This is not so say that it is criminalised but it is important that all sports are played in a fair and upfront manner. I commend the bill.