McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Mr Speaker. The National Party will support this bill to first reading and I'll discuss those factors a little later on. I just wanted to broadly outline the racing industry and the state it's in as I see it. The racing industry's very important to rural New Zealand with many communities still vitally involved in their local racing clubs. It's equally as important to the New Zealand economy as a whole. Thoroughbreds harness and the greyhound racing sectors are all critical components of a great day out. Local communities are also very involved in the racing-club - owned properties where a huge variety of events take place in many communities from Saturday morning sport Country Women's Institutes school events pony clubs and many many other community activities—all hugely valued by their respective communities as are those properties that belong to that sector. The Minister referred to the Messara report. Last year the Minister engaged the leading Australian racing administrator and stud master John Messara to provide a report on the state of the New Zealand racing industry. He provided a pretty comprehensive report much of which we support some of which makes us nervous and some of which we won't support in the future. Some of the recommendations of that report are included in this bill; some of the recommendations will be included in legislation to come to the House a little later. The Racing Amendment Bill introduced by the Hon David Bennett late in 2017 was considered by the Primary Production Committee early in 2018. It contained many of the recommendations encompassed in this bill and had it been passed at the time the racing industry would have been some $16 million better off. If it had been passed at the time parts of this bill that weren't included in that bill could easily have been included in a further bill introduced to the House as this one has been. So I want to refer to some of the features of the Racing Reform Bill. The first one is the transitional governance arrangements or the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) which is effectively going to replace the Racing Industry Board which has been governing the industry since 2002. RITA is put in place to run the industry and to implement changes which are put in place by this bill. The Racing Industry Transitional Authority will be replaced in a second piece of legislation to follow later in the year; its term running out on 30 June 2020. This is one of the problems or one of the challenges that we find in supporting this bill in that that authority is appointed by the Minister and can be appointed effectively by the Minister in perpetuity if the second part of the legislation doesn't take place. So effectively we're placing an industry in the control of a Minister of the Crown. I hope that this will meet with much debate at select committee. I want to make the point that we think this is unsatisfactory. At the same time we have complete confidence in the ability and the quality of the six members of the Racing Industry Transitional Authority that the Minister intends to appoint.The piece that we wholeheartedly do support in this bill relates to the offshore charges betting information use charge and point of consumption charges. This is effectively the same piece of legislation that I referred to earlier introduced to the House some nearly two years ago by the Hon David Bennett. The delay has effectively as I said cost the industry an amount estimated in excess of $16 million. We support this piece of the bill. It effectively provides a basis for collecting revenue from offshore betting operators who provide betting services to New Zealanders. That is significant—it could be more significant the amount of money I've talked about actually; it's significantly used by New Zealanders and it's certainly something that needs to be addressed. The next issue I want to touch on is the totalisator duty repeal. This repeals the betting levy which will mean some $13.9 million on current estimates being returned to the sporting and racing sectors on a pro rata basis with at least a portion put into the gambling harm prevention services. This happens over a three-year time frame and again creates some considerable concern for us as there are no legislative pieces to this bill which will distribute those funds in a regulated manner. They will be regulated and those funds will then be distributed on the basis of that regulation. We feel that's also a little unsatisfactory as it's not as transparent as it could be. I want to briefly talk about the change to the distribution of racing and sports revenue. This effectively takes the distribution formula—well it's in fact the racing revenue—from section 16 out of the Racing Act 2003 and allows the application and distribution of racing funds to be determined by regulations. Now I'm relatively confident that the three sectors will come to an agreement on this; none the less if they don't it again creates risk for those sectors. So a lot of discussions have taken place in the industry over this potential change to the legislation and I think it will be interesting to see where that gets to. Again it's a concern for us as to just how that is applied. I want to turn now to sports betting which allows the relevant body the TAB—and I'll turn to the TAB again a little later—or the Racing Industry Board (RIB) through its agency the TAB to offer betting products on sports not represented by a qualifying domestic national sporting organisation provided an agreement is in place with Sport New Zealand. Now I think the challenge we have with this is that again it's going to be subject to regulation. Whether the sporting bodies will receive the amount of money that we feel they should be entitled to or in fact that they feel they're entitled to will be a subjective matter and I think a matter of concern to them all. I have no doubt my colleagues will address that further. Currently the Act has a detailed explanation of how those formulas are calculated. That's being abandoned in the course of this piece of legislation and that's the challenge we face with it. We'll need to be satisfied that sporting bodies are not short-changed by the changes to the distribution of racing sports revenue outlined in clause 13 of the bill. I want to refer back to the Messara report and the relationship between the codes because the Messara report did concentrate on the thoroughbred industry to a large extent and that was the subject of some initial concern amongst the racing codes. Having got through a lot of discussion on that and some 1600 or 1700-odd submissions on that fact I think that the codes are relatively comfortable with where they've got to. None the less they'll need to be comfortable with this piece of legislation as it comes out of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and the following piece of legislation to be sure of that. I said earlier I'd refer to the TAB and I want to refer to it briefly because I've been around the racing industry for a long long time and in all the time I've been involved in that industry there has been discussion about the ownership of the TAB. I'm pretty sure that's not going to be resolved by this piece of legislation. None the less that does create some of the complication in this legislation because I think that's where the discussion or the nervousness around the sporting bodies comes from because effectively the TAB was formed by an Act of Parliament but it was formed under the structure of the racing industry's joint bodies many years ago—I can't remember the exact date. I think that that is a challenge that the TAB and the industry have constantly faced and it's a challenge that makes I think the sporting sector nervous as to just where that might get to. That's why it's so important that it's detailed in whatever comes back to Parliament in the future. I don't propose that we try to resolve the ownership the TAB because I think that's taking it a little too far. Finally I want to make reference to the current members of the Racing Industry Board. They faced a very challenging time in recent years and I think have come out of that challenging time in pretty good shape. I think they've started some work that no doubt the Racing Industry Transition Agency will carry on to a large extent but none the less the industry has been challenged by a number of factors not the least of which is the large amount of money going offshore in betting. I think that the RIB or the members of the Racing Industry Board have done a pretty good job and I think they could be well-satisfied as they hand over at the time this bill sets in place to the RITA.Finally I just thought it was ironic that you're referring a bill to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. It's a long long time—probably the Minister might remember—since horses were used for transport in New Zealand. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.