O'Connor Simon: New Zealand International Convention Centre Act 2013 Repeal Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Simon: New Zealand International Convention Centre Act 2013 Repeal Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5236. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I want to begin by acknowledging Tracey Martin as the sponsor of this bill. It will be no surprise to her that I will not be supporting it.Tracey Martin: Oh!SIMON O’CONNOR: I know shocker! For not only personal reasons but for constituency reasons I have found going throughout my electorate in Tāmaki that there is support for this New Zealand International Convention Centre for a number of reasons. I will come to that. I think it is important to acknowledge the hard work that Ms Martin has put into this. She is the hardest-working in that party and I think it is great that her bill has been drawn out and that we get a chance to acknowledge that tonight.Pita Paraone: What are you after?SIMON O’CONNOR: The Opposition—I am interested in truth and it is good that your side begins to wake up and acknowledge some of the great work that your members are doing. But I oppose this bill as other colleagues have done. Again on reflection I cannot help but think that there is a new entertainment troupe that could go to the convention centre after we have heard some of the deliberations and sharings in the House today. I am not going to mention names but even in the course of this particular discussion we have had there were very entertaining flamboyant qualities. Yes we do not need a Blue Man Group or whatever at Skycity after this.The agreement has been signed. It has been signed. It is unfortunate in some ways that this bill has come so late and after the fact. The reputation of the Government is incredibly important at any time and certainly when it comes to anything to do with contracting. Having come from that background myself your word is your honour and how you articulate that in a written form is incredibly important. For the Government the Crown to repudiate that now to turn on that would be unfortunate and goes well beyond just simple costs. But costs themselves are important. The call for a convention centre and a convention centre of a sufficient size in Auckland has been there for a very long time. We are fully cognisant that the Labour Party has supported Skycity in the past—paradoxically also allowing 230 pokie machines as part of the deal. But a convention centre that does not cut the mustard does not actually adequately support Auckland.The National Party MPs in Auckland like myself want to see a convention centre that Aucklanders want to actually help support our city. We think we have got an incredibly good deal here. Ultimately for some changes in regulation and yes for more pokie machines we are able to build and develop a world-class convention centre in Auckland. Even the current Mayor of Auckland is supportive of it. As I said a bit earlier constituents of mine who work in the industry or who are associated with it are supportive of this. It is going to actually be good for the whole of New Zealand because not every convention will ever be able to be held in Auckland but through a great convention centre there I think it will actually highlight the convention centres in other places like Queenstown. New Zealand is a small country; people can travel. So I do not see this as having any implications on the regional sector. I think in fact that this will highlight and further enhance New Zealand as a destination for conventions.The other element around this is that we as taxpayers ultimately do not have to put forward one cent for this to be built. The risk is being taken on by a private firm and I think there is always room for the Crown to stake the taxpayer to engage along with the private sector. This is a very positive step in this regard.I think the last point that I want to raise because there has been some sort of philosophical discussion around harms and how we balance those is that in society there is always harm. There is harm to do with gambling be it the pokies Lotto or horse racing. The quality of a Government is to balance those harms. We do not live in some sort of utopian world. No offence to my colleague from Epsom. The theories that various economists and the like will put forward are all well and nice but our challenge here is to balance those harms.So to Ms Martin and others who are supporting the bill I think we do have the right balance in building this convention centre. We are putting in the checks and balances required around gambling because we are aware that it causes harm but we think that the benefits of having this convention centre far outweigh any other concerns and I oppose the bill.