Robertson Grant: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:11981. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour):This casino bill the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill is a disgraceful piece of legislation built off a dodgy deal done without transparency or accountability and off the back of morally bankrupt exploitation of problem gamblers. The epitaph of this Government iscronyism: make the deals with the vested interests make the deals with its mates and ignore New Zealanders’ interests.Skycity is a business. It saw a chance to make some money. It saw a chance to avoid some costs. It saw a chance and it went for it. Whatever I might think of that it is a business looking out for itself. Well I have got a message for John Key: New Zealand is not some corporation that he gets to play around with; New Zealand is a democracy with a good reputation for transparency and accountability. New Zealanders expect honesty and accountability from their leaders and John Key has failed to deliver honesty and accountability on this. New Zealand is not a corporation to be John Key’s plaything. He needs to respect New Zealanders’ wishes that we have an accountable Government we have a transparent Government and we have a Government that is upfront with its citizens.This Government owes its citizens much more than dodgy tawdry deals like this one. It owes its citizens some respect—respect for their interests and respect for the basic rules of democracy. That has been absent from John Key’s dodgy deal from day one. Let us start at the beginning with the whole process of awarding this contract. The Deputy Auditor-General has done her report on this. John Key likes to tell the House that he has been totally vindicated by that report. He says that the Government was totally vindicated by the report of the Deputy Auditor-General—except for the fact that the Deputy Auditor-General says that the process for awarding this contract to Skycity was flawed it was not transparent and it was not even-handed. They are the words of the Deputy Auditor-General and John Key tries to claim that this process was OK.I can tell members of the House when this process went dodgy when this process became non-transparent. It was when John Key wrote on the top of a briefing note on 24 August 2009: “Close off the Skycity angle.” That is what John Key wrote on that briefing paper and from that moment on all the officials working on this process directed their energy towards Skycity and no one else. The other bidders in this process were not given a fair go. The Deputy Auditor-General actually said that. She said: “we regard it”—the failure to clearly communicate the Government’s position—“as symptomatic of the lack of attention to procedural risks” and that gives rise to concerns about “the fairness and credibility of the process.” That is the Auditor-General saying that the other people who were bidding to build this convention centre were not treated the same as Skycity. Skycity was taken out of this and taken away by the Government and dealt with differently. That is not the kind of fairness or transparency that New Zealanders expect.The Prime Minister is donkey deep in this dodgy deal. In May 2009 he met with the chief executive of Skycity. In July 2009 his chief of staff met with Skycity officials. In August 2009 he told officials to close off the Skycity angle. In 15 October 2009 Bill English gets alongside the Skycity officials. Then by November 2009 it is another one of John Key’s mandates—he is there with the Skycity chief executive finishing off this deal. No other bidder got those opportunities. They were afforded only to Skycity. This is a dodgy deal. This is cronyism. This is looking after vested interests. This is looking after the Government’s mates not New Zealanders’ mates. This dodgy deal was wrong from day one and the Deputy Auditor-General has been clear about that.Then the Government comes to this House with a bill that binds future Governments into concessions to these people: 230 extra pokie machines 40 extra gaming tables cashless gaming machines and ticket-in ticket-out machines—a whole load of concessions. That is a whole load of concessions which include a 35-year extension to the licence. Those concessions will increase gambling harm and it is outrageous for Steven Joyce to stand up in this House today and say “We can’t say whether there will be an increase in gambling harm.” What the regulatory impact statement says is that wecannot say just how much it will be but there will be an increase in gambling harm—there will be. What they estimate in this report is that there will be around an extra 8000 potential problem gamblers because of this change—because of this change.It is interesting to note that the Government had the option of amending the Gambling Act rather than bringing in this new piece of legislation. The reason that the Government has not gone ahead with amending the Gambling Act rather than introducing this new piece of legislation is in the regulatory impact statement. What it says is that the Gambling Act’s purpose is minimising the harm caused by gambling. So the Government cannot amend that Act because this bill would be against that purpose. That is why it cannot amend the Gambling Act. It is because the Gambling Act says that we should minimise gambling harm. This bill increases gambling harm and that is why the Government has to do a stand-alone piece of legislation.If nothing else what that must tell New Zealanders is that this bill is about increasing gambling harm. The trade-offs that this Government thinks it is making between building a convention centre and an extra 8000 problem gamblers have been accurately described today by Campbell Roberts from the Salvation Army. He has made absolutely clear that the harm minimisation measures in this bill are a joke. They are neither robust nor effective and they do not represent any significant improvement on the current ineffective practices of the Skycity Casino. This Government is making gambling harm worse. It has introduced this bill today which will get an extra 8000 potential problem gamblers.But at the same time Skycity is laughing all the way to the bank because it can extract the extra profits and it will not have to go through the process that other people in the gambling sector will. By having its licence extended it means that it does not have to undergo the statutory renewal processes that it would have undergone in 2021 or in 2036. In doing so not only does that save it money; it means that the public do not get to know what is going on in terms of what Skycity does. It removes the opportunity for local authority input. It removes the opportunity for public input into the licence renewal proposals for Skycity. On that point alone the Government members should hang their heads in shame—that they are prepared to extend the licence of Skycity so that the public and the local authority in Auckland will not be able to have a say.This is shameful on all counts—the dodgy process and this bill that comes to the House that extends the licence that creates extra problem gamblers. We cannot even use the Gambling Act because the Gambling Act says “reduced harm” which is why Labour brought it inin 2003. That is why the Government is avoiding it today because it knows that this legislation will increase gambling harm.Today there is meant to be a personal vote or a conscience vote. There is no personal vote or conscience vote coming from the National side and I can tell you why we know that. We know that there are members on that side of the House who understand the impact of gambling harm who understand how it destroys families who understand the damage that it does right across communities. In the past they have stood up against problem gambling but today they do not. They are not exercising their consciences.John Key has systematically and deliberately undermined basic New Zealand values through this dodgy deal. It is shameful legislation and the National members who are today being prevented from exercising their consciences know this. This bill is morally wrong. This bill is morally bankrupt. The Labour Party is disgusted by this bill. Labour will not be bullied out of making changes to gambling law because of what this Government says. If Labour sees gambling harm when it is in Government it will legislate to deal with gambling harm. John Key cannot get away with this dodgy tawdry deal. It is morally bankrupt and the Labour Party is utterly opposed to it.