Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. The National Party does support the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill although we have to look across the other side of the House and see a Government that is completely muddled in its approach to crime. So today we've had the Minister of Justice come in wearing her I'm tough on crime" hat—that is the hat that she's wearing today—but it's the same day that another Government Minister has blamed all the violent crime on white cis males whatever that is and has had a very strange approach to law and order to blame one particular ethnic group for all the crime and refuse to apologise for it. So we're having a muddled approach to law and order. Then another time we have the Prime Minister—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Can you muddle your way back to the bill—Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yes. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): —please the Hon Paul Goldsmith. Thank you. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you Madam Speaker. At the same time on another day we'll have the Prime Minister going to Hawke's Bay and downplaying fears that the community has about crime. So on that particular day they had a different approach; today they've got the "tough on crime" approach. But then it's very confusing because the only other legislation of substance that the Government has done on law and order has been to repeal the three-strikes legislation. So on one day they say that "Our sentences are too tough for our worst repeat offenders and we're going to shorten the sentences for those people." but then on another day like today they say that "We're tough on crime and we're going to make the gangsters pay." and I think that is part of the problem. So if you are a gangster in New Zealand you're looking and you're trying to figure out what the Government is doing and you can't figure it out because one day they say "We're going to make sure that you don't go to prison for longer if you're a repeat serious offender." on another day they say "We'll give you some extra money to run some meth programmes in the Hawke's Bay." and then on another day the—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! The member will actually talk about this bill. The way that he's actually giving his speech right now is a general debate but bring it back to this particular bill. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Point of order Madam Speaker. I did note that the Minister of Justice gave a very wide-ranging speech on a whole range of justice issues and she listed about 15 things that they'd done not related to this bill whatsoever and so I assume that this was a reasonably broad debate on how this bill fitted within the wider justice policy. Is that not the case? ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): This is the third reading of this particular bill. Hon Mark Mitchell: Point of order Madam Speaker just to support my colleague's point. I listened very carefully to the Minister's address because in the debate we should be able to get up and respond to that as the Opposition and she made a very broad-ranging speech. She talked about youth crime she talked about youth offenders she talked about gang leaders and she talked about the banning of gang patches and so I would have thought that as the Opposition we were entitled to also be able to respond to those comments. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Speaking to the point of order this is actually a particular bill; it is about gangs. What I'm actually saying to the member is bring it back to the bill. You haven't even spoken about this particular bill. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I have. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Talk about the bill. Before you actually talk about the world and all the other issues about crime talk about this bill.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Thank you Madam Speaker. I can talk about this bill and the purpose of this bill is to make it tougher on gang members in particular but people who have made money out of crime. The purpose of this bill is to make it a little bit easier for Government agencies—enforcement agencies—to get some of that money back through the proceeds of crime. The previous National Government set up a regime where we were able to go after the proceeds of crime and say "You've made a lot of money. We'll get it off you and take it off you if it is money that's been made out of the proceeds of crime." and then what we've got here is the next iteration of what is effectively a game of cat and mouse because the criminals are crafty. They find some way of putting the money somewhere else—to associated parents to family members—and this legislation is the next step in that game to say "Well hang on a moment. If you hand it over to an associate and they can't come up with any justification of how they've got that money and we can show that it's coming through and it can't be explained then we'll go after that money as well particularly if it's over a threshold of $30000." That's the point of this legislation and in so far as it goes we welcome it for sending a message that crime shouldn't pay and that the people of New Zealand don't tolerate it and they will make an effort to come after you and get some of that money back. So the message that this bill is sending is that this Government will come after the worst criminals. The point I'm making is that it's confusing because if you are a criminal who has done well out of the proceeds of crime and is sitting on a lot of money you will see this legislation and think "OK all right. The Government is going to come after me and my associates." but then it is confusing because while the Government is doing that at the same time they are reducing sentences for our worst repeat offenders by repealing three strikes and they are also giving money to the very same gang organisations to run meth programmes—which nobody can quite understand. You've also got a Prime Minister standing up in the Hawke's Bay when everybody is concerned about law and order and saying there's nothing to worry about downplaying it and pretending that there isn't an issue. So people are confused—rightly—about where this Government is coming from when it comes to law and order and when it comes to crime. They're even more confused if they listen to the coalition partner the Greens who stand up and say that the one thing we need to do is that it's outrageous that if you're on the run and you've got a warrant out for your arrest we take your benefit off you and we should change the rules so you can still get your benefit when you're on the run and you've got a warrant out for your arrest. So people are quite confused about where this Government is coming from because they are sending a message that they're tough on crime but really they're soft on crime. More importantly they are soft on the causes of crime because they don't do anything around the long-term issues such as truancy housing and all those sorts of things—and Madam Speaker you would be quite right if I was to go further down that route to try and draw me back to this particular piece of legislation. So the National Party supports this effort in so far as it goes to give the enforcement agencies a greater ability to come after the people who have made money out of crime and to claw back some of those funds. Now there was an argument about the threshold. The threshold set was $30000 and we rightly made the point that well that's great. So your Harley-Davidson which is worth $25000—you can keep that because it's not a significant proceed of crime. It's a small one so what you do is you give your Harley-Davidson to your mother-in-law and it's hers and everything's sweet. Well that's not very effective and is pretty easily dealt with. One of the changes that we insisted on and it was made during the select committee process was to make the point that the $30000 is a cumulative figure. So if you have two Harley-Davidsons for example and collectively they got over the $30000 limit then they would both be caught. But we would have argued for a lower limit—we would have argued for $10000 and really put the pressure on—and so the Government was a bit mixed in its signals there. I'd also agree with the changes around KiwiSaver. It would be a bad state of affairs if one way to keep your money if you have ill-gotten funds is to stick it into a KiwiSaver account and that was regarded as sacrosanct and we'd never get into that. I'm all for people saving for their retirement I'm all for strengthening the KiwiSaver regime and I think that's appropriate and fine but it shouldn't be used as a "get out of jail free" card when it comes to ill-gotten gains so that they could never be taken off you. So we agree with that thing. But I come back Madam Speaker to my overall message which is that this is a Government that is muddled on crime. It's sending mixed signals and that is why we have a situation in this country where many New Zealanders perceive that the law and order situation has got worse and it's not just a perception because there has been a clear increase in violent crime over the past few years. There's been a massive increase in gunshot crime there's been a massive increase in ram raids and all these things—some of which bring extra resources in; some of them don't—people are rightly concerned about and they look to the Government and they ask themselves "Well what is this Government's approach to crime?" They see that the only target in the broad justice sector that has been articulated by a Minister as the thing that they're trying to deal with is a 30 percent reduction in prison numbers. So they see crime is going up like that—they see violent crime going up about 40 percent—and they see prison numbers going down like that. They try and reconcile those two and they can't work it out and they can't work it out because it makes no sense. It makes no sense at all other than an ideologically driven reduction in prison numbers regardless or irrespective of what's happening on the ground and in the community.So I come back to my basic point which is that this is a bill that we support. It will make some difference. It sends a message that society will not tolerate criminals making a whole lot of money and keeping it and that we will come after you. We've given new tools for that to happen today and it may help a little bit in that game of cat and mouse that we continue to play sadly with people who seek to make money out of the misery of others and their fellow New Zealanders. We support it but we just do wish that the Government was more consistent in its approach to law and order and more consistent in the message that it sends to the criminal fraternity in this country who seek to make money from the misery of others—and that's our message. But overall this is a bill that will help in some small way. Thank you."