Chauvel Charles: Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chauvel Charles: Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6651. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I would like to begin by commending the member who has sponsored this legislation Metiria Turei. I think it is timely that the Parliament should look at the issues that are raised by the bill the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill. As we heard from her careful introductory speech the bill would amend section 7 of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 which defines whether or not an entity has unlawfully benefited from significant criminal activity. What her amendment would do is add one subclause to that definition. It would clarify that the principal Act does apply to a casino and that a casino is for the purpose of the definition in the legislation “taken to have knowingly derived a benefit from significant criminal activity if it knew or should have known having regard to best international practice in the detection of problem gambling and criminal activity that the benefit is derived or likely to be derived from the proceeds of significant criminal activity.” The previous speaker Jonathan Young said: “Well what is this concept of ‘should have known’? How can a casino be put in a position that it ought to have known that there was something dodgy about the money that it was receiving?” Well the reality is that this concept of “ought to have known” is one that is very well known to the law and the criminal law in particular. 
Where an entity is put into a position of great privilege as casinos have been in our society by legislation then a corollary of that great privilege is that we as a Parliament should watch them closely and if we are concerned that they might be causing social harm or if we are concerned that they might be assisting the laundering of money in any way then we ought to take that issue very very seriously. That is really the nub of the reason why my Labour colleagues and I will be supporting this legislation to go to the Commerce Committee and why I hope that National members and others will do so. If we do not frankly then the suspicion will arise rightly or wrongly that the casino and the gambling industries are exerting undue influence over us and that is not— 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: Oh! 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Well there goes the Minister of Police who starved the police of enforcement resources during her tenure yet we had her colleague Mr Young tell us just before that all was well that the police had enough resource to do their job and that enforcement in respect of casinos and otherwise was all fine. If all that was true then there would be no harm in sending this bill to a select committee to hear advice to hear submissions from the public and to consider whether or not it was a merited measure or whether the previous speaker is right and there are existing provisions in the law that deal with this. 
That is what the purpose of members’ day should be. Members do not have the access that the executive has to expert advice to public servants and to all the panoply of expertise that Ministers can draw on. We have to rely on our own resources in order to put forward measures that we think are sensible. There is no doubt that there is great concern in the community about the way in which casino gambling is operating and in particular the interface with organised crime and the potential to launder money through organisations such as casinos. In light of that overwhelming public concern it behoves us not to act simply as the lapdogs of the industry but to ask ourselves what is the responsible thing to do in this situation. It is absolutely clear to me and to my colleagues as responsible independent legislators who have a concern about ensuring both for the sake of the public and for the industry for that matter that everything is seen to be conducted with probity and above board that Metiria Turei’s bill should go to a select committee be considered by members of Parliament in a deliberative fashion and that they should hear advice from experts and hear submissions from the public. If the National Party and its allies deny that opportunity to this Parliament then simply the result will be that members’ day is brought further into disrepute.