Turei Metiria: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is subject to correctionTurei Metiria: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 06 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14436. Text is subject to correction.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I want to address another part of clause 3 of the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill and that is the part that is the tricky way that the Government has got around not amending the Gambling Act. It is worthwhile remembering that the Gambling Act says that there will be no more casinos there will be no increase in the space that casinos can use for gaming machines and there will be no more machines or gambling opportunities at casinos. The Gambling Act essentially provides a blanket prohibition on any expansion of any casino.As was described by my colleagues in Labour any attempt to change the Gambling Act for just this one business—for Skycity—runs completely contrary to the entire purpose of the Gambling Act. So in order to get around this absolute prohibition for just Skycity this one business in the gambling industry the Government has had to do a lot of wording machinations and a bit of management here and there. In clause 3(2)(a)(ii) it discusses the purpose of the agreement and it provides for “the granting of changes to the regulatory regime applying to the SKYCITY Casino …”. That is how the Government is using this legislation to avoid the prohibitions against expanding the casino business in the Gambling Act.Many Auckland businesses I understand are actually rather frustrated and quite angry at the extent to which Skycity has been given this special privilege by the National Government by Steven Joyce and John Key. The Government gives Skycity this extra-special deal—worth billions of dollars actually—through this tricky legislative mechanism to try to avoid the prohibition in the Gambling Act. But what is really important and concerning to us with that is that the purpose of the Gambling Act is to place constraints on gambling operations. Casinos were allowed eventually to operate in New Zealand and part of the social contract that allowed casinos to come to New Zealand was that there would be constraints on them: constraints on how large they would be and constraints in terms of regulation to minimise problem gambling as much as possible. That was the social contract. That is the deal—that they can operate in this country as a legitimate business as long as they adhere to the law.What we have had with Skycity over the last I do not know more than a decade is Skycity continually challenging the Gambling Commission and continually challenging the Gambling Act provisions in an attempt to expand its business. It has time after time I understand taken the Gambling Commission to court to try to get the Gambling Commission’s rules changed so that Skycity can expand its business. Time and time again the Gambling Act provisions which place an absolute prohibition on the expansionof its business have won out. Every single time Skycity has not been able to get what it wanted. It has not been able to breach the social contract that casinos have with New Zealanders which allows casinos to operate legitimately here with some kind of social licence.Then along comes John Key who has a few dinners with the Skycity top bosses and suddenly the entire social contract is blown out of the water. The whole social contract—the social licence that Skycity Casino has to operate in New Zealand—is destroyed over a couple of fancy dinners and a couple of bottles of fancy wine with John Key because John Key wants a monument to his prime ministership when he eventually goes after the next election. Skycity finally found the guy who would give it the deal for which it has been fighting for years which was to get outside the Gambling Act. That is what clause 3 says. It is a “get out of jail free” card for Skycity Casino to avoid the controls that society placed on casinos and the controls that are placed on Skycity.Those controls are primarily designed to protect New Zealanders from the harm from casino gambling—gambling in general but casino gambling in particular. They were agreed to because it is globally acknowledged that casino gambling causes harm that pokie machines are designed to be addictive—they are designed expressly for the purpose of hooking people in and creating an addiction. There is widely known research around the world. So there is a need for legislation to try to curb the harms and that is what the Gambling Act does. But we have now—