Roche Denise: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is subject to correctionRoche Denise: New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 06 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14466. Text is subject to correction.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): I would like to speak briefly on some of the Supplementary Order Papers on the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill that we have put forward that do deal with harm minimisation. In the regulatory concessions as we have heard the deal includes a nod towards harm minimisation including increasing the number of Host Responsibility staff that Skycity will have on the floor. Currently it has three and it is going to very generously double that figure to six to cope with the extra 230 pokie machines and the extra 12 automated gambling tables which have 20 seats each as well as the 40 extra gambling tables. So it is going to have six people who will be responsible for checking to make sure that people are not harmed by the gambling that is taking place on those gambling machines.The interesting thing though is that it has not done very well so far. It has not done very well because as we know 40 percent of all the profits that Skycity makes comes from people with problems with their gambling—with no control over their gambling. So increasing the number of staff that it has on the floor is not going to do much at all to reduce gambling harm.As well as that Skycity has introduced as part of the concessions the ticket-in ticket-out system which as I have said before is money for jam for money-launderers. However that is one of the things that it is wanting to introduce. But that means that there are fewer staff actually dealing with money so there are fewer staff on the flooranyway looking at what is going on in terms of being able to identify people who are experiencing difficulties with their gambling behaviour.Some of the Supplementary Order Papers that we have put forward which my colleague co-leader Metiria Turei has already discussed are about the harm minimisations around real-time player tracking and mandatory pre-commitment cards but another one in my name is about the hours of opening. I have Supplementary Order Paper 386 which is about ensuring that no gambling takes place between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. This to some extent is not a big issue. In fact Skycity should just do this voluntarily without it being in legislation because the only type of gambling that occurs between 4 in the morning and 8 in the morning is problem gambling. The person who is standing in front of a pokie machine crying at 4.45 a.m. is not crying from happiness. You can be sure of that.If we consider that inside a casino it is dark you cannot see the sky one does not know what time of the day it is there are no clocks and there are maybe three people lurking about somewhere or possibly six although they have to cover a 24-hour day who may be able to identify that this person has a problem—but we are not banking on that; well maybe Skycity is banking on that but we are not banking on that—as a way of being able to identify somebody who is experiencing difficulty with their gambling then giving a small break in the gambling between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. means that that gambler can go home and actually have a think about what is happening to their lives.The 24-hour operation and the opportunity to gamble 24 hours a day is one of the reasons why two out of five people who regularly use pokie machines become addicted. The absolute opportunity and this is a 24-hour opportunity to spend everything they have got plus more—Barbara Stewart: To win back the money they’ve lost.DENISE ROCHE: —and to carry on playing in order to win back the money they have lost as my colleague over here says and to keep going—these are very scary things that happen to people when they are in a casino.If we are doing a deal—which we are; this Government is doing a deal with Skycity—that will increase the opportunities for gambling harm then we should be ensuring that we have pieces of legislation inside this deal that reduce and attempt to put some controls and some breaks on the voracious desire to make a profit out of people’s misery.We also have Supplementary Order Paper 378 relating to the proceeds of crime. In previous speeches I have talked about the fact that casinos are basically a magnet for crime. They are places where money can get cleaned so it can be—