Sabin Mike: Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSabin Mike: Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 04 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1159. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MIKE SABIN (National—Northland):I have a great deal of respect for the Hon Phil Goff but he is a great political operator at the same time and in this place we exchange a degree of banter. But I have to say that in a perfect world Mr Goff we would not be debating whether things should have happened sooner with an Opposition that filibustered and wasted time on meaningless calls and so on and so forth year in and year out so that the Government’s programme—Hon Phil Goff: We never did that on this bill at all.MIKE SABIN: No no the point is—Hon Phil Goff: The Labour Party helped—and the member knows—facilitate this bill through the select committee.MIKE SABIN: That is right. I am not talking about the Crimes (Match-fixing) Amendment Bill. I am talking about why the passage of bills can take so long to get in front of the House. In a perfect world what I say Mr Goff in response to what you have said is that the Opposition would understand that legislation needs to pass in a timely manner and it would not filibuster along the way and then somehow point out that the legislation has taken so long to get to the House at some other stage.This bill is a very simple bill. It deals with a very simple element of what has crept into sport over some time around manipulating the outcome of a game so that someone can gain a pecuniary advantage through betting. That is what it is. It does not set out to criminalise all manner of cheating that goes on in sport. It deals specifically with the idea that someone is trying to manipulate a game or an outcome so that they can make money from that through a bet. There are many things that have been discussed across the course of what has been a shortened select committee process but there was certainly a 3½-month period for submissions to come in and there were very few submissions. The reason for that is partly because the bill is quite simple and it does set out to take care of and set some very clear guidelines and parameters around this specific area.But just as important it is because Sport New Zealand has been working with governing sports bodies right across New Zealand for almost 12 months now developing codes of conduct and working with them to ensure that there is a—no pun intended but it will probably sound like one—level playing field in terms of how sporting codes go about governing their bodies their sportspeople to play in a fair and robust manner which is outside the scope of this bill but sits alongside it essentially. There are many reasons why people may manipulate the outcome of a game but they may have nothing to do with a betting outcome and a pecuniary advantage but there is a nexus between those two things.So just coming to Mr Goff’s concerns around that at the one Law and Order Committee meeting that Mr Goff was not at we received some detailed information about the length and breadth of that consultation process and how much is actually going on. A benefit of this bill has actually been the process for these sporting codes to develop a far better practice and the guidelines around which they want their sports to operate. So I think that has been a positive thing.Interpol has said that this legislation is world leading possibly because it is quite simple and it is quite clear in what it sets out to achieve. What is clear is that there are so many challenges in this area that it is clear that different jurisdictions are developing different ways to address it and tackle it. It is quite clear that as we see evolutions that may enhance this legislative platform which is a baseline I guess we can certainly entertain the idea of altering or amending legislation to accommodate that. What is clear is that there is a long way to go but New Zealand is playing its part and so I have no trouble in commending the bill and I appreciate the support of all parties across the House in getting this through. Thank you.