Hayes John: Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Bill — Third Reading 
Hayes John: Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:7101] 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 It is fascinating to sit on this side of the House and observe the actions of a lawyer or a legally trained person and see the way the member manipulates the facts at her disposal to suit a particular case. I say to that member that she has completely manipulated her assault on the Minister of Justice who opened discussion on this bill and who I think did a particularly fine job of introducing this legislation to Parliament. The problem that she should have addressed and explained to this House was why it took you 9 years of sitting on the Government benches— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Hey hey! 
JOHN HAYES 
: Sorry. Why would it take your party 9 years of sitting on the Government benches to do nothing on this legislation? This legislation was around for 9 years— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: No it wasn’t. 
JOHN HAYES 
: Yes I am sorry it was. It was there for 9 years. I was an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade dealing with this legislation at that time—9 years ago. I know that the speech that you have just made the assertions you have just made are actually wrong. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If the member could remember not to draw the Speaker into the debate it would be helpful. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I am sure the member has got the point. 
JOHN HAYES 
: I think I had the point and made adjustments as I was speaking. That is just another game on the part of the Labour Government to disrupt— 
Jacqui Dean 
: Labour Opposition. 
JOHN HAYES 
: It is a game on the part of the Labour Opposition to disrupt my speaking pattern. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Talk about living in the past! 
JOHN HAYES 
: Yes let us look to the past because for 9 years you sat there— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am really just taking a bit of time for the member to reflect on and get ingrained what he has to say. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I am sure the member will just draw a breath and realise that when he addresses comments directly to people he should address them by name or by party and avoid the use of the word “you”. That word is not automatically ruled out on every occasion. It can be used where someone says: “So and so you did such and such.” but on this particular occasion I was the subject of the sentence and that is not permissible. 
JOHN HAYES 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for that clarification. 
Certainly I had 9 years to reflect on why the previous Government took no action on this issue. There was significant pressure from the international community through the OECD and also through the Financial Action Task Force to take action to process this legislation. That was not done. So I commend Simon Power the Minister of Justice for the excellent job he did. Within 9 months of coming into Government he introduced this legislation to the House. I thank him for his work. 
I also thank him for the space that he gave the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee to do one or two slightly unusual things. I would particularly like to record the thanks of the committee to the officials from the Department of Internal Affairs the New Zealand Police and the Ministry of Justice who assisted the committee in its deliberations. At an early stage of our consideration of this quite complex legislation it became very clear that it had to be harmonised absolutely with the Australian legislation. There was no debate about that. One of the things the committee agreed to do quite quickly was to bring in experts from the banking sector to sit down with officials from the ministries that were advising the committee. That process worked extremely well. 
Finally I thank my colleagues on the committee from all parties who were involved in the deliberation on the legislation. I particularly thank my Labour colleague Pete Hodgson who made a really significant contribution to the consideration of the bill but there were also others. I do not particularly want to draw attention just to one or two; I thank everybody for the great job they did in bringing this legislation into place. I think it will really help not only the banking sector but also business in New Zealand that we have managed so successfully to integrate and harmonise the legislation with the Australian legislation. I think that will be fundamentally important given that much of the ownership of the New Zealand banking sector is at this point in Australian hands. I think too that it is worth reflecting as we look ahead on whether we ought to focus on introducing one entity to monitor this legislation along the lines of the Australian Transactions Reports and Analysis Centre. I think that having three entities in New Zealand doing this monitoring function will inevitably lead to something falling through the cracks at some point in the future. 
With those few words I particularly support this bill and again thank all of those colleagues who were involved in progressing the passage of the bill through the House.