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:14453. Text is subject to correction.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I have a number of Supplementary Order Papers in my name that are changes and amendments to the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill that we—Dr David Clark: Very good ones.METIRIA TUREI: Thank you very much. I do appreciate my colleagues who have indicated to us already—Labour New Zealand First the Māori Party Mana Brendan Horan—that they are all voting in favour of these Supplementary Order Papers. Each individual member is voting in favour of I understand at least most of these—I do not think in favour of all of them but at least most of them which is great news.So I do want to be able to describe them for the Committee because I do think that there is still an opportunity for members who are considering supporting the bill to change their view. That is because it is a conscience vote on these issues particularly on the Supplementary Order Papers we have put forward because they concern the issues of gambling and gambling has traditionally been a conscience vote in this House. We appreciate that the Speaker has agreed that a conscience vote will be held on a number of these provisions and these Supplementary Order Papers.My colleague David Clendon has described a couple of the provisions already particularly clause 6 which is the provision that authorises the regulatory concessions. They have been described: the 230 pokie machines; the 240 automated gaming table terminals which operate very similarly to pokie machines; the additional gaming tables; plus the ticket-in ticket-out technology and the extension of the licence of Skycity. In cashless gaming there have also been a number of concessions.Clause 6 as set out says that the regulatory concessions will apply even where the Gambling Act prohibits them. So there are absolute prohibitions in the Gambling Act that say no more pokie machines at casinos but because this bill says that Skycity can have another 230 then this legislation will take precedence. Clause 6 also says that if there are any decisions of the Gambling Commission or provisions in the Gambling Act that give Skycity a benefit then Skycity gets the advantage of that.So Skycity suffers none of the controls—this is what clause 6 is about—of gambling harm minimisation that are built into the Gambling Act and that have already been passed in this House and accepted by the community as the right way to manage the harms caused by gambling and casino gambling. It does not suffer any of those constraints but it gets all of the advantages. So as my colleague David Clendon has said there is absolutely a win-win for Skycity in clause 6. We do not believe that that can be justified at all even according to any kind of deal-making that John Key wants to engage in and certainly not from a public health point of view.So we have three Supplementary Order Papers that deal with that. Two will amend clause 6—Supplementary Order Papers 377 and 379—and one Supplementary Order Paper 380 inserts a new clause 6A to the effect that Skycity cannot retain any of the concessions in the legislation if the contract is terminated. At present it is quite possible for some termination event in the contract to occur—for example if it is unable to get its resource consents or where there is a Treaty of Waitangi claim that stops it from being able to proceed—but the regulatory concessions apply effective immediately. Those concessions will continue to apply and Skycity can continue to get the benefit of those concessions even if there is a termination of the contract. It is not clear in the legislation that that is not the case.So we want to make it absolutely clear that if the contract is terminated for any reason then those concessions if they are already in place are gone. There is no justification for Skycity being able to keep its 35-year licence and being able to keep 230 more pokie machines if the contract itself is terminated. This is just another one of the little examples in the bill of how there has been a real failure to make sure that the public interest is protected at every step of the way. We can help to remedy that if this bill is passed.An additional Supplementary Order Paper we have Supplementary Order Paper 381 concerns clause 7. Again this is about the regulatory concessions. What our amendment will do is delete clause 7 because clause 7 provides for the regulatory concessions to effectively have the force of law. The regulatory concessions are part of a deal. They are not expressly included in the legislation. They should not therefore have the force of law. The reason I think that they do have the force of law in the deal in the way that it has been written is that Skycity—and John Key and Steven Joyce have agreed with this—wants those concessions to be absolutely locked in. That is why it is unclear about what will happen to those concessions if there is a termination of the contract.So in addition to it being unclear around what should happen if the contract is terminated there is a further locking-in of those concessions and of the money that Skycity will make from those concessions. Skycity is not getting 230 extra pokie machines and a 35-year licence just because it just wants to; it is getting this because that is going to make it hundreds of millions of dollars at least 40 percent of which will come from problem gamblers who are harmed as a result of having spent that money. So this is because there is money in this. The Government has allowed Skycity to lock in as tightly as possible the regulatory concessions so that under almost any circumstance Skycity can keep the benefit of the deal keep the value of those concessions and continue to make more and more money off the backs of problem gamblers.My colleague David Clendon also talked about another one of the Supplementary Order Papers that we have Supplementary Order Paper 385 and that is the one around harm minimisation measures. They also go to the regulatory concessions. There is no doubt in all of the evidence despite what the National Government’s advisers have written as notes for their MPs that if you increase the number of pokie machines if you increase the number of automated gaming table terminals—which is 240 for Skycity—and if you increase the number of gaming opportunities then there will be an increase in gambling harm. That is all of the evidence. International evidence and evidence from New Zealand shows that that is the case.The whole point of the Gambling Act of course was to stop the increase in gambling harm by stopping the increase in gambling opportunities. That is why the prohibitions in the Gambling Act are so strict. It then becomes critical that if there is going to be this deal that then gives Skycity this significant financial opportunity by increasing gambling opportunities on its site there must be even stricter controls onproblem gambling to make sure that the risk of problem gambling is significantly reduced. That is a fair quid pro quo.Under any circumstances when you are doing a deal like this or any other kind of deal you would look to balance out the interests. If John Key really believes that Skycity is so desperately poor that it urgently needs more machines to help it maintain its business then part of the responsibility that John Key has as Prime Minister is to also address the public interest in reducing the harm that would be caused by that increase. So that is why you should have stronger measures as a result of this legislation not softer ones.The problem is of course as we know that the harm minimisation measures in the agreement are soft measures. So let us take the voluntary pre-commitment technology that was mentioned earlier. Our Supplementary Order Paper 385 will require pre-commitment technology in all pokie machines to be mandatory with a strict time line for when it needs to be introduced. The best analogy I have heard about pre-commitment technology is that it is like a seatbelt. Not everybody is going to need one. You do not necessarily need one all the time but there is no point in having one in your car if you are not going to use it. We know that the risk of injuring oneself in a car accident is reduced if one wears a seatbelt. Therefore we have made it mandatory for everyone in New Zealand to do so and we have just increased the mandatory provisions for young children because it helps to significantly reduce the risk.This is what mandatory pre-commitment technology does for problem gamblers. It significantly reduces the risk that any individual person will develop a gambling problem. But if it is only voluntary like this current agreement requires it will not work because the people who need it the most—