Pugh Maureen; Rurawhe AdrianMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I stand today too to support the Racing Industry Bill and as my colleague David Bennett said in his contribution just recently a lot of the work and credit that has gone into this bill is due to the efforts of Ian McKelvie Andrew Bayly and Tim van de Molen. In fact I did not sit on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee but I understand from my colleagues and from the updates that I've sat in on over the course of the select committee process that this bill is almost unrecognisable now from what it was when it was first introduced. As Ian McKelvie referenced in his speech whoever drafted the bill had clearly not even read the Messara report it was so far removed from the advice that was given and paid for. There are as we've heard some significant recommendations that are being enacted in this bill. One of those is the establishment of Racing New Zealand and that was a strong recommendation from the Messara report. In that we have the three codes—Thoroughbred Racing Harness Racing New Zealand and the New Zealand Greyhound Racing Association—now working with a common interest to work with those codes on some common ground. Originally that was going to be enacted via regulation but the National Party members decided and recommended in the select committee that this needed to be enshrined in the legislation and that gives it some enduring life ahead of it. It is not subject to any sort of political manipulation along the way. Most of the speakers have referenced the issues that came up out of this bill which relate to the assets of the various clubs and for myself on the West Coast we have five tracks. We have one up in Westport; there is one in Reefton which is a dual-code track; the Greymouth track; Hokitika; and the one closest to my heart and that I've had quite a lot to do with over the years is the Kūmara track. Now we know that these are far more than just racetracks and as the Green Party has acknowledged these are very valued community assets. I know that the ones that are on the West Coast are used for a range of things from weddings—the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association uses them to park up on. We have Scouts and Guides that use those facilities for their camps. The Coast to Coast of course is a very famous one that uses the Kūmara track every year as its camping space and briefing area but also local schools use their local tracks for cross-country and what we need to remember is that all of these tracks across New Zealand are looked after and cared for and have been bought and paid for and developed over many years—over a hundred years in some cases—by volunteers and I think it's very appropriate that Volunteering New Zealand is acknowledging our volunteers this week. So I pay tribute to those people who have given selflessly for many many years. I've got a very dear relative who is in his 90s now who has recently retired from the Kūmara Racing Club. So a bit shout-out to Pat Fitzgerald who has been doing that work as a volunteer he reckons for about 75 or 80 years. That is the kind of commitment that local people have to these facilities and they didn't want them to be confiscated as was enabled in the original piece of legislation. So a huge amount of credit to my colleagues for enabling the disposal of these assets now in a very considered way that actually brings in the contribution of those community organisations. I can recall about 13 or 14 years ago in a former role meeting with New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing to talk about the future of racetracks and the clubs. At that time we could see that the bar was slowly lifting making it more and more difficult for these local clubs and volunteers who have limited income to achieve the higher standards. A lot of that was triggered from the health and safety regulation so it was improving things like the running rail and track surfaces and then it moved into things like the internal assets—so the shower blocks and toilets that the jockeys would use. They were all very understanding that we would want to lift that bar but it made it more and more difficult for these clubs to remain viable so we ended up in the situation of having quite a lot of tension within the clubs and pressure on them to continue to hold their race meetings. So we now have a very well-considered methodology for disposal of those assets and as I said it does include a huge consultation with the club. But I do have to confess that when I saw the first tranche of this piece of legislation I was alarmed at the ability for the assets to be confiscated. I did go and talk to one of my local clubs who held a very large piece of freehold land and I helped them broker a deal where those assets were sold to avoid the confiscation. So they're now held for the community and for the long term. We see in this bill that the motivation is around attempting to get the racing codes to be more profitable and to encourage more participation. I know from sitting in on an Estimates hearing in a select committee last week that had the Minister there of the Minister's passion for ensuring that the industry does thrive and I think we all do that because we are all cognisant of the fact that there is a huge amount of employment that revolves around the racing codes here in New Zealand. But we've also got a great track record for our stock that we breed here in this country and for the commercial return that that does bring to the country. So we do start with the breeders and we have some of the best in the world in New Zealand. Then we have the owners and I'm not sure if any of my colleagues have ever been an owner or a part-owner of a racehorse but—Ian McKelvie: That's why we're so poor. MAUREEN PUGH: Exactly Mr McKelvie that's why you're so poor. It's because they are not what most people would invest in to make a great return but they are something that people invest in because they do enjoy this sport. They enjoy the thrill of taking a horse to the track and as a former clerk of scales which is a job that I did on our local track for about 10 years I can attest to that. The passion that the people in the industry have for the codes is extremely high and that's what keeps them coming. But the owners do require some return on their investment and the stakes in this country are relatively low now and have been falling over time. So we do need to improve the return to the owners. But of course then we have the punters. Those people that go along to the tracks and those people that bet on the TAB they're all part of the mix of the racing industry here in New Zealand but of course there are the trainers too who dedicate massive amounts of hours and the jockeys and all the drivers—whichever code we are referring to—they also get a huge amount of employment out of that. That's not forgetting the stable hands who take care of the animals and look after them and even down to the transport operators that move the horses around to the various tracks and race meetings. So there is a huge incentive for us to ensure that we look after the codes that we make it more profitable and that there is an improvement in the stakes so that the industry can continue to thrive. As a result of the changes that my colleagues have brought to the select committee I believe that we have a bill now in front of us that will protect the industry and will give it some confidence going forward. I have pleasure in commending it to the House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call. I call Willow-Jean Prime—five minutes.