Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise and take a short call on this bill today and to give some context about why me and my Labour colleagues oppose this bill. I'll deal with that in three parts. The first thing I want to talk about is whether this change will in fact make it easier for police to do their jobs and police burglaries effectively; secondly I'd like to just touch on—since this bill has drawn on the Counties Manukau example—some things which would be effective ways and are effective ways to assist the police in doing this very important work; and the third thing I'll talk about is enforcement and the fine of $10000 as my colleague from the Green Party has spoken about. But on this first point of whether this bill would in fact make it easier for police to carry out this very important work of recovering and policing stolen goods and making sure that there is not profit being made from a trade in second-hand goods which are stolen I'd first like to make the point that the bill does draw on the Counties Manukau example. As an MP from Manurewa and as someone who takes a real interest in the good work of the police in South Auckland I have met with our local police about these issues and it is something that our community is very concerned with. So I take my hat off to the police for the good work that they do here. It is a Labour Government that has invested $450 million into the police force and has a growing police force not only in South Auckland but around the country. We've already met a target of increasing the police workforce by 1800 people and are on track to meet the target of 1800 new police front-line officers over the next five years. Whether this bill will make it easier for that police force to police burglaries is a question which I think resoundingly is a no. That is because the requirements in this bill for businesses to update their systems will instantly face a fine of $10000 actually takes us back a step for those businesses who in the Counties Manukau area at least are working very collaboratively and constructively with police to put in place a range of systems over a long period of time to deal with these issues. Our local police in Manurewa have been engaging with certain areas in our town centres—that's the Manurewa strip the Manukau town centre and the Clendon shops which all have a high preponderance of second-hand dealers. What they are finding there is traditional old-fashioned beat cop - style policing where these police are showing their faces at these businesses and are creating relationships which are enduring. That is what is having an effect in building trust with those businesses and allowing police to trial initiatives like the Serial Number Automated Checker which the chair of the Justice Committee Ginny Andersen has spoken about as being an effective method. It would be walked back if this Parliament were to introduce a method of essentially requiring the police to issue instantaneous $10000 fines to these businesses where they have been building up these kinds of relationships over a long period of time and I wouldn't want to see that for the South Auckland police who have been involved in that work or around the country where these relationships are coming to bear. Quickly on my second point of what would make it easier for the police to be able to do this job around the country it does come back to that point about trust about those old-fashioned policing methods of establishing those relationships within our communities which is going to make the difference here. It is about our police on the ground being able to have the conversations with second-hand dealers about where they are sourcing their goods from and also within the community of business owners who all know each other at least in South Auckland about who is following best practice and who isn't and the police being able to gather that information. It is also policies and programmes like the Manurewa police's programme of leadership within Manurewa High School—a great programme where over many many years they have established a trusting relationship with school leaders at a high school level and that filters out into the community to build those trusting relationships that are so important here.Very briefly on the question of enforcement a $10000 fine for these businesses whose customers are some of the most marginalised and some of the poorest people in our society who are going to second-hand dealers in the first place will simply shut these businesses down. It will make it impossible for those people to access the kinds of goods and the services for finance that they are accessing here and I wouldn't want to see that. That's why I oppose this bill.