Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou katoa e te Whare. I move, That the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Commerce Committee to consider this bill, in time. Put simply, this bill makes casinos subject to the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009. That Act established a civil forfeiture regime where a person is in receipt of any profits derived from any crime. That person need not be responsible for, a party to, or convicted of that crime or any other crime to be subject to the forfeiture regime. That is, it applies regardless of the person’s guilt. Blame is not an issue under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act, only whether or not a person has received goods that were acquired through significant criminal activity. This applies to all legal persons, all ordinary persons—humans—in this country, all ordinary New Zealanders, but casinos are not required under any legislation to return, either to the State or to the victim of a crime, any profits that they make from the gambling of stolen funds. Casinos are not subject to this law as ordinary New Zealanders are.

Sometimes those kinds of crimes in casinos are very high-profile. They involve millions and millions of dollars. Often it is money-laundering. Most often, though, the gambled money has been stolen from small businesses, from medium-sized New Zealand businesses, from community organisations, from friends, and from family. These businesses, organisations, and individuals suffer serious financial impacts, often bankruptcy, while the casinos get to keep the profits from the gambling of that stolen money. My bill will see an end to the keeping of that stolen money.

We know that gambling causes harm. Since the horse bolted and casinos were allowed to be established in the 1990s, Parliament has been grappling with all the different ways to stop them from causing more harm. In 2003 MPs passed the Gambling Act. The view then was that gambling was a profoundly bad thing, especially for the most vulnerable of people, and that casinos were seen as members of an industry that needed stringent laws to control, regulate, and contain them, and to stop them from causing more harm to people. The Gambling Act put a lid on the industry, preventing more casinos from opening, and banning any mechanism that allowed existing casinos to offer more opportunities to gamble. However, we know from recent wheeling and dealing that the intentions of this Act have been deliberately subverted.

My bill was developed in response to the dirty deal that the Prime Minister, John Key, and Minister Steven Joyce are doing to secure the “Skycity - John Key Casino Convention Centre” in Auckland. Skycity has done everything it can—

💬 Charles Chauvel: The John Key memorial.

The “John Key Memorial Convention Centre”. That is right. Skycity has done everything it can to get around the Gambling Act in order to expand its operations. It has taken case after case to the courts, and relentlessly pursued the Gambling Commission in an effort to squeeze more opportunities to evade the Act. When legal avenues did not work, Skycity bosses wined and dined MPs and their staff, lobbied Government relentlessly, and made donations to politicians and to political parties, and eventually, it appears, that has paid off. John Key knew that the Ministry of Economic Development was investigating the feasibility of a convention centre in Auckland, so he offered Skycity a deal. He would allow it up to a third more pokie machines and other harmful gambling concessions if it built the convention centre in Auckland. This would involve changing the Gambling Act, but, of course, he is the Prime Minister, and, in the infamous words of a previous National Party Prime Minister, he would have said to himself, I am sure, that “there is a little room downstairs in which we fix problems like that.”

John Key has argued that he made the deal with Skycity because it is a good one, and because it will not cost the New Zealand public to build the convention centre. But, of course, he is wrong. Gambling-related harm costs the New Zealand public millions of dollars a year in bankruptcies, arrests, incarcerations, unemployment, divorce, poor physical and mental health, loss of educational opportunities, and suicide.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: And no benefit.

No benefit. Increases in gambling equal increases in costs, and my bill will help to create accountability for, and reduce, some of those costs. John Key also argued that the convention centre would create a heap of jobs, but he was wrong about that too. He so massively inflated the job numbers that the author of the feasibility report came out in the media to correct him. He inflated the numbers by almost double—John Key inflated the job numbers by almost double, misleading the public and, in my view, misleading this Parliament. Making up job numbers to sell the casino convention centre deal to the public is extremely desperate. So is standing up in Parliament waving a study that actually shows pokie machines are more likely to cause problem gambling than the community-based ones, but telling MPs that it is the reverse—John Key did that as well. This is blatant hypocrisy. It has followed hard on the heels of Skycity chief executive officer, Nigel Morrison, trying to argue that Lotto was much worse than casinos, again in an attempt to distort the figures in order to sell this dirty deal to New Zealanders. The deal was so questionable that the Auditor-General agreed to investigate it. That investigation is ongoing, investigating the process for seeking and assessing proposals on the deal, the adequacy of the assessment of the likely costs and benefits, and any other matters that the Auditor-General thinks is necessary.

What has been missing in the discussions around this deal is that the change in law subverts the fundamental intent of the Gambling Act. My bill will help bring some integrity back to this legislation. This bill amends the definition in the principal Act of the term “ ‘unlawfully benefited from significant criminal activity’ to specifically refer to casinos that knowingly, having regard to best international practice in detecting problem gambling and criminal activity, derive a benefit from significant criminal activity.”

We know that casinos attract significant criminal activity. The Financial Transactions Reporting Act 1996 and the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 describe casinos as specific typologies of the risk of crime. More provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 come into force in 2013, and those provisions place enhanced obligations on casinos to monitor and report suspicious activity, but they do not require casinos to return to those from whom the money was stolen the profits they make from illegal activity and the gambling of stolen funds. There is no justification as to why ordinary New Zealanders should be required to forfeit the profits from criminal activity when casinos, which are internationally recognised as drivers of crime and the receivers of stolen property, are not also subject to the law. It is just about making them subject to the same law that everybody else is, and finding a way to help restore just a tiny bit of the loss that New Zealanders suffer: New Zealand businesses, community organisations, charities—and we know that much of the money that is stolen from charities is gambled in casinos—families, and friends.

This bill is not about just the Skycity dirty deal. This is about making sure that casinos have a stronger level of regulation and pay back those families, those New Zealanders, who pay the cost of the operations. It is a fair bill. It places a reasonable obligation on casinos, and it helps to reduce the harm that is caused by gambling and gambling addition. I commend this bill to the House.

What an outrageous speech! For the member Metiria Turei to bring out some of those claims and comments is absolutely outrageous. We understand in this Parliament that nobody supports harm that comes from gambling. We understand these things, but I wonder where that member’s research comes from—research that says that casinos per se are major drivers of crime. That is what I say is outrageous. Some of those quotes and comments were outlandish.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: What planet do you live on?

I live on a planet of reality, sir, and we on this side of the House are not supporting this bill, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill, for some very good reasons.

We on this side of the House are committed to building a safer New Zealand. I think that New Zealanders out there in our country know that. We have seen crime and criminal activity reduce in this country because of the legislation we have put through this House. We have seen public confidence in our law-keeping forces rise and increase, when in past years under past administrations that confidence decreased. I think New Zealanders know that the National-led Government is working hard to build a safer New Zealand.

In fact, this bill that is being proposed is a bill that is a late starter in a race that has already been run and is over. The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 already puts enhanced obligations on casinos to detect and deter money-laundering, and already has enforcement mechanisms, and that legislation comes into force in July 2013—it comes into force in July 2013. We also know that the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 already contains a civil forfeiture regime, and a profit forfeiture order may be made by a court if it is satisfied that a person has knowingly derived benefit from significant criminal activity.

So much of this member’s bill is nefarious—for example, the words “should have known”, and other wordings in the bill such as “derived or likely to be derived”. How is one to define “should have known”, and how is it to be defined that it is “likely to be derived”? So what we have here is, I think, very poor drafting in a bill.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: It’s very good drafting.

There is no doubt some good intent, but its application and its working-out is fraught with great difficulty.

There are a number of good reasons why we do not support this bill. We understand that money-laundering involves transforming money from crime, and that it is called dirty money. If we are talking about anything that is dirty, that is where it comes from—it is money from crime. It has the appearance of coming from a legitimate source and it makes its criminal origin difficult to trace. It is therefore deemed as clean money—so that is where the laundering component, or understanding, comes from. We understand that effective money-laundering enables criminals to remove themselves from their criminal activities and makes it harder to prosecute them and confiscate their proceeds. We understand these difficulties. This is what Governments over the years have always grappled with, and we believe that we have instituted a law, which is going to take effect shortly, that is going to work very, very strongly to stop that.

This bill would amend the principal Act to apply the profit forfeiture regime to casinos that benefit from significant criminal activity and either knew that or should have known that. How does one determine “should have known”? How do you determine that they should have known that the benefit is derived or likely to be derived from criminal activity?

Key issues the bill tries to address are returning proceeds to people from whom they were acquired or stolen. I understand that there is good intent in wanting to see that happen, but I would say that a majority of people who have an item stolen, whether it be in cash or in property, would have that item insured, and most people would receive some benefit from an insurance policy. Yet they are going to receive, under this bill, the cash return, or the value return, if somehow the proceeds of those funds are deemed to be received by a casino. I am not quite sure how that would happen in fact. There are not many criminals out there who carry a receipt book and actually write down exactly where and when and how they have been able to arrive at their proceeds-of-crime amount, whether it is $1,000, $10,000, or $20,000, or whatever.

So somebody might take a stash of cash, a handful of money, into a casino and gamble it. And perhaps by international best practice, by observation and technology and technique, somebody or a system could discern that this person has peculiar activities that could profile them as a person who ought not to have such a large amount of money, or as someone who has come there time and again with a large amount of money, and could start to identify that person as a person who is suspect. How would you then determine that that person may have received that money through an act of crime? We are starting to delve into the area of guessing, double-guessing, and not being sure about these things, and I think that our laws need to be better constructed and stronger in regard to these issues. In terms of the assets recovered under the Act’s civil forfeiture regime, they are not returned to those persons from whom they have been stolen or acquired; they are returned to the Crown. That is simple. That is not complicated, and there are other mechanisms by which a person who has suffered loss can recover that loss.

Also, under the bill there are lowered thresholds of liability for casinos. There is no reason why a casino that knowingly profits from significant criminal activity cannot be the subject of a profit forfeiture order under the Act currently. The bill effectively imposes a lower threshold of liability on casinos by the statement “who should have known”, compared with other persons who knowingly derived a benefit. I think that this is an area that I feel very uncomfortable about, and I think that many people in this House would feel uncomfortable about it as well. There is no clear evidence that casinos currently are not taking reasonable care to detect problem gambling and criminal activity.

So this bill does not appear to achieve its aims of encouraging best practice or returning proceeds of crime to those from whom the proceeds were acquired or stolen. I believe that the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 places enhanced obligations on casinos to detect and deter money-laundering, and contains enforcement mechanisms that will achieve much of what this bill intends. As I said earlier, this bill is a late starter in a race that has already run and is over. Thank you.

I would like to begin by commending the member who has sponsored this legislation, Metiria Turei. I think it is timely that the Parliament should look at the issues that are raised by the bill, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill. As we heard from her careful introductory speech, the bill would amend section 7 of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009, which defines whether or not an entity has unlawfully benefited from significant criminal activity. What her amendment would do is add one subclause to that definition. It would clarify that the principal Act does apply to a casino, and that a casino is, for the purpose of the definition in the legislation, “taken to have knowingly derived a benefit from significant criminal activity if it knew or should have known, having regard to best international practice in the detection of problem gambling and criminal activity, that the benefit is derived or likely to be derived from the proceeds of significant criminal activity.” The previous speaker, Jonathan Young, said: “Well, what is this concept of ‘should have known’? How can a casino be put in a position that it ought to have known that there was something dodgy about the money that it was receiving?” Well, the reality is that this concept of “ought to have known” is one that is very well known to the law, and the criminal law in particular.

Where an entity is put into a position of great privilege, as casinos have been in our society, by legislation, then a corollary of that great privilege is that we as a Parliament should watch them closely, and, if we are concerned that they might be causing social harm, or if we are concerned that they might be assisting the laundering of money in any way, then we ought to take that issue very, very seriously. That is really the nub of the reason why my Labour colleagues and I will be supporting this legislation to go to the Commerce Committee, and why I hope that National members and others will do so. If we do not, frankly, then the suspicion will arise, rightly or wrongly, that the casino and the gambling industries are exerting undue influence over us, and that is not—

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: Oh!

Well, there goes the Minister of Police, who starved the police of enforcement resources during her tenure, yet we had her colleague Mr Young tell us just before that all was well, that the police had enough resource to do their job, and that enforcement in respect of casinos and otherwise was all fine. If all that was true, then there would be no harm in sending this bill to a select committee to hear advice, to hear submissions from the public, and to consider whether or not it was a merited measure, or whether the previous speaker is right and there are existing provisions in the law that deal with this.

That is what the purpose of members’ day should be. Members do not have the access that the executive has to expert advice, to public servants, and to all the panoply of expertise that Ministers can draw on. We have to rely on our own resources in order to put forward measures that we think are sensible. There is no doubt that there is great concern in the community about the way in which casino gambling is operating, and, in particular, the interface with organised crime and the potential to launder money through organisations such as casinos. In light of that overwhelming public concern, it behoves us not to act simply as the lapdogs of the industry but to ask ourselves what is the responsible thing to do in this situation. It is absolutely clear to me and to my colleagues, as responsible, independent legislators who have a concern about ensuring, both for the sake of the public and for the industry, for that matter, that everything is seen to be conducted with probity and above board, that Metiria Turei’s bill should go to a select committee, be considered by members of Parliament in a deliberative fashion, and that they should hear advice from experts, and hear submissions from the public. If the National Party and its allies deny that opportunity to this Parliament, then, simply, the result will be that members’ day is brought further into disrepute.

Malo le soifua. I rise to take a call on this bill, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill. May I start off by saying that we on this side of the House do not support this bill. The main reason we do not support this bill is that it is, again, a sad reminder that the Opposition would rather create new problems by advancing needless legislation than fix a problem with our existing legislation. The purpose of the bill, as has already been outlined by the mover of the bill, Metiria Turei, is to encourage casinos to implement best practice in systems to detect and prohibit problem gamblers and money-launderers.

But what are the problems with the bill? I am going to support my colleague Mr Young and say that it does not appear to achieve its aims of encouraging this. There is no reason why, currently, a casino that knowingly profits from significant criminal activity cannot be the subject of a profit forfeiture order under the current legislation. The bill effectively imposes a lower threshold of liability on casinos that should have known, compared with other persons who knowingly commit these acts. That is imposing the lower test of constructive knowledge, as my learned colleague across the Chamber said, as opposed to that more rigorous test of actual knowledge. I do not, like my colleague, agree with that. There is no clear evidence that casinos currently are not taking reasonable care to detect problem gambling and criminal activity. Certainly, Miss Turei has not presented any evidence tonight.

So you might want to ask what is in place currently to address this issue—you might want to. Currently, as my colleague stated, the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 already puts in place obligations on casinos to detect and deter money-laundering. It also has enforcement mechanisms that will achieve much of what this bill is trying to do. The Act will come into force in 2013, as my colleague said, and under the Act reporting entities, including casinos, must put in place a programme that consists of risk-based systems, processes, and controls to detect and deter money-laundering. For example, casinos must assess their money-laundering risks, and implement anti - money-laundering programmes that are proportionate to that risk assessment. Given the nature, the scale, and the complexities associated with casinos, obviously the expectations on them will be large. They also must undertake more robust customer due diligence measures, monitor large or unusual transactions, and keep a record of transactions that are larger than $6,000. They must also, and the Minister here will be happy with this, report suspicious transactions to the police.

That Act contains enforcement mechanisms that are more targeted and more effective than the proposed amendment. These include, of course, the provision that an entity that fails to comply with the Act’s requirements commits a civil liability act, and a supervisor may issue a formal warning or accept an enforceable undertaking. A court may enforce that undertaking, issue an injunction, or order an entity to pay a pecuniary penalty to the Crown of up to $2 million, on the civil standard of proof.

Mr Chauvel might ask why not send the bill to a select committee. I say to Mr Chauvel that if you read the legislation, read the Act, against this bill, you will realise that this bill is superfluous.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: No, it’s not.

It is.

The Act also has checks in place to ensure that it is working as it should do. Implementation of the regime will provide evidence of whether casinos are taking reasonable steps to detect money-laundering and clarify whether any amendments are required. Under casino licensing conditions, of course, we know that they specify that the Gambling Commission is required to review each casino’s Host Responsibility programmes every 2 years. They can also look at whether a casino’s policy is identifying problem gamblers. This may include describing a range of indicators for identifying potential problem gamblers, such as intensity and frequency of play, and frequency of ATM visits.

This is a poorly constructed bill that is simply superfluous. We on this side of the House oppose it. We believe in quality legislation for the people, families, and communities of our country. I oppose this bill.

I thought that Jonathan Young’s speech was utterly disgraceful. It was the epitome of National’s head in the sand approach to money-laundering in respect of casinos, and it shows National’s pro-casinos approach—you can bet on that. This bill, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill, has a very long title but a very simple purpose: to ensure that the proceeds of crime spent in and laundered through casinos are returned to those from whom the proceeds were originally obtained. That is what the principal Act, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act, was intended to do, but does not clearly require. The purpose of the principal Act, in section 3(1), is: “The primary purpose of this Act is to establish a regime for the forfeiture of property—(a) that has been derived directly or indirectly from significant criminal activity; or (b) that represents the value of a person’s unlawfully derived income.”

So New Zealand First supports the bill to make the obligation on casinos to return the money obtained in these ways absolutely certain. It does this by amending section 7, which says: “In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, a person has unlawfully benefited from significant criminal activity if the person has knowingly, directly or indirectly, derived a benefit from significant criminal activity (whether or not that person undertook or was involved in the significant criminal activity).” The relevant part of the section, for the purposes of this debate, is the word “knowingly”. This means that a prosecutor would need to prove specific knowledge that a benefit has been derived, directly or indirectly, from significant criminal activity, and that is the problem with the current legislation, which the members opposite do not seem to understand. It would be difficult to do in the case of casinos, which can too easily claim no knowledge when a gambler uses stolen money in the casino, or when the gambler sets out on a mission to launder money obtained illegally by gambling in the casino.

Casinos attract criminals indulging in such activities, like flies around a carcass. It is just one more way that casinos damage New Zealand communities, in addition to the issues surrounding addictive gambling and encouraging excessive gambling. They also take money away from more wholesome and more beneficial activities. Casinos, because of the scope for harm, which they generally generate and inherently generate, have a special duty of care towards those whom they potentially harm and towards the whole community. So it is appropriate that section 7 be amended, so that, for the purposes of section 7(1) as it would become, a casino would be imputed with knowledge if it should have known that the money being used by a gambler came from significant criminal activity. For this purpose, the new section 7(2), which would be inserted by clause 5 of this bill, refers to international best practice in the detection of such activities, and that is as it should be. The onus must be on the casino to adopt best practice. Plenty of precedents exist for this overseas. Best practice would require such things as surveillance, recognition of gamblers’ behaviour, recognition of known gamblers and their associates, and so on. A very long list of things can be included in best practice for these purposes.

So I think this bill is extremely well drafted and it will be extremely effective, and I cannot understand why the Government would not enthusiastically support it—unless it is soft on crime, and maybe that is the answer. Perhaps we have got a National Government that is soft on crime. I think that is the answer, and I do not see any denials from those opposite. So here we have a National Government refusing to adopt this bill because it is soft on crime and because it supports casinos and all of the harm that they do. I am disgusted by the attitude of the Government on this bill. It should be enthusiastically embracing it, as New Zealand First does.

Sat sri akaal. Thank you for this opportunity for me to speak on this bill, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill, which we are opposing. The bill, introduced by the Green member Metiria Turei, seeks to encourage casinos towards implementing what the Green Party considers best practice and systems to detect and prevent problem gamblers and money-laundering. The basis of the bill is that a casino as a business poses a risk in attracting and benefiting from this significant criminal activity, and that casinos do not have a mechanism under which they can track and pay back money received under criminal proceeds. The Opposition believes that by passing this legislation it can ensure that the proceeds received will eventually be returned to the people from whom they have been stolen or acquired. Let me clarify this grey area. The assets, once recovered, are not returned back to the people; rather, these are returned to the Crown. Secondly, the current legislation ensures that any casino that seeks to knowingly profit from criminal activity in any shape or form can be subject to profit forfeiture. Moreover, the proposed legislation should be based on evidence, rather than individual thinking. Currently there is no clear evidence that casinos at present are not taking reasonable care to detect problem gambling and criminal activity. By proposing this, the member wants to suggest lowering the threshold of liability on casinos to take reasonable measures and precautions to prevent criminal intent by persons who knowingly commit the crime.

The bill does not achieve anything. It aims high by encouraging best practice. However, it provides little or no framework. Rather, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009, passed by the National Government, already contains a civil penalisation. Under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 a profit forfeiture order may be made by a court in cases where the judge is satisfied by the evidence that a person has knowingly derived benefit from this significant criminal activity. Furthermore, New Zealand currently requires casinos to protect and minimise any harm to the community due to the issue of gambling. Towards that end, all the six casinos in New Zealand must have an approved Host Responsibility programme. Both the casino and the Host Responsibility programme are approved by the Gambling Commission, which is an independent statutory body. As part of the Host Responsibility programme casinos in New Zealand have a policy on identifying problem gamblers, which include indicators such as intensity and frequency of play, and frequent use of ATM machines on the premises.

Casinos, under the current legislation, are also obliged to detect money-laundering and criminal activity. The Financial Transactions Reporting Act 1996 obligates casinos to keep transaction records and verify the identity of the people conducting occasional transactions over $10,000. The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 will come into effect in July 2013. This Act further strengthens the robust regime New Zealand has in place to monitor, detect, and report suspicious activity.

In the consideration that New Zealand has comprehensive legislation in place to address the issues being discussed in this bill, I do not think we require another piece of legislation. Therefore, I do not support this bill.

I want to quote the member of Parliament who spoke earlier in this debate who started his speech in the way that I want to start mine, and say that I am outraged at the speech that the member has just delivered. It was gobsmacking. Having sat on a select committee with that member for some months now, I, frankly, have come to expect better of him. I thought that that member was able to think for himself, was able to stand up for principles, and was able to allow a robust debate on important issues, but he has let me down. He has let a lot of people down, actually, as have his colleagues Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga and Jonathan Young, who have both spoken earlier.

The member from New Zealand First who spoke during this debate, Denis O’Rourke, said that he suspected the reason that the National Party was opposing this bill, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill—clearly, National does not want it go to the Commerce Committee; they want to close down the debate fast—was that it was soft on crime. That may be a reason. That is certainly a possibility. I think, Mr O’Rourke, with respect, that you might need to just tune that a little more. I think National members are soft on some crime. They are soft on crime that goes on in casinos. They want to turn a blind eye to that. They want to allow people who have committed crimes to use the profit of that crime in the casino. They want the casino to benefit from the crime, and it wants to smile and wave and walk away.

Why would they want to do that? Let me give that a bit of thought. It may be because the Prime Minister and Steven Joyce are doing a shonky deal with the Auckland casino so that they can get around the current law, dramatically increase the number of pokie machines that it runs in the Auckland casino, and Auckland will have a convention centre. Good on Auckland for getting a convention centre. Actually, we would like one in Christchurch too, because ours is pretty wrecked—it is probably gone, actually, by now—but we do not want to sell our community’s health in order to get our convention centre. We would rather pay for it ourselves and protect our community from more harm, rather than encourage it in the way that John Key has done.

So I think that Denis O’Rourke is correct. I think that the National Party is soft on crime, and, particularly, it is soft on crime that goes on in casinos—otherwise it would be supporting this legislation, at least to go to a select committee. What is the National Party scared of? What does it have to hide? That is the only reason that the National Party members would all be putting up their hands and saying no to this legislation: that there was something that might come out at the select committee that might expose their shonky deal with the Auckland Skycity Casino, which is behind the scenes, getting around New Zealand law. That is exactly what the situation is—

💬 Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have been listening very carefully to the member’s contributions and comparing it with the Speakers’ rulings as set out in Speaker’s ruling 50/3. I fear that the last comment that the member has made, which I will not repeat, has certainly strayed into territory that is improper for a member of this House to make.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I was actually thinking of Speaker’s ruling 51/5, myself. I would just caution the member to be careful in the way in which she couches the debate.

The reason why I think the National Party members do not want this bill to go to a select committee is that, during submissions looking at whether criminals should be able to spend the proceeds of their crime at a casino, and whether the casino, knowing that, should benefit from it, the issue of the deal may come up. I think that during those submissions the issue may be brought up of the deal that John Key and Steven Joyce are doing with the Skycity Casino in Auckland, so that that organisation can get around the law and dramatically increase the number of pokie machines it runs, which we know will do great harm in our community, and for which, in return, it has to have to provide a convention city, which they will make money from. That is why the National Party is afraid and does not want this bill to go to a select committee.

So Labour is supporting this. We want the debate. There might be, as there often is in a member’s bill, some matters to clean out. We do not have the resources of Government departments and agencies to write bills for us. Members rely on talented members within their own caucus. We are fortunate to have Charles Chauvel. I am not sure who the Green Party has in its caucus—any number of people might have written it—but Metiria Turei is responsible for this bill and I want to give her credit for bringing it to the House. It is an important area. It is one that this Parliament should not be afraid to debate.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill. It is a timely attempt to rein in the rapacious activities of casinos that profit from the proceeds of crime. Casinos are the beneficiaries of theft, fraud, and money-laundering. They are not necessarily good corporate citizens, and Mr Joyce’s comments in the House during question time that the Greens were trying to stop Skycity in Auckland from building a convention centre were disingenuous, to say the least. He implies that we, the people of Auckland, should be grateful for the casino’s largesse, that Skycity Casino is a good and worthy business, and completely forgets that the cost that comes with this national convention centre deal is more crime, more problem gambling, and more social harm, and that this is what will come from the extra 300 to 500 pokie machines that the casino is demanding in exchange.

This bill is an attempt to reduce the crime level associated with casinos by ensuring that they can no longer help the criminals. Currently there are no disincentives for a casino to do that. There are only incentives. For example, in 2006 in a period of 6 months one member of a criminal drug ring gambled over $11 million—classic money-laundering—and from that exercise the casino kept $1.5 million in profit. In 2010 Herminia Lanuza was jailed for 4 years for theft. She withdrew $2.7 million from banks and ATMs around the Auckland Casino and lost the lot, and it is interesting that it is the bank that is being sued for passing her fraudulent cheques. Christopher Sue was jailed for 4 years in 2008. He had a turnover of $50 million at the casino over 6 years. How do you think the casino knew that—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

Sorry, sir. How does one know that? The casino knew that because it tracked the money. Richard Watson stole $5.5 million from his employer over 10 years. These are just a few examples.

In 2008 the BDO Kendalls Not-for-profit Fraud Survey found that 53 percent of all the money stolen from charities was stolen to fund gambling activity. This survey, by the way, was of only those people who had been caught. It calculated that the average amount stolen from community organisations was $180,000 per person. That is a huge amount for a charity to lose, and they cannot afford to lose it, especially as they are, quite correctly, held to account for the public funds and donations that they receive and spend. Charities lose money to gambling. Small and medium sized businesses lose money to fuel gambling activity. These employers are good employers. They provide employment, and they pay tax.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)