New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill

This bill is the innocuously named the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill. It sounds like a lovely idea, except it is not the right title. The correct title here is the “Skycity Crony Capitalism (Looking After Their Mates by the National Party) Bill”, because that is what this bill should be called. We have just been voting through the schedules—

💬 Hon Phil Goff: That’s a long title.

That is a long title. Long titles also were got rid of 20 years ago, Mr Goff. But if we were actually to look at the schedules that we have just been voting on, we would see that they contain the guts of what is in this agreement. It is important, in what I suspect will be one of my final contributions on this bill, to actually remind members of the public what it is that is being given away here. What is being given away here is a massive extension out to 2048 to the licence for Skycity. Within that period the two reviews required under the Gambling Act are dispensed with. Secondly, we have an additional 230 single terminal gaming machines. We have an additional 240 automated gaming table terminals. We have an additional 12 further gaming tables. We have the introduction of cashless gaming machines. We have the ticket-in, ticket-out provisions, which have been put up by the officials as having the possibility of allowing for money-laundering. Those are the concessions. Those are the things that in this bill mean that the title is inappropriate because they directly contradict the Gambling Act.

They are the things that make this bill not about an international convention centre, but about crony capitalism—about one firm, one company in New Zealand, being treated differently from the rest of the companies in New Zealand. That started on the very first day. That started when the Prime Minister wrote on top of the officials’ briefing note “Cover off the Skycity angle.” At that moment the crony capitalism button was pushed and the Government’s officials went off into a separate line of negotiations with Skycity. Skycity then got more information about the process than other bidders did. It was invited to put in proposals that other bidders were not invited to put in place. At that point the process was rorted, the process was wrong, and that was at the direction of John Key, the Prime Minister—the crony capitalist in chief, John Key—who came across the top of a process to build an international convention centre in Auckland, and did a deal. He did a dodgy deal. He is up to his neck in it, and that should be reflected in the title of this bill. So that is the first step at which things went wrong.

Then the legislation to do this was introduced in the House, and I spoke about it last night. In clause 6(2) of this bill we have the sight of the National Government deciding to override the laws of this land via its dodgy, backroom deal. The Gambling Act and associated gambling legislation is ridden roughshod over by this law. This is no ordinary piece of law coming to this House; it is a law that justifies the Government’s dodgy backroom deals. It rides roughshod over other legislation, and it puts in place concessions that go against the Gambling Act.

There is no doubt whatsoever that gambling harm will be increased by this legislation. The Government has actually acknowledged that, by not amending the Gambling Act where its purpose is to reduce gambling harm. It cannot do that, because this bill increases gambling harm. Up to 5,000 extra problem gamblers will be created as a result of this, with all the flow-on effects through our communities, through families and through people who face the horrible addiction that is class 4 gambling, in particular, on the pokie machines. This is a bill that has the potential to increase money-laundering through Skycity. It introduces types of gambling that across the world have seen increases in problem gambling.

This bill should not be before this House. This bill goes against the principles that New Zealanders believe in—about how laws should be made and that a Government will actually look after its citizens. The Government is not here to do deals with its mates; the Government is here to protect New Zealand citizens and ensure that they can go about their daily lives, knowing that the Government is there for them. We might not agree with every single thing that the party opposite does, but what we expect is that it will bring legislation to this House that supports and protects the rights of New Zealand citizens. That is not what the Government has done here. It has brought a piece of legislation to this House that favours one company, and that goes against the values of New Zealanders. It is a shameful piece of legislation.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. This legislation, the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill, is before the House only because the Government needs to exclude Skycity from the Gambling Act. Do you remember that the Gambling Act expresses an absolute prohibition on the creation of any further casinos and on the expansion in any way of existing casinos? Skycity has, for some decades now, been fighting the Gambling Commission on its decision to refuse Skycity further licences to expand its business. What Skycity has done through this deal is find an alternative way to get round the gambling law, because the gambling law has stopped it from expanding as it would like. It is not like Skycity does not make a huge amount of money—it makes huge profits, in any event. It is just greed, frankly. This legislation should not be called the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill, at all. It is the “Skycity Greed Bill”.

It is the “Skycity (Third-largest Casino in the Country Delivery Device) Bill”. That is what this actually is. I do not know whether people will remember in the past, around the time of the smoke-free - tobacco inquiry, that cigarettes were described as “nicotine-delivery devices”. I do not know whether you remember that—nicotine-delivery devices are what cigarettes are. That is why this legislation and this Skycity deal is essentially a casino-delivery device to Skycity. There would be no legislation in this Committee if there were not this deal, which funds the building of a convention centre through the gambling concessions, and if there were not the need to get round the Gambling Act. Part of the reason why this bill is structured as it is—rather than amending the Gambling Act, for example—is simply that the Government did not want to have the public understand clearly enough and openly that the whole point of this deal was to give Skycity a legislative way of avoiding the constraints and the public health regulations in the Gambling Act.

There are, what, 23 pages of words in this bill, but if you took out all of those parts that are related to the Gambling Act and the concessions, you are talking about only five provisions—maybe a few more; maybe seven provisions—that are at all related to the convention centre itself because very little of this deal requires any legislative changes. There is a little bit around the flags—the Flags, Emblems, and Name Protection Act—and there is a little bit around the name of the convention centre, but essentially this entire bill is designed to give Skycity a mechanism to get round the Gambling Act. That is because Skycity has wanted for years to significantly expand its business, and now it can. Now what it has is the third-largest casino being delivered to it by John Key.

The Green Party constructed for members of Parliament and their policy people, on the Tuesday just gone, an almost life-sized replica of the extra 230 pokie machines, 240 automated gaming terminals, and 12 gaming tables out here on the parliamentary lawns, so that when MPs came to vote this bill and exercise their consciences, they would understand exactly what they were voting for. They are not voting for a convention centre. It does not need legislation. They are voting for the reality that that cardboard casino confronted MPs with. It was huge. It took up almost the entirety of the grass out the front of Parliament. The pokie machines had messages from Aucklanders written on them saying: “Please do not pass this bill. Please do not cause my family and friends and my community any more harm.”—genuine pleas to members of Parliament, who have a choice on whether to deliver the third-largest casino to Skycity or not. Part of that choice will be made today in the votes that each individual MP will cast.

The concessions that have been granted have been laid out. They are extraordinary. We are talking about nearly one extra problem gambler being created as a result of every single pokie machine that will be established, so there will be around 200 extra problem gamblers, an estimated 8,000 being individuals affected by that problem gambling, and an extra 6,500 children being affected by that problem gambling. The impact of this legislation—which is gambling legislation, make no mistake—is that a significant proportion of New Zealanders will be harmed.

What we know from all of the papers that have been released so far—and, frankly, not every piece of advice has been released—is that the economics of this do not stack up. So the Government’s argument that somehow Skycity is entitled to the extensive, third-largest casino in the country because somewhere else down the track it will contribute to economic development in New Zealand has been proved false. The only independent report that has been done on any of the economics of this issue showed that there will be a net creation across the country of 18 jobs—just 18 jobs. Although there may be lots of arguments around why a convention centre is good in Auckland, even if it is another kind of convention centre—

💬 Louisa Wall: Let the market pay for it.

That is right. Even if a convention centre does provide limited economic development, is it, none the less, a wise thing to have for other parts of the economy, and why do we not all make a contribution to that? Why does the Government not choose an ethical means to fund the building of a convention centre in Auckland? If the Auckland Council thinks it is a good idea, it should put in some money. If the Government thinks it is a good idea, it should put in some money. If the tourism industry thinks it is a good idea, it should put in some money. There are lots of different ways of funding this thing that do not require the cost of it to be borne on the backs of problem gamblers. Maybe that is what we should call this bill—this is the “Problem Gamblers Pay for the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill”. Maybe that would be a more honest title for this legislation, because if it were not for the fact that Skycity is getting the concessions as a result of this deal, we would not have this legislation before us today.

Most of it could be done by an agreement by the Government in a public-private partnership, whether we like it or not. You know, it would not be the end of the world if the Government was doing a deal with Skycity and it was an economic deal that did not give Skycity these concessions. We might not like it, but at least it would be ethical and at least it would be morally explainable. But at the moment what we have here is morally contemptible. It is a morally contemptible piece of legislation that every single MP will be putting their name to if they vote for it.

💬 Louisa Wall: Only them.

That is right. If you vote for this legislation, you are voting for morally contemptible legislation. You are voting for more children being left in the Skycity car park.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: That presumes there’s any morality on that side of the Chamber, and that’s a big presumption.

That is a presumption, Mr Goff, but I am an eternal optimist and I want to believe in the best in people. I want to believe that the Parliament to which I contribute and that is supposed to serve me as a citizen of this country will make decisions based on rational argument, evidence, and the best interests of the people of this country and, more important than anything, the children of this country, who will inherit it after we are gone. So, yes, I ask for MPs to take a moral stance, to consider the impact of this legislation—which is only about casino gambling and only about Skycity Casino—and to choose to say no to it. There are ethical options available to us. There are other ways of developing a convention centre. There are other economic development options available to the people of Auckland to create jobs and stimulate their economy. There are other ways of providing for the public health needs of families in Auckland. There are ways of supporting Auckland businesses other than putting them at risk of the fraud and theft that will undoubtedly result out of this legislation’s passing.

We could call this bill all sorts of things. I have tried to call the whole deal some names in the past, actually, for which I have got into some trouble.

💬 David Shearer: Just stay there.

Yes, maybe I should stop now.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: You didn’t try to call it sleazy, did you?

I could not possibly comment on that word. At the end of the day, it is our job as members of Parliament to act in the best interests of our whole community, and to not provide a financial boon to one company when we all know that in doing so we cause harm to families and children. It really is that simple a calculation. It requires MPs to genuinely examine their consciences to consider what they are prepared to put their names to, and what they are prepared to have their kids and their family accept that their loved ones have contributed to—that they are part of a process that will cause harm, and not prevent harm. I urge all MPs to vote against this legislation.

I just want to carry on from where my colleague from the Greens, Metiria Turei, left off because I completely agree with her. The New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill is a bill that is improperly named. It should be the “Look After Your Mates (Sleazy Convention Centre) Bill.” I hope I am able to stay in the Chamber after saying that title.

At the end of the day, this whole bill is built solely around the fact that we have to bring in changes to our gambling laws in order to get this convention centre up. If it was just a simple convention centre, we would not have to be doing this. If it was a simple deal that did not involve a shonky deal, we would not have to be doing this either. As the Deputy Auditor-General said, it was flawed, it was not transparent, and there were deficiencies on the part of Ministers and their officials. When the Prime Minister said that he was totally vindicated by her report, she said: “No, that isn’t the case at all.” In fact, she said: “You don’t have to spend time writing 40 or 50 pages of an Auditor-General’s report if he was going to be totally vindicated.”

This was a deal that was shonky from the beginning because of the way it was carried out. It was done over dinner. It was done through a whole bunch of secret meetings between the Prime Minister’s office and Skycity. It cut out completely the other four tenderers that wanted to have a look in to this bill as well. They did not get a good look in. Instead, we had Skycity and, instead, we had to amend massive amounts of legislation in order for Skycity to get the cosy deal that it ended up with. Otherwise we would not have needed to do it.

What sort of deal did Skycity end up with? Well, the current 110 gambling tables will go up by 40—by 40. And listen to this: Skycity has 1,657 pokie machines currently—1,657 currently in operation—and it is going to lift that by 230 more. But here is the kicker in this—here is the kicker: what Skycity will get out of this is not just the extra pokie machines but also 359 of those pokie machines will have their limits lifted from $20 to $100. They will have in-out cards, so you do not actually have to put any money in whatsoever.

This is designed to fleece those people who cannot afford to put their money in these pokie machines in the first place, faster than they have ever done before. It will increase gambling harm much more than has occurred in the past. This is a bill designed to give Skycity an enormous shot in the arm. I asked a former employee of Skycity whom I spoke to before this came forward about what sort of deal this would be, and he laid out what he thought it would be. He was surprised—he was surprised that Skycity got such a great deal.

This will not enhance New Zealand’s reputation. It will not be the economic development miracle that Steven Joyce said it would be. It will pull money out of people who can least afford that money and it will put money in the pockets of those people in New Zealand who have already got that money. This is wrong. It will do nothing for New Zealand except provide the knowledge that our convention centre is being built on the backs of people who can least afford to pay for it. We, the taxpayers, will be paying the bill for all of those thousands of New Zealanders, their families, and their kids who will be poorer as a result of this shonky piece of legislation. Here we are in this Chamber on a Thursday afternoon debating a bill that should never have come to this House because we should have had a proper process that would have enabled other companies to have a fair look in to the situation.

I call the honourable member Philip Goff.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. A very wise choice.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Nobody else does.

There is a question that my colleague is referring to—that any profession that demands the title “honourable” is probably anything but, but I will not go there.

The title of this bill, the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill, in clause 1 is actually a deceptive title. It is a title that does not reveal anything about what this bill actually represents. So I am suggesting to the Committee that a more honest title would be the “Convention Centre (Dirty Deal Implementation) Bill”. That might sound a little unusual to you, but it is actually reflective of what this bill is about. Was this a bill simply to implement the result of a competitive tender to build the convention centre? No, it was not. There was no tender. There was no competitive bidding. This is a deal where John Key sat down and was wined and dined by Skycity and gave it a gold-plated deal. This is the wide boy, currency trader way of reaching a deal. It has nothing to do with the propriety of public sector tendering.

There were other tenderers out there: Vector and Ngāti Whātua. They were reputable tenderers, which might have designed a convention centre that could be funded in an above-board way without the dishonesty and the dirty dealing that this bill represents. But that process never happened. John Key had two personal meetings. He told his officials to stop the process involving the other tenderers. That comes close to criminal activity. It is utterly inappropriate.

The Auditor-General looked at this and thought: “I’d better consider what has happened here. It doesn’t seem right.” Just before she was due to report, John Key came out and said that the report would totally vindicate him. That was another piece of deception. This report from the Auditor-General did not totally vindicate John Key. It did exactly the opposite. The Auditor-General, who is the watchdog of how this Government should be behaving, said that there were deficiencies on the part of Ministers, deficiencies on the part of officials. In fact, she said this about it: “we do not consider that the evaluation process was transparent or even handed.” That was the considered language of an Auditor-General. Anybody else would have said that that was straight cronyism. It lacked transparency. It lacked openness. It lacked honesty. It was a dirty deal. I agree with Metiria Turei. It is a shonky, sleazy deal—a sleazy deal. That is not reflecting on the people who did the deal—much. It is a sleazy deal.

I want to say this. The title I suggested is an alternative title—the “Convention Centre (Dirty Deal Implementation) Bill”—but there is another title that would be more honest than what this Government is hiding behind. It is the “Increasing Harm from Gambling Bill”, because how was the Government going to fund this convention centre? Was it going to fund it by saying: “Anybody who sets up a business should be funded by the market, and if there is not a market for it, do not come to the public for a subsidy.”? The Government could have done that or it could have done it a different way. It could have said: “Well, the tourism industry benefits from this. Maybe the tourism industry could fund this deal?”.

What has the Government actually done? It is funding this by increasing the concessions to Skycity to put another 230 gambling machines in place, when the Gambling Act 2003 requires a sinking lid on the number gambling machines. Why does the Gambling Act do that? Why did the Labour Government pass that Gambling Act? Because the regulatory impact statement from the officials for this bill said that this kind of gambling is most associated with harm in terms of problem gambling. Every member in this Chamber has seen the people who sit on the stools in front of those pokie machines—machines designed to drag as much money as possible out of the person who is playing them, machines that are designed to make a profit for the house at the expense and the misery of the people who operate them—and this Government says that this convention centre should be built on the misery of the people who are playing these gambling machines.

What we find from the regulatory impact statement is that the Department of Internal Affairs says that another 8,000 people will be affected because of the problem gambling associated with these extra 230 machines. There will be 8,000 people, and, as my colleague has rightly suggested, according to the Department of Internal Affairs, 6,500 of them will be children. I say to those National members who have got their heads dropped in shame, who will not take the call, and who will not justify what their Government is doing that those same members will come back into this Chamber and condemn the people who suffer from gambling addiction when they are feeding this addiction because they are increasing the gambling machines in Skycity by 230—another 8,000 family members. There will be more kids who will be deprived because their mothers or their fathers suffer from gambling addiction promoted by the machines that are promoted by this Government in order to get the convention centre.

I will try one third and last title that this bill should be called, and that is the “Dodgy Deal (Lacking Cost Benefit Analysis) Bill”, because that is exactly what it is. You know, the Commerce Committee is set up to examine the bills that come before this House, and its members have the right to call in officials from the Ministry of Health, from the Department of Internal Affairs, and from Treasury to find out what this bill really does. The chairman of that committee denied the select committee the right to have those officials before it, and no wonder, because when we read what those departments say, we find that this is not a good deal for New Zealand. This is what Treasury says. It “has strong concerns that the private benefits to SkyCity will exceed public benefits to New Zealanders.”

Of course, this bill is a gold-plated deal for Skycity to make money until 2048. Most of us will be dead by that time, but the bill will have locked in privileges that will enable Skycity to take more and more money every year out of the gambling population, and it will not be touched by the law that is set up to control gambling. That is a disgrace. It is unprecedented. This National Government will go to no ends to protect and enhance the position of its cronies. The legislation is a disgrace. It should not proceed. It is damaging to New Zealand, it looks after the cronies, and the process that this National Government has followed in pursuing it is, frankly, a disgrace.

I move, That the question be now put.

I am going to recognise the honourable member Denise Roche, and I am doing so because she has sought the call several times.

I have put a bit of thought into considering what the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill means. I have listened very closely to my colleagues on this side of the Chamber, and I agree with their assessment of what the bill is. As a consequence, I believe that this bill is badly named, so I have put together a few alternative names that this Committee might like to consider. The first one is the “New Zealand International Convention Centre (Maximisation of Problem Gambling) Bill”. It is more accurate because with the concessions that have been negotiated—the 230 pokie machines, the 12 automated tables with 20 seats at each, as well as the 40 new gambling tables—we are looking at approximately 8,000 people who will be harmed by problem gambling, and we are looking at about 6,500 children who will also suffer directly from problem gambling as a result of this bill.

We know that the only reason we have this bill and we have these concessions around gambling is to fund the convention centre off the profits of problem gambling, because 40 percent of those profits that Skycity will make from all those machines will be from people who have no control over their behaviour. For a Government to say that this is how we will fund a public benefit for our economy, as it suggests, through the misery of others, is morally bankrupt.

I have also thought that maybe to be more accurate, to more accurately reflect the impact of this bill, we should call it the “Stealing Little Kids’ Lunch Money to Build a Convention Centre Bill”, because that is what happens to children who live in homes where one of their parents has a gambling problem. Maybe we should be asking Skycity whether it could actually extend its creche facilities, which are otherwise known as the parking lot, because that is where a lot of those kids will be.

I am also thinking that we could be calling this bill the “We Welcome Money-launderers and Loan Sharks International Convention Centre Bill”, because if you look at how Skycity will be increasing its profits, and if you look at the concessions, particularly the concessions around ticket-in, ticket-out technology, which actually gets rid of real money for gambling, we are looking at a big, huge welcome to loan sharks. They love this kind of thing. That is how they launder the money, and that is how the P cooks suddenly have an income that they can declare. But at least, as I have said before, the police will know where to find them. They will be in the casino.

We could also be calling this bill—and I think we should be—the “Dodgy Dealing and Tainted Decision-making International Convention Centre Bill”. If you think about the tender process that was aborted halfway through, or even before it started, really—if you look at that, these other dodgy characters have entered the fray. They include members of this House who may have a kind of tainted attitude towards Skycity because of the implications around them keeping their job as an MP, because they have allegedly taken money from Skycity during their mayoral campaign. The conflict of interest there is that that member has to rely on the evidence of the chief executive officer of Skycity to maintain his job as an MP, and Skycity relies on the vote of that member to pass this legislation where it will dramatically increase its profits. The $403 million that it will cost to build this convention centre is chump change. It will have recouped that within 4 years because of the concessions that this Government is allowing with this piece of legislation, which totally undermines the Gambling Act, as others have said.

We could also say that another title for this bill could be the “New Zealand is a Pushover in Negotiations International Convention Centre Bill”. Honestly, we are a laughing stock internationally. We have allowed one corporate citizen to negotiate with this Government for—

I move, That the question be now put.

The question now is that clause 1 stand part. All those in favour please say Aye, to the contrary, No. The Ayes have it—a party vote is called for. The Clerk will please conduct a party vote.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: No, a personal vote’s been called for.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, we cannot have a personal vote on this. I am going by the Speaker’s ruling. He has decided that provisions that directly and significantly affect the ability to gamble should be treated as conscience issues. Clause 1 and clause 2 are not policy provisions. Therefore, there will be party votes.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The commencement clause is essentially the clause that allows the Act to be brought into force. Therefore, the vote on the commencement clause is essentially a judgment on the bill as a whole. The bill as a whole has been deemed a conscience vote, so when members vote on the commencement clause they are expressing their view on the bill as a whole. Therefore, the commencement clause should be a personal vote.

Well, I am not sure I need that, because we are actually on the title clause, and the only conscience matters were issues covered in clauses 6, 8, 9, 10, and 11 in Part 2 of the bill. Given the Speaker’s ruling and that clauses 1 and 2 are not policy provisions, I am prepared to rule that this be a party vote.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Could you direct us to the Speaker’s ruling that deems clauses 1 and 2 to be not a conscience matter?

I have been advised that they are not policy provisions, and I have the Speaker’s ruling in front of me that went to the party whips.

I wonder whether perhaps the confusion is because of that term “Speaker’s ruling”, when, in fact, what you are referring to is the letter from the Speaker that arises from the decision of all parties in the Business Committee this week, in which agreement was reached on this matter. I want to point out that these are the title and commencement clauses that we are voting on. In fact, we have already had a large number of personal votes on the individual clauses that relate to gambling in this bill, and I ask you to uphold the direction of the Speaker arising from that letter, which, as I say, reflects the view of all parties this week at the Business Committee.

Speaking very briefly, further to that—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Speaking very briefly, Iain Lees-Galloway.

The letter does indicate which clauses of the bill the Speaker believed were policy matters, but ultimately it is over to you, Mr Chairperson, to rule which matters are conscience votes and which are not. I simply put it to you that when we come to the commencement clause it ought to be a personal vote, for the reasons I have already outlined.

Well, to me, clauses 1 and 2 are not policy provisions, so in that case I am going to declare that we will have party votes on those clauses.