Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill

Members, we come now to our final debate, the debate on clauses 1 and 2, “Title” and “Commencement”.

I just want to respond briefly to my friend, Nicole McKee, who at the outset asked an interesting question just on the range of different commencement clauses that we have in the bill. She rightly notes that there are a series—sorry, I’m just flicking my way there—of commencement dates. These are listed in clause 2: one is that it’s on a date set by Order in Council; there’s another to the extent not brought into force earlier than 12 months after Royal assent; and then there’s sections 7, 32, 34, 38, 39A and 42, and Subpart 1 of Part 2, that come into force on the day after the Royal assent; and then an Order in Council made under this section, the secondary legislation; and then that has all of the particular provisions that relate to this. A good question, and as I understand, the commencement clause brings different provisions into effect at different times—and there’s a delay for some of the provisions because those relate to the need to have regulations prescribing the forms of orders and applications. I hope that makes sense. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break, and the House will resume at 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Members, the House is in committee for consideration of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill, and the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill. The committee is considering clauses 1 and 2 of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Just a brief one from me on the title and commencement, if I may. We had a good discussion before the dinner break with the Minister, and we have another Minister in the chair and no doubt he’ll engage in good faith as need be. But, in fact, the point that I’ll make is really just more in the nature of a comment rather than a question, which is that, in the name of this bill, obviously, we’re amending existing legislation that already provides a regime for the proceeds of crime, roughly speaking, or property that’s not legitimate to use that language in the bill. But it does occur to me that we’re using that word “recovery” and, of course, that’s ultimately the intent of the legislation: that property that has been obtained in a way that can’t be justified as legitimate in certain circumstances will be recovered by the State. But I also think that the word “retention” in there might have been helpful, just to give an indication that there is provision in this legislation for property to be retained, or obtained, I suppose, but held in any case in a sort of a limbo kind of state, literally a holding pattern whereby the State might say that it’s impossible to determine one way or the other if the property is legitimate or not, and the person from whom that property has been seized has the opportunity for a period of time to demonstrate that they do, in fact, have it legitimately. So perhaps just as to the title, if we were to have said “Criminal Proceeds (Retention and Recovery) Amendment Bill” that might have perhaps given a fuller picture, but I’m not going to be so churlish as to suggest that there’s anything wrong with the title as it is, more just the fact that reflecting the whole way that the law operates would have given a fuller picture.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, just to carry on from my friend and colleague Chris Penk, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill, yes, it probably would have been clearer if retention had been captured in that, but I think that the criminal proceeds recovery is really the guts of the bill. We’ve talked about it—it’s been well-canvassed and well-spoken about through the committee stage in terms of having legislation that actually allows our responsible agencies to be able to identify, take action, and recover criminal proceeds of crime. I think that it was important, especially around KiwiSaver accounts, that we really litigated criminal proceeds, because there was a risk through the select committee process that you could capture people that quite legitimately had savings inside their KiwiSaver accounts that weren’t criminal proceeds, that didn’t come from criminal proceeds, but in fact could have been mixed with cash that was laundered and put into those accounts that were from criminal proceeds. So again, I think that has been well discussed through the committee of the whole House stage and also there’s the work that select committee did.

I’d like to acknowledge the officials also and just say that although, yes, I agree with my colleague Christopher Penk, who always puts a very legalistic lens across this legislation as our shadow Attorney-General, and it would have been nice to have seen retention included in there, at the end of the day we support this bill because we recognise that it is going to be useful in terms of giving our agencies the additional powers that they need to be able to recover criminal proceeds with this bill. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment.