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Speaker 1: The Organized Crime Advisory Group back this morning with their

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Speaker 1: second report finds we're willingly funneling money into organized crime

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Speaker 1: groups through the purchasing of drugs and dumb scams. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: the police are who bring up just seventy five million

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Speaker 1: dollars worth of criminal assets, which they think accounts for

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Speaker 1: about four percent of what's actually out there. Steve Simon

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Speaker 1: is the chair of the Ministry of Advisory Group and

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Speaker 1: is back with us. Steve, very good morning to.

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Speaker 2: You morning mate.

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Speaker 1: So we're attractive as a market. Is that because everywhere

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Speaker 1: is attractive as a market at the moment, or we

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Speaker 1: in New Zealand are a little bit sleep at the wheel.

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Speaker 2: Everywhere is attractive as a market. New Zealand is particularly

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Speaker 2: attractive because, on the one hand, because of our remoteness,

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Speaker 2: we're doing everything we can to be the easiest place

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Speaker 2: in the world to do business. The downside of that,

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Speaker 2: it also means we're one of the easiest places organized

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Speaker 2: crime to do business. And we're also attractive because, for example,

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Speaker 2: with meth amphetamine, New Zealanders will pay a price for

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Speaker 2: metham vetoing which is higher than most other places in

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Speaker 2: the world.

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Speaker 1: How depressing is it to say that.

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Speaker 2: It's pretty hard. It's pretty challenging to think of what

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Speaker 2: that means for us as New Zealand. Is what that

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Speaker 2: means for me, what means for my kids? And so

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Speaker 2: that's part of the reason why we're looking at trying

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Speaker 2: to find ways tools for the police and other enforcement

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Speaker 2: agencies to do something about it.

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Speaker 1: Are they what's your summation from this group of yours

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Speaker 1: so far on? And this debtails into the four percent

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Speaker 1: on assets as well of what the job police are

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Speaker 1: doing good or not.

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Speaker 2: The police are doing a really good job. I think

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Speaker 2: the difficulty is by international standards that four point two

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Speaker 2: percent is actually very good. The point as your notice,

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Speaker 2: they just can't it's just not good enough to move

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Speaker 2: the dial to disrupt organized crime. Our police are doing

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Speaker 2: great with the tools that they've got, working really hard

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Speaker 2: with the tools that they've got to seize that amount

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Speaker 2: of money, and it's not insignificant. We just think that

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Speaker 2: if we are going to actually disrupt the organized crime,

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Speaker 2: we need to give them a tools exactly.

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Speaker 1: So a two part question on this what are those tools,

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Speaker 1: how legislatively heavy are they and are you telling people

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Speaker 1: like Mitchell anything they don't already know?

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Speaker 2: Question Mike. There are a number of changes, and number

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Speaker 2: of them will be legislators and what we've done is

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Speaker 2: set in our report a variety of them relation to

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Speaker 2: the proceeds of crime regime, also in relation to the

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Speaker 2: money laundering regime, and also around what we can do

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Speaker 2: in relation to cash. Some of those will require changes

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Speaker 2: to the acts that govern them, and we've been in

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Speaker 2: consultation with Minister Costello in relation to that. We've also

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Speaker 2: seen where we will need changes to be made by

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Speaker 2: government agencies and we've had conversations again with a minister

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Speaker 2: about how those might be achieved.

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Speaker 1: I think I asked you this time when the first report,

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Speaker 1: do you bullish on where you sit, on the difference

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Speaker 1: you're making that we're traveling in the right direction and

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Speaker 1: something good will come out of this tangibly?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I mean we were told to be bold, were

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Speaker 2: told to shift the dial and to do it in

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Speaker 2: a meaningful way, and so our recommendations have been very

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Speaker 2: bold because we know on the one hand we want

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Speaker 2: to balance private individuals interests, but also we want to

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Speaker 2: on behalf of New zealand do something to tackle this problem.

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Speaker 1: Good on you, and I wish you the best and

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Speaker 1: we'll get you on with your ext report. Steve Simon,

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Speaker 1: who's the chair of the Ministerial Advisory Group for Organized Crime,

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Speaker 1: it's worth looking if you can be bothered. In Parliament

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Speaker 1: yesterday Shane Jones gave a very sober answer. And the

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Speaker 1: reason I emphasized that is normally Shane Jones as sort

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Speaker 1: of hilarious in his answers nothing's taken particularly serious, but

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Speaker 1: yesterday spoke very seriously about the drug addled nature of

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Speaker 1: his part of the world and the far north of

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Speaker 1: this country. And if you ever want to see what

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Speaker 1: meth can do, and gangs can do, and organized crime

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Speaker 1: can do, unfortunately the Northland region as you post a child.

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Speaker 2: For more from the Mike Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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