Bindra Mahesh: Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBindra Mahesh: Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 21 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7419. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MAHESH BINDRA (NZ First): I wish to speak on this bill on behalf of New Zealand First. We need to make all facilitation payments illegal as they are all small bribes. It was very disheartening and very disappointing to hear the Minister trying to justify small facilitation payments. Whether small or big a bribe is a bribe and that is what we need to address because what is at stake is our reputation as a clean transparent country. We have a reputation for having businesses doing business above board without bribery and without those facilitation payments. We need to also work particularly on the facilitation payment side of it and it is not a good sign when the Minister herself tries to justify small facilitation payments.During the Saudi sheep debacle where $11.5 million of taxpayers’ money was paid—we called it a bribe. Well we got into trouble for that but we still called it a bribe and that is what it was—a bribe. There is no such thing as a harmless bribe. Whether you call it a bribe or you call it a facilitation payment whether you call it speed money in some countries whether you call it baksheesh or whether you call it a hafta—there are various names for it but it is the same thing. It is a bribe. So you must also support the anti - human trafficking part of it because that has got more angles to it. It has got the human rights issue angle and it has got the corruption angle. Also it is a punishable offence in most countries including ours.Coming back to the money-laundering part of it we suggest that the high-value goods and services such as the lawyers professions and businesses dealing with real estate also should come within the purview of this bill and that any wrongdoing in that area should also be covered in the Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill.We have had a large number of submissions during our select committee hearings and I would like to quote one of them. In the words of one of the submitters: “Those facilitation payments are bribes and by failing to address them we are enshrining bribery in New Zealand law.” That actually explains the whole thing in just two sentences.David Seymour: What thing?MAHESH BINDRA: Which one?David Seymour: Which thing?MAHESH BINDRA: OK—coming back to the facilitation payments. Facilitation payment—when that was made it was justified as a facilitation payment whereas it was actually a bribe. Had Supplementary Order Paper 128 which David Clendon put in—we are going to support that because it addresses that particular issue. New Zealand First supports the notion that it should be illegal for New Zealand companies to make facilitation payments overseas. Facilitation payments are bribes in the simple no-nonsense language of New Zealanders. The United Nations Convention Against Corruption prohibits facilitation payments and the OECD has called for a prohibition on facilitation payments. The United Kingdom has prohibited them and Australia is looking to do the same. So we suggest that we should also be getting rid of this lacuna in the law this little excuse for small facilitation payments. What is small for a National Party funder could be a big fortune for some of us so who draws that line? What is small? What is big?David Seymour: Careful.MAHESH BINDRA: I think you need to be careful Mr—