Davis Kelvin: Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 20 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3528. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): Labour supports this bill almost in its entirety as the previous speaker Ian McKelvie said. We do have a bit of a hiccup or a hang-up with facilitation payments which is a topic that has been traversed by almost every speaker here. I reflected on Jonathan Young’s contribution notwithstanding his story about having to tip a service worker in the States for a meal of grits. May I say that that service worker was probably being paid about 70 cents an hour back when Jonathan Young was 19 years of age on his trip to the States. You know who would begrudge offering a tip to somebody on that sort of income? I remember that in 2004 I was in the States and I was talking to the girlfriend of the person I was staying with who was a service worker at that time and she was paid $3 an hour. Working an 8-hour shift she was earning $24 but she made over $100 in tips. So we do not begrudge people earning tips. But he tried to make the point that that was a custom in the States and that facilitation payments are customs in other countries.I take issue with that. I think there is a fine line being drawn between what is called a facilitation payment and a bribe. If we look at what Transparency International says about facilitation payments it says: “There is no dressing this up. Facilitation payments are bribes and by failing to address them we are enshrining bribery in New Zealand law.” It almost sounded like Jonathan Young—and I know he did not mean to make it sound like this—was defending bribery and corruption. The payment of money to an official to speed up a transaction—it does not matter how small or how large that sum of money is a bribe is a bribe. It is a bit like saying that you are only just pregnant. You are either pregnant or you are not. When I reflect on Ian McKelvie’s story about landing somewhere in an aeroplane and someone running up the steps and giving the pilot a payment which enabled all those passengers to get off without having to go through customs it makes you wonder what sorts of crimes were hidden by that act. How many drugs went out of the airport without being picked up? How much laundered money had gone through the airport without having to go through customs? How many people were trafficked on that aeroplane? We do not know. So I do not think it is right that we can stand here and defend facilitation payments.The Hon Phil Goff was very eloquent and passionate in his summation of them. Basically bribery is bribery. It does not matter how big the sum of money is or how small the sum of money is facilitation payments are bribes. I think that we should absolutely follow the lead of Transparency International and not enshrine these in law. In fact Transparency International says it believes that ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption will not be possible unless the proposed bill amends its stance on facilitation payments. We cannot stand here and say that we are going to ratify that convention and yet still have the capacity for officials to be bribed.I have to say that when this bill came in front of the Law and Order Committee I was quite concerned. I understood the arguments that yes it may facilitate speedy process for New Zealand businesses to do work overseas but in my heart of hearts I knew that there was something wrong with this and that it cannot be justified by our continuing to support it.The other comment that Jonathan Young made was around trafficking. I was quite astounded to hear that 70 percent of people-trafficking is for sexual exploitation. As most people know this is an issue that I am particularly concerned about.Debate interrupted.