King Annette: Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 04 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:505. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Acting Deputy Leader—Labour):Labour will support the Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill. It is good to see the bill has finally made its way to a first reading. We will support this bill. It is an omnibus bill that will enact 12 different Acts and it will strengthen the law to combat organised crime and corruption.The bill as you heard from the Minister of Justice will allow New Zealand to ratify the United Nations Convention Against Corruption it will allow the implementation of the Agreement on Enhancing Cooperation in Preventing and Combatting Crime which was signed between the Governments of the United States and New Zealand and it will also improve New Zealand’s compliance with a number of other international conventions: the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and the United Nations anti-trafficking protocol. These are all important amendments.This bill was first looked at by the Government in 2011. In 2011 the Government agreed to an all-of-Government response to organised crime. It has taken some time for it to get to Parliament for its first reading—in fact the then Minister of Justice Judith Collins promised that the bill would be introduced in 2013. That did not happen. But it has been longer in its gestation than that. In fact way back in July 2008 the previous Labour Government announced the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand—which as people will know is a discrete agency hosted within the New Zealand Police—which was to take a whole-of-Government approach. That work started right back in 2008. I suppose you could say that it has taken almost 6 years for the Government to move on some very serious issues.It is well acknowledged—and I agree with the Minister—that New Zealand has a strong legislative framework to obstruct organised crime. We do have robust domestic laws and law enforcement and we have strong partnerships internationally. But as the Minister also said that does not mean that we are not perceived as an easy target. I want to mention a little later on a growing area of concern and that is domestic human-trafficking. So we are a target and we should not think that because we are at the bottom of the world and nobody really knows about us we would not be an easy target for organised crime networks.We do have a strong and very proud tradition of being an honest nation. We take a strong stance against organised crime. We are consistently ranked amongst the least corrupt countries in the world. Of course every year we look forward to Transparency International bringing out its report. For those who are not aware of what Transparency International is it is a global civil society organisation. It is there to lead the fight against corruption. We eagerly look forward to its annual report ranking countries and territories based on how corrupt their public sectors are perceived to be. It does this on a scale of zero to 100 with zero meaning a country is highly corrupt and 100 meaning it is perceived to be very clean.New Zealand has consistently been in the top two countries with scores in the 90s. That tradition I believe comes from our being the first country in the world to have legislation promoting human rights. It is also down to legislation such as our Public Service Act 1912 and our Official Information Act of 1982. In Transparency International’s latest report New Zealand came first equal with Denmark for being the least corrupt country in the world. Australia came 9th the United Kingdom came 14th the United States came 19th South Africa came 72nd China came 80th India came 94th and at the very bottom Somalia came 175th. So we are very proud that we have maintained our position in Transparency International’s rankings over many many years and we are determined we will keep that status. It is good for this country and good for the Public Service of New Zealand to know that we are seen to be the least corrupt in the world.We also have a branch of Transparency International here Transparency International New Zealand. It is our representative in Transparency International. In 2013 it released a report called the Integrity Plus 2013 New Zealand National Integrity System Assessment. In December 2013 when it was released it was called a landmark report and it revealed that “serious and urgent action is needed to protect and extend integrity in New Zealand.” It also said: “Recent incidents and investigations of corruption and increasing public concern provide a compelling case for a more pro-active approach to these issues.” We have our own branch here in New Zealand of an international organisation saying there is a compelling case so we cannot rest on our laurels and our reputation going back many years. There is a case to have a more proactive approach on these issues.It is almost a year since that report and finally we are getting a first reading of this bill. I think it is time because there have been more incidents—one that I will talk about later—that mean we need to be more proactive.I want to mention just some of the things that make us very transparent and open and support our good reputation. These include the Official Information Act and the ability to tell the public of New Zealand what is happening in terms of our Public Service—to release information provided by our Public Service to a Government. But we have seen a decline in that Act being used in the most appropriate way. I believe that these issues are important to us as a country and as a Parliament. We cannot allow any Government—I do not care what colour it comes from—to use delays obstructions and tactics to stop official information being released.It was very concerning when the leader of the Government in New Zealand the Prime Minister said only a couple of weeks ago that the Government often uses the delay in releasing information for political purposes. It is unheard of for that to be said by a leader of the Government of New Zealand—the use of delaying tactics for political purposes in terms of the Official Information Act.There are a number of issues I want to raise but one of them in particular has to be around the disclosures that have come out of Dirty Politics. I think we as a Parliament need to take them very seriously because although—Hon Dr Nick Smith: What about Nicky Hager?Hon ANNETTE KING: —it may not be of interest to the National Party—and we immediately hear from Nick Smith that he does not want to hear this—we are watched internationally. We are watched internationally as to how well we work. And when we have people working in Government departments and Ministers’ offices providing information that undermines professionals academics and leaders in New Zealand then we need to be very worried about what the public and the international community says about that. I am disgusted that there has been denigration of people who are health professionals working in our public health sector who are being worked against by officials working in Ministers’ offices. That will be known internationally that will be seen internationally and the question will be asked: “Just how clean is the New Zealand Public Service—those who work in the highest offices of this Parliament in Ministers’ offices?”. We need to be very vigilant when it comes to matters that go to the heart of our openness and transparency.In conclusion I want to mention the amendments in respect of the trafficking of domestic persons in New Zealand. I am pleased to see this because we had had no experience of human trafficking. But you need to know that only a few weeks ago we had the first prosecution of human trafficking in New Zealand. If we think we can avoid these sorts of issues then we are very much mistaken. We are part of the global community and we need to strengthen these laws to ensure that we have the best in place.