Whaitiri Meka: Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: 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.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnākoe Mr Chair. Tēnātātou katoa. It is my privilege to take a call on Part 2 “Amendments to other enactments” of the Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill. I have listened intently to all the contributions in the Committee tonight and there are clearly some questions around whether we are meeting our international obligations so I want to reinforce that point on this side.When I look at the regulatory impact statement it says in the very front that a lot of the proposals that we are putting up in this piece of legislation are untested and the point that I draw members’ attention to is the fact that we do not collect enough detailed data on the extent of organised crime in New Zealand. So that somewhat limits whether we can properly evaluate the proposals put in here.I just want to preface my contribution tonight with that statement—that these proposals are untested. I think it is the intention as well but like most things it is the implementation. So it is to that end that I particularly want to draw the Committee’s attention to the DNA testing in clause 39 in Subpart 3 “Amendment to Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995”. Clause 39 which amends Section 27 amends the disclosure of information on the DNA profile databank. Hopefully in the time we have got the Minister in the chair may be able to give some assurances that—I guess the extraction of DNA is important for many people—we are doing it in a way that is not only transparent but also safe so that we ensure that the DNA samples that we are taking are for the purposes that we are taking them for. I would be interested in hearing from the Minister about how that is going to be conducted who is going to be responsible for it because we have had a history of DNA mixing in this country and the outcome has not been very good obviously for those at the centre of it. So just in respect of this part I would invite the Minister to perhaps allay some fears around DNA testing.The other one in my time to contribute in terms of Part 2 is the collection and monitoring of international funds transfer data. Just in terms of outlining I guess the problem that this piece of legislation is trying to address—you know we talk about the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 which I believe came into force in June 2013. It enhances the existing regime and establishes a new supervisory regime to better detect deter and investigate funds related to organised and financial crimes. In the 6-month period between 1 December 2009 and 31 May 2010 a total of just over 2300 suspicious transaction reports were received by the financial intelligence unit from various financial institutes. The majority of these were from registered banks. Under the new Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act banks other financial institutions and casinos—reporting entities—will be required to report suspicious transactions to the New Zealand Police’s financial intelligence unit. However the information that is reported can be limited due to the subjective and disparate nature of reports that are based on suspicion. This can be a problem because they are subjective and they could be disparate.So the first option that is proposed in this piece of legislation is to keep the status quo so that under this option reporting entities would only provide reports of suspicious transactions to the financial intelligence unit. This option is not preferred as debated by the select committee. Although suspicious transaction reports are valuable on their own they are unlikely to fully address the high risk from wire transfer and cash deposits. Option two is that international wire transfers and large cash transactions be reported to the financial intelligence unit.