Roche Denise: Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 20 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3524. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): I rise to take a short 5-minute call for the Greens on the Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill. We will be supporting this bill despite the fact that we do not think that it really goes far enough. We agree that this bill is overdue and we fully support this bill being enacted as it will allow New Zealand to ratify and comply with international agreements and conventions—conventions like the United Nations Convention Against Corruption the United States and New Zealand Agreement on Enhancing Cooperation in Preventing and Combating Crime the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and also the United Nations anti-trafficking protocol. I agree with the previous speaker Jonathan Young about this insidious crime and it is well overdue that we are doing something about it to ensure that we meet our international standards.As the New Zealand Police Association outlined in its submission to the Law and Order Committee—which I was not on but I have read the submission—this bill will improve New Zealand’s ability to address crime locally combat crime internationally and tighten up the provisions in the Crimes Act around human trafficking as they apply to the activity that takes place in New Zealand. There is no doubt that this is needed and quite frankly it is well overdue.But the area where we think the bill falls down—and others have spoken about it but I will add my 2 cents worth as well—is around what are called facilitation payments which are basically small bribes. The Ministry of Justice in its reports gives examples of what these facilitation payments are: small bribes for things like the granting of permits or licences the provision of utility services or the loading or unloading of cargo. Essentially the bill as it is written at the moment would exempt these sorts of payments from being recorded because the ministry maintains that these payments would not yield any undue advantage. That is exactly what it says: “undue advantage”.But we believe that payments to grease the wheels should be resisted at every opportunity. If we allow small-scale corruption to continue and thrive then where do we draw the line? Where does it go from there? Does it escalate? Does it de-escalate? Generally in these sorts of things it certainly escalates. Undoubtedly it allows the culture of corruption to continue and given that countries like Australia and the United Kingdom have taken a very strong stand to stamp out facilitation payments and even India and China are actively working to get rid of this type of small-scale corruption surely we should be doing more to ensure that our laws prohibit this type of bribery.The bill is an opportunity to take a really strong stance. I believe that by not doing so we undermine our reputation as a country that rates highly with Transparency International for being an honest country for having open and transparent government. I note that this reputation is built not only on our laws like the Official Information Act but also on our Public Service which does not take bribes.Transparency International released a statement yesterday that said it was bitterly disappointed about the opportunity that this bill has lost by maintaining the allowance for small payments or small bribes to occur. It makes no bones about the fact that it endangers our standing in the international community. I agree with the president of Transparency International New Zealand who says there is no such thing as a harmless bribe. I certainly hope that the Government will reconsider that clause in this bill when it comes to the Committee of the whole House and that it will support the Supplementary Order Paper that will be brought to the Committee on this issue by my colleague David Clendon. Thank you.