Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeOrganised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 27 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4070. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation BillSecond ReadingDebate resumed from 20 May.KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): It gives me great pleasure to resume my speech on the Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Legislation Bill. There are two parts of this bill that I would like to touch on. One is around human trafficking and the other is around what are known as “facilitation payments”. There are two members of the National Party right now who should be feeling pretty sheepish about themselves and pretty embarrassed. First of all Ian McKelvie in the previous time that we were debating this bill made some very unfortunate comments likening sheep rustling to human trafficking. We have got a new name for Ian McKelvie—it is now Ian “Rustle” McKelvie—for even suggesting that sheep rustling is anything like human trafficking. We just need to look at the news in the last day or so to see the effects of human trafficking in Malaysia where people have been trafficked they have been tortured they have been murdered and they have been left buried in the jungle in Malaysia. That in no way compares to sheep rustling. I am sorry for all the farmers whose sheep do get stolen—that is unfortunate—but there is no way on earth that we can compare sheep rustling to the effects of human trafficking.I do have to say that the picture I just painted around the human trafficking in Malaysia is the worst side of things. It actually goes on everywhere and it is not always that nasty but the effect it does have on people’s lives is terrible. This bill actually makes it a crime to traffick people within a country not just crossing over borders. It is about the exploitation of people who for various reasons such as slavery sexual exploitation—there is a whole heap of things that do happen in countries such as New Zealand. It is not all about people being trafficked across borders and being tortured and murdered and left buried in the bush.The second National MP who should be feeling a little sheepish with himself is none other than Murray McCully. Old Murray was left looking and sounding pretty silly in the House today with this whole deal around the sheep farm from some Mr Al Khalaf a Saudi-Arabian sheep—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This is the Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Legislation Bill.KELVIN DAVIS: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. The connection is around the facilitation payments and the member was asked today why he was the first Minister in history to back a multimillion-dollar facilitation arrangement with other jurisdictions—called a bribe. He should be feeling pretty sheepish about himself because he has allowed this flock of sheep to be bought by the New Zealand taxpayer. So we should be all feeling pretty fleeced by the arrangement. He rounded up this mob put them on a plane and we can only assume that they were in cattle class although the cost of flying them over there must have been some first-class benefits. And then what did he do with those sheep? He got the flock out of here. He flew them over to Saudi Arabia. We are picking that he—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This has got nothing to do with the bill that is before us and I will ask the member to come back.KELVIN DAVIS: Mr Assistant Speaker there is a very strong connection between the facilitation payment also said in many jurisdictions to be a bribe and what has happened with the sheep farm for Mr Al Khalaf. New Zealand has paid for this man’s business to be facilitated. We have bought a flock of sheep that we have sent over to Saudi Arabia. The New Zealand taxpayer does not—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I will not remind the member again. We are on this bill here and I will ask the member to come back to it.KELVIN DAVIS: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. What has happened is New Zealand has had a proud tradition of being an honest nation that takes a strong stance against things like facilitation payments. And yet what we have here is the facilitation of a Saudi Arabian sheep farmer’s—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This is the third time. I am terminating the member’s speech. A split call Nuk Korako—5 minutes.NUK KORAKO (National): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. I take this split call on the Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill. If I could relate a little bit about a past life working away from New Zealand because I am reminded of a very famous New Zealander who coined the phrase “You don’t know how lucky we are.” I went away for 2 years but stayed for 25 years and in my career within the tourism industry I visited or worked in every country in Eastern and Western Europe with the exception of Albania. That is where I really did see a lot of corruption. Particularly the further south you got in Europe the worse it became—and the further east as well. I was there at the finishing of the Iron Curtain the breakdown of the Berlin Wall and then the influx of Eastern Europeans coming to the West. Indeed a lot of what they brought with them was a style of life that they had to endure within the Iron Curtain which was very much focused around living by your wits and living with corruption.It was interesting even when traveling south. There are interesting stories that I could relate here to the House about organised crime and corruption. There are things like if you worked down in southern Europe you actually had to take a guide whom you were given because it was under the control of an interesting group that starts with “m”. If you did not take that particular guide well then you ran into immense difficulties further on down. Other things happened as well with the coach drivers. If they did not actually park in the coach park that was run by these sorts of corrupt organisations—one interesting story is how one night a colleague of mine a driver parked his coach in the coach park that he should not have parked in. He came back the next morning and he went to start his motor coach and it would not start. He went to the back of the coach and opened the back bonnet into the engine and there was no motor there. They had taken the motor that night. That was the penalty for not parking right. So all of these sorts of corrupt practices that have actually gone on outside of New Zealand—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Look we are on a second reading debate and just as I mentioned to the previous speaker I will refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 110: “On the second reading of a bill discussion must be confined to the bill before the House”. The bill has been reported back from a select committee and that is what we are focusing on. Anything outside that while it may be interesting can be referred to but the focus of the bill as substantive matter must be what is in the bill as reported back.NUK KORAKO: Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Again it is a privilege to live in New Zealand and the main reasons are that one of the great things about our country is that on every international measure we are considered to be one of the least corrupt countries in the world. There is no reason to sit back though and this is what this bill is about. We cannot sit on our laurels and be complacent. That is not how this Government does things. Since this Government was elected the National-led Government has kept up the fight against crime in our communities and particularly against organised crime which was my point before. We are also focused on making sure that we remain a respected member of the international community and that there is one of the most important factors—doing our bit to prevent what is increasingly becoming a borderless issue. New Zealand is a member of the Financial Action Task Force which sets international standards to help crack down on money-laundering. This bill continues the good work of the Government which it has already done in passing the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 etc. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call David Bennett—5 minutes.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Following on from that great speech by a great new member of this House who I think has added a lot to the political dynamics of this House this is an important bill. I just want to take a different tack and look at the bill with regard to money-laundering and international wire transfers and physical cash transfers from the perspective of part of my community.In my community we have a very big population from the Middle East predominantly a Somali population. A lot of the people who have come from Somalia to the Hamilton community over the years have been refugees. As refugees they have settled here with little or nothing and have made their own lives and their own futures in this country. They are a very strong and supportive group in our community and I enjoy immensely their hospitality and sense of humour. They are very good on the football field as well which is good to see. One of the issues that that community faces is the ability to get money back to their friends and family back home. It is very difficult in a country like Somalia where there is no banking system. For example a New Zealand - Somali family may well have cousins back in Somalia whom they wish to assist in some way and that is fair. We have so many people from many other communities who do that and also many previous generations in this House would have done that as well. The problem that members of the Somali community have got is that there is no registered bank in Somalia and no ability for them to transfer their money.The modern money-laundering rules are very strict and very much follow an international format and they have been through the Finance and Expenditure Committee over the last couple of years. Under those rules there is not a lot of room for movement. We need to be very cognisant of those communities when we progress legislation like this because—Phil Twyford: How do they deal with the “Cabinet Club”?DAVID BENNETT: No Mr Twyford we are talking about real people and their real issues and we are talking about how people want to be able to get ahead. I know that you do not care about those parts of our community but they are something that we do care about and we do work in their best interests. I am saying that in this bill we need to be aware of those issues as well because this is a large segment of our community who feel distressed under money-laundering legislation because they feel that it compromises their position to be able to have active and successful lives.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.DAVID BENNETT: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.Hon Annette King: Too much.DAVID BENNETT: Annette have you got a problem?Hon Annette King: Too much.DAVID BENNETT: Too much. That is Annette’s problem.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! [Interruption] Order! [Interruption] No we will not do that. The member knows how to address other members in the House. He has been here quite a long time and I am just assuming that he is acting in a deliberate manner.DAVID BENNETT: Mrs Annette King said that it was too much before the speech had even started. That was a shame. Before I left the House at dinner time I was talking about my Somali community in Hamilton which is a fine community of people and has delivered a lot to our city. That community often wants to transfer money back home to brothers sisters cousins and other members of their extended families who may be at home. We just need to be mindful of that when we are progressing legislation like this because in countries like Somalia there is no banking system. When my constituents wish to transfer money they often have to transfer it through a third destination like Dubai. Often that money is actually transferred to third parties who then buy goods and services to transfer to the Somali community in Somalia itself. I know that Mr Assistant Speaker is also aware of this issue in his community where it is a big issue as well.I just want people to be mindful of this when they look at legislation like this so that we take into account those communities that have a genuine need to transfer funds outside of the normal process of going through inter-bank transfers—through two major banks in two developed countries. Often those transfers are seen as money laundering in a wider sense because there are not two recognised banks doing the transfer although they do have quite a legitimate reason for doing it the way they do and that is simply because the country does not have that ability to accommodate that system. I just want people to take that into account when this bill goes further. Thank you.Bill read a second time.