Tirikatene Rino: Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTirikatene Rino: 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.]RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to take a call in this Committee stage. I want to acknowledge the Minister Amy Adams who while on her feet before mentioned that this bill is entirely compliant—entirely compliant—with our UN international conventions and treaties on which this legislation is based. We know that the suite of amendments that are enacted under this bill all stem from a report from 2001 Strengthening New Zealand’s Resistance to Organised Crime. That report involved 18 Government departments. The proposals that were in this report were incorporated in this bill.I am curious to know how cast-iron the Minister is in her assurance about compliance with the international conventions because the report which was written by the Ministry of Justice and is the foundation for this bill had the biggest legal disclaimer that I have ever seen and have ever read. Basically it was a cast-iron disclaimer that everything that was in the report—the ministry accepted no responsibility for its accuracy or any legal action that might eventuate on the basis of this report. So I am somewhat pleased but I would like the Minister to elaborate a bit further on the assurance that this bill is compliant with all of the international conventions and fully compliant with all the treaties and other protocols that are included in this legislation—that it is cast-iron and that she is not hiding behind any legal disclaimers that have been put to her by her officials.It is important that the people of New Zealand know that in this bill we are not hiding behind legal-speak—we are not hiding behind disclaimers. If it says that we are fully compliant with UN conventions and the like then that needs to be the case otherwise we are actually fooling the public. So there is more than just the United Nations Convention Against Corruption at stake included in this bill. There is a host of others and I would like the Minister to give that assurance that we are indeed fully compliant with all of those conventions as a result of this legislation.Just a quick word now on the issue of facilitation payments. I understand that it is a very difficult issue. Just to give an example prior to the enactment of the China free-trade agreement which was championed by the Hon Phil Goff our entire live lobster industry in New Zealand went through what was called grey channels through Hong Kong and into Mainland China. Obviously the customers were in Mainland China and the financial transactions took place via Hong Kong for its banking system. However the passage of all of the lobster that came out of New Zealand went through grey channels which was basically the word for bribery or greasing the wheels—greasing the access of those lobsters through to the importer. Everyone in the New Zealand industry knew about that. It was common knowledge. That is why hundreds of tonnes of product go that way. The reason that New Zealand companies exported that way was that was the mode of business. Sure there were official tariffs that were in place in China but everyone knew that the hub and the way that the importers circumvented that was through these grey channels under the dead of night in darkness from Hong Kong into southern China.Fortunately the business has changed and it has become much more open and transparent. In southern China at that time there were massive billboards basically saying that “The success of this region is based on cooperation between the border officials the importers and the police.” It was blatantly obvious that it was all about some form of bribery to be able to transact that whole industry. The New Zealand industry does not operate in a vacuum and so I just wanted to highlight the point that I guess it was based on who had knowledge. The actual knowledge and the actual grey channels were enacted and effected—