Hipkins Chris: Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: 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.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): It concerns me greatly that in the contribution we have just heard from David Seymour and in the contribution from the Minister of Justice both of those speakers seemed to be unable to differentiate between a fee for a service that is a service available to all those who pay the fee and a bribe. Those are very different issues. It is a fairly clear distinction that I think anyone can understand and it concerns me greatly that they are unable to distinguish between them.I think it is very important that culture is taken into account. One of the cultures that we are trying to inculcate through the passage of this bill is one that is against corruption. I want to talk particularly about section 105F “Trading in influence” in clause 7 but before I do that I want to go back right to the beginning of this part of the bill to clause 4 which defines what is meant by a “crime involving dishonesty”. When we turn to the actual Crimes Act itself—the one that is being amended—it makes a clear reference to Ministers of the Crown and members of Parliament. The reason I raise this is that I want to bring into context the issue of what is a small payment versus what is a large payment. I want to use a very quick anecdote by way of that.I have regularly dined in establishments in my electorate and throughout the Wellington region where when I have got up to leave the proprietors of the establishments have tried to prevent me from paying for my meal. Then in many other instances I have been approached by those very same proprietors seeking assistance with a matter. It is normally an immigration matter but there have been other matters as well. I can say to the Committee that I have always insisted on paying for every one of those meals that I have eaten. They are not significant amounts of money—we are not talking here about fine dining establishments—but I have always paid for the meal concerned because I have a standard that says that any payment of that kind could be deemed to influence me in the way that I act and therefore I have made that distinction. That is a value that I hold dear. That is the culture that is the value that we need to be instilling through this kind of legislation.When we get the Government saying that there is a difference between a small payment and a large payment how small is small? For example is the cost of one of those meals a small payment? I mean we are talking about a small amount of money. It is not a very expensive meal. But I am covered by this law; we are all covered by this law. We are all deemed to be covered by the law that we are passing and quite rightly so. This impacts on all of us. Is going out and accepting a free meal from someone whom you then offer assistance to—whether it be for an immigration matter or whatever else and it is a small payment—a bribe? That is a question for Government members and I think it is a legitimate one for them to answer. I would say that yes it is. If Government members would say “Yes it is.” too then how is that different from a small facilitation payment as they have defined it in the debate that we have had on this bill so far? I think that is something we have yet to hear from the Government on.I come to section 105F “Trading in influence” and the point that I want to make here is that this section deals with only the influence of officials but actually there are people other than officials who have significant influence on decision-making processes. By limiting this to officials only we potentially narrow down the scope of the intent of this legislation. So what I would like to know from the Minister in the chair the Hon Louise Upston is whether the wording of this section and particularly “a bribe for that person or another person with intent to influence an official …”—what I would like is some more definition from the Minister on what is meant by “or another person”? Does that mean somebody who is basically paying a bribe to someone who they think will have influence over a decision-making process but who is not an official? Is that wording designed to cover those people?It is not always a direct payment or a direct bribe to an official. There are other people who have influence on officials as well. I want to be sure that section 105F “Trading in influence” covers those people. If it does not then in fact there is a real argument to be made that this bill will not achieve its stated objectives of ensuring that bribery—outright bribery—is illegal. If a payment can be made to somebody else who can then exert influence then in fact I think that many of the other provisions in this bill are therefore redundant.So the final point I want to make in this brief contribution to this debate is the one that I opened with: culture matters. The point of this exercise the major thing that we have to be stressing as parliamentarians is that we have a zero-tolerance culture when it comes to bribery and corruption. I am not sure that the messages coming from the Government members speaking on this legislation are contributing to that.