Davis Kelvin: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 04 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7717. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): It is my pleasure to give a contribution in the third reading of the legislation arising from the Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill. There are a number of parts to this legislation. It is a very complex and complicated piece of legislation and it has been divided into a number of parts.The Hon Phil Goff has covered in some detail our concerns around the practice of facilitation payments and I will come to that shortly. A few other areas that I would like to touch on are in this legislation. One in particular is the part around human trafficking.Human trafficking is generally thought of as about people being moved across borders. Often we hear of incidents in Europe where somebody in the United Kingdom for example will hear noises in a shipping container they will open the shipping container and dozens of people will fall out in various states many deceased. And that is our general impression of human trafficking—that it is this sort of smuggling of people across borders.This legislation though makes sure that human trafficking is no longer only subject to people crossing borders—in fact human trafficking can be internal within countries and there can be domestic trafficking. I think that is a big distinction to make and something that is good to clarify—that simply trading people for servitude or slavery is unacceptable and that they do not actually have to cross through or over any border for people to be guilty of human trafficking.This legislation also addresses identity offences through forgery of documents. These days we all know about identity theft and the use of the internet to scam people. This legislation also strengthens that.There is a part on addressing money-laundering and strengthening the laws around that as well. Previously there had to be some intent to conceal money for it to be considered laundering. That intent to conceal has now been removed. You do not actually have to have concealed money or hidden money away to be guilty of money-laundering. In fact I remember a story of somebody who I knew who worked—it sounds a bit cloak and dagger—for the FBI and had uncovered a money-laundering scheme in the United States where money was laundered and trafficked and hidden away. But it actually had to be physically moved into the United States and would you believe that the cash was physically held in the tyres of airplanes? So there are many ways—many imaginative and creative ways—that money can be laundered but the intent to conceal money is no longer an issue. Laundering of property is no longer part of a crime punishable by 5 years’ imprisonment.On the sharing of DNA for the purposes of criminal investigation New Zealand has improved our international cooperation around the sharing of DNA for criminal investigations. The police can also share personal information with their overseas counterparts a lot easier but subject to certain safeguards. So police cannot just hand over information willy-nilly about people. There are certain safeguards to make sure that personal information is used in the most appropriate way.Phil Goff has spoken at some length about the facilitation payments and the whole issue about when a bribe is not a bribe. The discussion has been that even a small bribe is seen as just a facilitation payment to help people conduct business overseas. A bribe can be $5 $10 $50 $100 that could help speed the process of business or the process of goods through customs or through various border agencies and staff. We oppose that. We believe that it does not matter what size the facilitation payment is a bribe is a bribe and it needs to be treated as a bribe.We had the strange situation where we would not let overseas and foreign officials come here and use facilitation payments in New Zealand but we could have New Zealand officials overseas actually using facilitation payments. That is just not right. We have heard how Transparency International appeared before the Law and Order Committee. It was vehement in its opposition to the use of facilitation payments.We have also heard how the OECD and other reputable organisations do not believe it is necessary to have facilitation payments to conduct business. We have heard how the Serious Fraud Office does not believe that facilitation payments are necessary to conduct business. We pride ourselves in New Zealand on being one of the least corrupt countries in the world—in fact we have often held the No. 1 position in the world for being the least corrupt country. That though is starting to slip.Our reputation has been tarnished. It is tarnished when we have incidents like Ministers of the Crown for all intents and purposes going overseas to conduct their ministerial business only to hear that while they were overseas they have actually been dabbling in personal business and in the interests of personal companies.Jonathan Young: Have you got any evidence for saying that?KELVIN DAVIS: Well there are photos of a certain Minister in the office of her husband’s company overseas.Jonathan Young: Pretty dangerous allegation.KELVIN DAVIS: They say it is a dangerous allegation. All I am alleging is that the Minister was there doing ministerial business—Hon Anne Tolley: Bet you wouldn’t say it outside the House.KELVIN DAVIS: I ask you to defy this Anne Tolley—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are not asking me to do anything. I suggest you carry on with your speech.KELVIN DAVIS: She was there to do ministerial business and instead took quite a long diversion from the airport to the offices where her husband works. That is the sort of thing that tarnishes and taints our reputation.Hon Anne Tolley: Yeah like Ministers taking their partners on jaunts all over the world.KELVIN DAVIS: That is the sort of thing that taints our reputation. Here we have a Minister defending that sort of thing—that sort of behaviour where when a Minister is meant to be overseas on Government business and is instead taking these big diversions and going around and having photographs taken in another business of her family’s.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Move along.KELVIN DAVIS: This is the point I am making about our reputation—our reputation as a country for doing business. It should not be tarnished. We cannot have this sort of behaviour. We know what the Ministers’ guidelines—the Cabinet Manual—says about doing this sort of thing. And yet here we have the National members who are pretty touchy when we raise these issues and these concerns.Hon Anne Tolley: No we just want you to say it outside the House—have the courage of your convictions.KELVIN DAVIS: Well I challenge the Minister to show me the part in the Cabinet Manual where it says it is OK.Hon Anne Tolley: Bet you won’t.KELVIN DAVIS: Well show me the part of the Cabinet Manual that says it is OK—I bet you that you cannot. This is the point. Our reputation is being tarnished because of those sorts of behaviour by Ministers. Here we have Ministers defending other Ministers for behaviour that we know was inappropriate. I ask the question: why is that Minister no longer a member of Cabinet?Jonathan Young: You’ve got nothing to say.KELVIN DAVIS: Nothing to say. So if there is nothing to hide and if there is nothing inappropriate about what occurred why is that Minister no longer a Minister?The Labour Party supports this legislation in its third reading despite how tetchy those members are about certain issues that have happened in their own party. We do have concerns about the facilitation payments. We believe that there is no need for facilitation payments to be made to expedite business and that something—[Interruption]Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! There is one member who has the floor.Hon Annette King: I’m sick of Anne’s speech.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sick of a number of things but we are going to hear the end of Mr Davis’s speech and we are just there now so he should sit down.KELVIN DAVIS: Basically I cannot help the way the Minister is feeling in defence of her colleague but we do support this bill although we do have reservations around the facilitation payment. Kia ora.