Salesa Jenny: Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSalesa Jenny: 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.]JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Thank you for this call on the Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill. Strengthening our laws to combat organised crime and corruption is a worthy aim. This bill will allow us to meet a number of our international obligations and will enhance our compliance with various international treaties and conventions so we can better assist international efforts on corruption on bribery and on the activities of organised crime.Part 2 Subpart 7 amends the Income Tax Act 2007. It seeks to ensure that bribes are not tax deductible. Clause 51 of the bill is designed to make taxation legislation more consistent with criminal legislation and it replaces section DB 45 with a new section that denies deductions for bribes. The intention of this clause is to make it clear that no bribe payments can be tax deductible whether they be bribes paid through intermediaries bribes paid for the purpose of obtaining an advantage for a third party or bribes paid to foreign public officials for acts or omissions in relation to the performance of official duties.This amendment is another of those contained in this bill that will enhance our compliance with the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. However in contrast the Crimes Act amendments in Part 1 had a number of authoritative contrary submissions during the select committee because Part 1 actually permits facilitation payments.Bribes paid to foreign public officials for the sole or primary purpose of ensuring or expediting their performance of a routine Government action where the value of it has no undue benefit or disadvantage seems to be A-OK but there will be no tax breaks allowed. Well clearly such payments are not legitimate business expenses. Of course we would not be advocating that we should resolve this inconsistent approach by allowing payments to grease the proverbial wheels to become tax deductible. No I am merely pointing out that Part 2 in this respect is not consistent with facilitation payments allowed in Part 1. Rather the question for the Minister of Justice is: should we not be following the strong taxation approach and saying that bribery is not acceptable. A genuinely hard-line approach by this Government against corruption would be most welcome in this bill.We are now slipping in the ranks of least corrupt countries in the world. In recent years we have seen a lessening of transparency from this Government. The Government arrogantly continues to look after itself and the privileged few at the expense of everyday hard-working New Zealanders. Its “no rules apply to me” approach was revealed in detail in Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics book. The implications of a concerted campaign to undermine regulators like the Serious Fraud Office and the Financial Markets Authority cuts deep to the heart of the integrity of our financial system. Public servants and many people from both sides of the Chamber have worked hard to clean up the mess from the finance company collapses and have attempted to restore some faith so that the public can invest with confidence again. We support clause 51 in Part 2 of this bill because it clarifies that bribes are not tax deductible. Thank you.