Although it is difficult to assess exactly how accurate this report and others are – if for no other reason than the conflation of New Zealand and Australian data – it is nonetheless fair to say New Zealand could be much more proactive in its attitude towards corruption.
Earlier this year, the Government enacted the Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Legislation Bill, which has a number of aims. Chief among these is to update legislation so that New Zealand can, finally, ratify the United Nation Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). The Bill does indeed make many improvements and closes a number of loopholes, but doesn’t necessarily go far enough.
Why? Because under certain circumstances, the Bill allows bribery to remain perfectly legal under New Zealand law.
For example, it is currently okay for New Zealanders to bribe foreign officials as long as the value of the benefit is small, and that it is paid to expedite an action the official would already do. In other words, you can pay a bribe to get the job done quicker or more smoothly.
When the Law and Order Select Committee published its report on the Bill in May, it quoted the Ministry of Justice’s defence of this loophole. In the Committee’s report, the Ministry was quoted stating there is no “undue advantage” from “small payments relating to the grant of a permit or licence, the provision of utility services, or loading or unloading cargo”.
But a bribe is a bribe. The UNCAC offers no distinction between bribes that are small or large, nor between bribes for a new service or for the expedition of an existing service. Under Articles 15 and 16, all forms of overseas bribery are prohibited. The Bill, therefore, falls outside some of the parameters of the UNCAC.
Some might argue that such bribes are irrelevant because they are too difficult to enforce. Even where bribes are outlawed, as they are in the United Kingdom, there is an understanding that prosecutions will be conducted cautiously given the complexity of prosecution. But this argument can be applied to any crime for which enforcement is low. It does not, should not, detract from the fact that such actions should still be criminalised.
Bribery also has a hidden element. The effects of a bribe in one country can be felt deeply in another. Corruption is the grease that allows the wheel of organised crime to turn, and organised crime knows no national boundaries so that what happens from our shores has a flow on effect elsewhere.
According to the World Bank, bribery and corruption costs an estimated US$1 trillion globally per year, and doing business in corrupt markets has been found to add costs equivalent to a 20 percent tax on business. It diverts money and resources away from those who need them.
New Zealand has a long-standing and well-deserved worldwide reputation for integrity, ethics and anti-corruption. According to Transparency International, we are the second least corrupt country in the world. And so it’s startling that our laws still allow bribery to exist.
It is essential for the sake of our international obligations, our international reputation, and most importantly for the ethical health of the nation that we continue to lead the charge for good governance. Enabling any form of bribery is not the way forward.