Serious Fraud Office Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I move, That the Serious Fraud Office Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

The bill amends the Serious Fraud Office Act, which has been in place for 36 years. It is outdated and is limiting the ability of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to investigate and prosecute the criminals responsible for the most serious, complex fraud and corruption in New Zealand.

The bill is carefully targeted. It is designed to address issues causing the greatest challenges for the SFO, its search warrant powers, and the legal test for evidential admissibility.

The bill will ensure the SFO can appropriately search and gather evidence of fraud, in an increasingly digital environment, by more effectively enabling the SFO to search digital devices and the cloud. This is crucial so it can prosecute cases and hold offenders to account.

The bill also makes several common-sense changes. These include enabling the SFO to access necessary utilities, like electricity, when conducting a search, and to exclude someone from a search site if there are reasonable grounds to suspect the person might compromise a search.

The bill updates the legal tests used in the SFO Act to determine the admissibility of evidence that was obtained unlawfully. The existing legal test is outdated, so the bill changes this to reflect the more modern and widely applied tests from the Evidence Act.

To conclude, it is critical that our laws continue to adapt in response to ever-changing landscape of financial crime, including advances in technology and how fraud is committed.

Ultimately, the bill ensures the SFO has the tools it needs to hold serious fraudsters to account and to protect New Zealanders from the significant harm they cause. This Government has committed to restoring law and order and this bill is a practical example of how we’re doing that. I’m very happy to commend this bill to the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Firstly, I thought that was a very good committee stage, actually. There were some good questions in there and I thought the Minister of Police and his officials answered well, so thank you for that engagement, Minister.

We all agree that fraud and serious fraud is a serious blight. Sitting on the Justice Committee, we have had Karen Chang and her officials in and she has explained the strategy of the Serious Fraud Office to seek to uphold the Government’s intention to address the slide that New Zealand has had on things like the Transparency International rankings and the view that corruption in public office and election fraud and those things which erode the foundations of our democratic society are important. I applaud that strategy. I agree that the tools are needed. This isn’t blaming this Government, because we’ve all let it slip by, right? But it’s a bit unfortunate that we didn’t do our housework and keep this bill up to date over the years. It’s only when we have a case like R v Pikia that it highlights the fact that we’ve really got work to do.

In this final reading debate, I do want to just put one matter on the record very clearly, and that is that retrospectivity point. The commencement date is going to be in a few days’ time, and this will be passed before the election, even though it probably won’t be passed tonight. The Minister made it very clear in the committee of the whole House that there is no intention that any evidence that was gathered in breach of rules gets the benefit of the Evidence Act rule, which is the kind of proportionality test, but it will still be measured under the rule as it is right now under the Serious Fraud Office Act, which is that illegally obtained evidence cannot be used in court. That would comply, I think, with the principle of retrospectivity. It would comply with the general rule of interpretation that if there are two interpretations and one favours non-retrospectivity, that’s the one we should adopt.

I do think it’s worth, as we go through—one of the reasons we have this is that the conduct of the Serious Fraud Office in R v Pikia was less than optimal, shall we say. I think it’s a timely reminder that searches should be the least intrusive possible and that a search can be a reasonable search and it should be only as extensive as necessary, it should be conducted at a time that is the least intrusive possible, and the people who are conducting it should do so in a way which is, essentially, as humane as possible.

Now, in some cases—less likely in fraud cases—that’s not going to be easy and it is going to be rushing in and bashing down the door and making sure everyone’s safe and that there are no firearms and so on. I get that. But in other cases, it can be done with a lot more civility, and I think it’s really important that that happens.

I do think it’s good that we now have much clearer requirements that the Serious Fraud Office has to go to the authorised or issuing officer with a clear framework of reasons and, essentially, comprehensive evidence. It was interesting to have that interchange with the Minister around the identity of informers and the balance to be struck. We might not have agreed entirely, but I think we agree that there will be cases where if you’ve got someone who’s an informer who is going to be let out on parole early because they’ve shown themselves to be cooperative, then they’ve got an incentive to not be entirely truthful, and we need to know that. That’s also an important part of the framework there.

I do worry a little bit about the retention of documents, and my colleague Tracey McLellan also made some really good points, I thought, around documents which were not just private and confidential but also legally privileged. There is a challenge that when we download a hard drive, you get the lot. I’m concerned that the Minister seemed happy with the Serious Fraud Office holding on to information indefinitely—that was the word I think he used—even when a decision not to prosecute has been made.

Now, if a decision has been made that this guy has done some stuff—or person or woman has done some stuff—which is shady but not illegal, so we can’t prosecute them, then get rid of it, because they’ve done nothing wrong. Well, they’ve done nothing illegal—wrong and illegal are two different concepts—so you’ve got no basis on which to hold that information.

I do think there are some genuine concerns, but it’s a bit of modernisation legislation. I do think it’s good. I do think it’s right that we focus in on the fact that this is a part of our infrastructure that supports our democracy. It’s actually not about scams of, you know, old people’s savings accounts. Serious and complex fraud—which is the test in the Act itself—is actually about systemic fraud, fraud which attacks the integrity of a system.

Now, the current focus is on, essentially, our democratic and civil society, but it might equally be our banking system or our insurance system—something that’s of such a scale or nature as to be systemically important. It’s important that we get this right and that’s why the Serious Fraud Office is doing a good job in saying—you know, they have got limited resources. It’s a really small agency. We need to focus on the things that really matter and the outcome we want to see is a strengthened response to fraud, which systemically damages New Zealand as a free, liberal, and transparent democracy. With that, I will commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on the third reading of the Serious Fraud Office Amendment Bill. I would like to first thank the Minister of Police for his genuine engagement and thoughtful responses during the committee stage. With that, I would also like to thank all of the officials who are providing that advice to the Minister who are staying here rather late as well.

To start with, yes, the Green Party does support this bill. I believe that all of the questions that we have and any of the remaining concerns and questions from the select committee stage that we carried into the second reading have been responded to during the committee of the whole House stage. I think it’s important just to sort of recapture some of those that we have discussed. I think it’s really important, again, that while we’re looking at potentially some of the carelessness that has been taken—we’re looking the R v Pikia ruling by the Court of Appeal back in 2024, I believe, and some of the issues that were presented then. It’s especially important that we get some of the nuances right and some of the limitations and boundaries with the expanded search power by the Serious Fraud Office correct when we are looking at the committee stage as well.

Some of the things that I think were really important and we had great kind of engagement and discussions around were the definitions of computer systems and things, particularly when we’re looking at when something is around multiple jurisdictions as well. When we’re looking at when something that is not simply looking from an electronic perspective, not simply when you’re looking at a website or email address, but as technology evolves, how does that look in terms of apps, in terms of social media? But I also think, unfortunately, one of the things that we haven’t really touched on—and it only occurred to me now during the committee stage—is when we are looking at some of these searches, what is the role of artificial intelligence in all of these when you are searching things that are potentially in other forms of media like ChatGPT or OpenAI, etc? How would, in terms of our justice system but also in terms of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), it be able to keep up with the type of technology that is being used. We are hoping that this bill will at least set an important baseline for the SFO to build on top of that.

One of the things that the Minister mentioned during the committee of the whole House stage is that there are going to be instances where we have to test and potentially update and develop this bill, but only when additional case law presents itself. It does, again, come to what I mentioned in the second reading: if we are already able to maybe front-end some of this and look at it proactively, is there something that we can do additionally that provides guidelines—even from a regulations perspective—or allows for the continued development of this particular process?

Other additional things I want to touch on with this bill are around things like safeguards, which is in new clause 6, as well as the clarification and consistency when we’re looking at the use of force. That has been a really important discussion for us to have. There have been some discussions around the ability for the issuing officer to issue a warrant to extend beyond the current limit of 14 days to 30 days, and allow for multiple occasions as well—again, based on the complexity of that particular requirement and that particular search. It’s also important that we managed to get clarification from the Minister when we were looking at “Effect of warrant issued under Part 2”—so this is in replacement section 12A, inserted by clause 7—that the limitation there, although not explicitly spelled out in clause 12A(1)(a), is still 30 days. That is an important consistency for us to be able to have.

In some of the additional parts—again, as we are looking at absence and the development of the technology area—I think some of the clarification we seek from the Minister regarding 12BA(1) where it specifically still requires email addresses, the clarification there is around the fact that it is a way to guide and to say that, to the best of their ability, anything from there will be sent to your email address. For example, I guess, on the completion of the search, on things that are being searched, how long they were in there for, what documents that were taken, etc.—to the best of their ability to send it to you at a relevant email address, but when that’s not available, there are other mechanisms in place to be able to do some of that work.

I do think that one of the final things in this particular bill that I want to touch on—in a reflection from the committee stage—are some of the things that the Hon Dr Duncan Webb mentioned in clause 8, particularly when it comes to the inadmissibility of evidence, which is again one of the reasons why this bill was brought into the House in the first place, and the common legal concept of the fruit of the poisoned tree. I think that’s a really important one that, in conjunction with Schedule 1, we had a substantial discussion on. Again, it’s important to get that clarification when we’re looking at clause 8—replacement section 22(3) being applicable when there’s been no charges—I think the Minister specified that it does not necessarily apply in the same way if it is to do with the inadmissibility of evidence. It would not apply when you’re looking at an appeal, is my understanding from the conversation during the select committee.

Finally, I think this is an important bill, as we have heard, and as my colleague Celia Wade-Brown mentioned in the second reading. The importance of the Serious Fraud Office is to ensure both that we maintain that aspect of honest politics here in Aotearoa New Zealand when it comes to our democratic processes but also, at the same time, the Serious Fraud Office has a key role. One of the things we are constantly finding here is that while we’re talking about aspects of crime, our approach to white collar crime —for fraud, for tax evasion—has never received the kind of funding that it really deserves, to be able to address those issues sufficiently.

In this particular case, we clearly, as a House, agree on the importance for us to address serious fraud, and I think Hon Dr Duncan Webb also mentioned, in this case, that it’s not just simply when it comes to things like scams etc., but also when it comes to aspects of systemic importance—things from our banking system, any other things that are potentially at an international and a multinational corporation level. Those are things that are really important for us to be able to equip our Serious Fraud Office to address sufficiently. I do believe that this is somewhere where we can see some increase in funding to allow them to do that.

I agree with the Minister that the current Serious Fraud Office is doing its best to be able to undertake the kind of work that he needs to do, but one of the things that did concern me slightly in that particular response on the commencement date was the fact that the Serious Fraud Office has to prioritise. We understand the importance, with prioritisation, but when we’re seeing agencies having to prioritise on the basis of lack of sufficient funding, that doesn’t necessarily contribute to our political system, and we want to see the kind of honest politics and the kind of safety that we are providing for the people of Aotearoa New Zealand.

With that, the Green Party does support this bill. We thank the Minister for his engagement, and we thank the Minister for bringing this bill here. We will leave it and hopefully we will see some changes. Again, we will hopefully see some additional funding for the Serious Fraud Office.

This bill is supported across the House, so I commend the Serious Fraud Office Amendment Bill to the House.

Madam Speaker, at this time, the Government wishes to lift the urgency motion.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Government has indicated that urgency will conclude. Therefore, this debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 1 September 2026.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 11.58 p.m.