Courts and Criminal Matters Bill

I move, That the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to refer this bill to the Law and Order Committee for its consideration.

This is an omnibus bill designed to improve the effectiveness of the Department for Courts’ fines and civil enforcement activities through interrelated amendments to a number of Acts. The amendments extend the scope of the information the department can seek through information-matching programmes and through requests to other Government departments. They provide clarification for the public, to ensure that people are informed of their rights and responsibilities, and are not unduly penalised as a result of outstanding fines. Amendments also clarify certain statutory provisions so as to remove confusion and better reflect Parliament’s original legislative intention.

I turn first to the improvements to the department’s information-gathering mechanisms that support its fines enforcement activities. In particular, Parts 2, 4, and 6 of the bill create an arrangement that allows the department’s collections operating unit to compare its database of fines defaulters with the databases of the New Zealand Customs Service and the New Zealand Immigration Service of people travelling into, and out of, the country. Currently, most fines defaulters are able to leave New Zealand permanently, or to leave and re-enter the country, without attracting the collections unit’s interest. Only a small proportion is intercepted. That reduces the credibility of fines as a sentence, by suggesting to the public that the fines and reparation that are imposed will not be collected.

Under the initiative in this bill, alerts will be triggered when serious fines defaulters enter or leave New Zealand at an international airport. Collections officers will use the information about the fines defaulter’s residential address, passed on to them by the New Zealand Immigration Service, to initiate standard enforcement action. The most serious fines defaulters will be intercepted at the airport, where they will be given the opportunity to pay the fines immediately or to make an arrangement to pay, or they will be arrested.

Related to that, clause 33 closes a loophole that would have allowed serious fines defaulters to evade enforcement action simply by travelling on a Sunday. The clause removes the current restriction against the issue and the execution of a warrant on a Sunday in the case of arrest for the non-payment of a fine.

Clauses 29, 31, 32, and 35 make necessary improvements to the existing information-matching and information-sharing arrangements between the Department for Courts, the Inland Revenue Department, and the Ministry of Social Development. Location information—especially telephone numbers—is the key to cost-effective tracing of, and contact with, fines defaulters. As most wage and salary earners are no longer required to complete a tax return, the address information derived from the Inland Revenue Department is becoming out of date and unreliable for the enforcement of fines. Instead, obtaining employer information in respect of fines defaulters from the Inland Revenue Department will mean that defaulters can be contacted at their places of work, to make arrangements to pay outstanding fines and reparation. Clause 32 extends the existing legislative protections for employees against wrongful treatment by employers to ensure that employees are protected against any unwarranted repercussions of fines enforcement action.

The bill also addresses a number of other areas relating to the effective enforcement of fines. It proposes amendments that will better ensure that the public are aware of their rights and responsibilities, so that they are not unduly penalised as a result of outstanding fines. Fines defaulters who are paying off fines or reparation by instalments and who experience a substantial financial improvement, or who are found to have given misleading information when entering into the payment arrangements, should take responsibility for paying off the fines and reparation as soon as practicable. That is especially important when reparation is owed to a victim. Currently, a fines defaulter in that situation cannot be required to increase the instalment payment unless the individual defaults on it. Clause 27 enables the registrar to take appropriate steps to vary the amounts payable under the arrangement.

Clause 22 provides clarification for victims of offences when multiple reparation orders have been made and the defendant has made arrangements to pay off the amounts over time. Distribution on a first-in-time basis recognises that those who have been disadvantaged for the longest period are entitled to receive compensation first, and provides victims with greater certainty about the amount and frequency of payments.

Clause 25 makes provision for separate forms for individual types of offences or classes of offences, such as resource management, dog control, fisheries, or local government by-law offences. As infringement offences have increased in number and type, the currently prescribed standard reminder form has come to be used for an extremely diverse range of offending. Some sections of the form do not apply to many offences, and the notes to the defendant on the reverse side of the form are lengthy and hard to read. More offence-specific forms will assist alleged offenders to understand their rights and their responsibilities.

The bill also makes a number of amendments to provisions affecting the administration of the Department for Courts’ enforcement activities, of which I will mention the three main ones. The department’s collections unit, which is currently responsible for enforcing fines imposed by the District Court, will assume full responsibility for enforcing indictable fines imposed by the High Court. That function is currently performed jointly by the registrars of the High Court and by the police, for whom fines enforcement is not a core function. The transfer will create greater consistency in fines enforcement, and will better align functions within the department.

Clauses 9 and 12 will enable bailiffs to take bail bonds in situations when a debtor cannot practicably be brought immediately before a District Court judge or registrar. When a judgment debtor fails to attend a civil enforcement examination, when the order cannot be served, or when contempt procedures apply and the debtor is arrested, he or she is bailable as of right by a judge, by a registrar, or, outside the court’s normal working hours, by a member of the police. In remote areas it can sometimes take several hours to take a debtor to a police station. It is appropriate and consistent with the current powers of bailiffs to empower them to do that.

Clauses 9 and 12 also align the provisions of the District Courts Act relating to the issuing of warrants to arrest a civil debtor with the fines-related provisions of the Summary Proceedings Act. That clarifies the circumstances in which a court registrar, in lieu of a judge, may issue a warrant to arrest a civil debtor, where an order for examination cannot be served, or where the judgment debtor fails to appear before the court. The two Acts will become consistent in relation to District Court registrars’ powers to issue warrants for arrest.

Overall, the measures contained in the bill share a common theme of ensuring that the court system’s fines and civil enforcement activities operate fairly and effectively, and I commend the bill to the House.

It is obvious from the comments the Minister has made that he has a thorough and instinctive knowledge of this bill. That is demonstrated by the rapid-fire way in which he read from a script—I would say, word for word—the background to this legislation, and the compelling reasons for its introduction. National supports this bill and is glad to see that it will go the Law and Order Committee, where there are many fine National members who can well evaluate the merit and the disbenefits of the bill.

The imposition of fines for breach of the criminal law is a core sanction, and in the mass of legislation passing through this House, many criminal offences have been both created and refined. A common sentence is the imposition of a monetary penalty, or fine. Both in the Sentencing Act that was passed by this present Government, and its predecessor, the Criminal Justice Act, there is a clear direction to the sentencing judge that before a fine is imposed, proper regard is to be had to the financial circumstances of the offender. Where the offender does not have the financial means to pay a fine, a fine will not be imposed. That means that at the date of imposition of the penalty, the court has formed the view that an offender has the wherewithal to make payment of the fine. The natural inference of that is that the fine should be able to be paid within the time frames, if any, set by the sentencing judge. So when a mass of money is not finding its way to the consolidated account, we face a situation that requires the intervention of Parliament.

Of course, monetary penalties are not confined to breaches of black-letter criminal law only—for breaches of the Crimes Act, for example. Fines may be imposed for breaches of a raft of statutes. There are fines, for example, for offences created under the Resource Management Act, and quite swingeing fines can be imposed for offences under the Commerce Act.

I would like to say something about the content of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill, which aims to improve the effectiveness of the Department for Courts’ fines and civil enforcement activities. The bill contains various amendments to a number of statutes impacting on those activities, and the Minister now listening intently across the House has spoken briefly about that. The powers of the Department for Courts to gather information about fines defaulters and enforce fines were significantly extended in earlier legislation—the Summary Proceedings Amendment Act. Although the new tracing and enforcing options implemented through that legislation have made a significant contribution towards the enforcement of unpaid fines, they require further improvement, and that is what this bill is all about.

The bill will do three things: first, it will extend the scope of information the department can seek from other Government departments through information-matching programmes; second, it will clarify certain statutory provisions to remove confusion and better reflect Parliament’s original legislative intention; and, finally, the plan is to extend additional protection to the public by ensuring that they are informed of their rights and responsibilities, and are not unduly penalised as a result of outstanding fines. Those are praiseworthy aims.

It must be of real concern to the administration that, as at 30 June 2001, unpaid fines in New Zealand totalled $350 million, and of that amount, $204 million was overdue or in default. There are approximately 500,000 individual defaulters and 1.2 million separate fines in default. In a population of 4 million people, 500,000 individual defaulters are failing to meet their obligations in respect of activity determined to be criminal by the court. On any view of it, that is a significant number, and the consequence is that fines start to lose credibility as one of the tools in the sentencing armoury. If the collections unit is able to trace the whereabouts of a fines defaulter, the fine can generally be recovered, or the matter otherwise resolved.

I am offering these views to members opposite, some of whom, it is suggested—I know not the truth of this—owe significant outstanding amounts to the Department for Courts in respect of sundry offences. The collections unit, however, is unable to trace a significant minority of defaulters, and if it cannot trace them, it is unable to take any meaningful enforcement action beyond issuing a warrant for their arrest. It has to be a good outcome that those who seek to depart to distant shores by air might well feel the tap of a customs officer’s hand on their shoulder as they seek to board the plane. They could then find themselves being withdrawn from the waiting line, in order to make appropriate payments to the authorities—or else secure or compound for the amounts at issue.

One of the strategies that has proved quite successful in the collection of fines has been the public naming of such defaulters in the press. To date, that seems to have been a South Island initiative, and good on the South Island! It is not an initiative that has yet spread to Christchurch, but there are members opposite with responsibilities in electorates in that area who might well see merit in that course. I will instance two illustrations where there has been some success, one of which involved the Nelson Mail in naming fine-dodgers. On March 31 this year, defaulters from the Nelson and Blenheim courts owed $7 million in fines. There is no indication of how many of those defaulters were Labour voters, but one would expect them to account for a significant number. That figure was a slight decrease on December 2002, when $7.3 million was owed. The Nelson district collections manager said there were too many defaulters to count, so he selected a sample of names to be published, particularly those of people who owed victims’ reparation for a crime or road accident.

A similar initiative was embarked upon in South Canterbury, where fines defaulters owe $1.2 million. The plan was for their names to be similarly published on the basis that that sometimes encourages the fines defaulters themselves to do something about their fines. More commonly, however, the collections unit would be provided with useful information by third parties about the whereabouts of those fines defaulters, from whom the money could then be sought. It is not that the mechanisms are lacking for the enforcement and collection of the money when the defaulter is found; rather, the situation is that if the fines defaulter can be located, there are effective mechanisms in place.

United Future will support this bill in its first reading, because we believe that legislative changes are needed to a number of Acts, in order that the Department for Courts’ fines and civil enforcement activities can operate more effectively. A large part of the problem is the lack of credibility that the Department of Corrections has in terms of effective and timely enforcement activities. It is the perception that enforcement will be unlikely that contributes to most New Zealanders having considerable apathy when it comes to compliance.

Over the last 32 years, the total amount of new fines issued has grown from $22 million to $216 million. During that time, the total amount of fines remitted has varied. In 1980, 14 percent was collected; in 1990, 36 percent; in 2000, 30 percent, and in 2002, just 23 percent. Clearly, a number of people do not pay their fines. They are either not sufficiently informed, or pursued, to repay their fines, or they simply choose not to repay them. In response to a recent drive to recoup fines in the Waikato, one chap was reported to have brought out his goldcard and paid $10,600 when he realised that his television was being taken out the front door. That indicates that some serious fines defaulters have the ability to pay if they are sufficiently informed, or sought after. That apathy has led to approximately $420 million in outstanding and unpaid fines. That is unacceptable, and United Future welcomes the move to amend a series of Acts under one bill, in order to help identify and rectify the problem of serious fines defaulters.

The ability for fines defaulters to leave and re-enter the country, or to leave permanently, without the Department of Corrections’ collections unit being made aware of that, is a considerable problem within current legislation—the problem being that there is no sharing of information between the collections unit and the Customs Service to monitor people leaving the country. This bill pre-empts further changes in our current system that will see changes to the personal tax system to reduce the information that can be retained about an individual. This bill will establish a data-matching programme, so that arrival and departure information from the Customs Service can be supplied to the Department of Corrections to help locate serious fines defaulters. United Future believes that effective use of technology, and effective communication between Government departments, is long overdue. A data-matching programme is a logical step towards identifying chronic fines defaulters. Because the information will be shared, there is a greater likelihood of having correct and current information.

Shared information will also help the 40,000 applicants to the Tenancy Tribunal who attempt each year to recover rent arrears and compensation for damage to property. At present, if a former tenant is a beneficiary, Work and Income New Zealand will refuse to provide address details to an officer on the grounds of the Privacy Act, yet in clause 29 of this bill, the Government can access beneficiary information if the debt is to the Crown. United Future believes that is inconsistent, and it intends to investigate whether this bill has the ability to remedy that loophole for property investors seeking civil debt.

United Future believes it is important that the proposed data-matching system has two levels of alert to differentiate the seriousness of an outstanding fine, because it is not appropriate to unduly disrupt an airport. We will be interested to hear submissions on the proposed silent and interception alerts, and we are also interested in the processes that will be used at the border for fines defaulters, particularly for those who are unable to make the repayments.

United Future has reservations about the new border controls applying only to international airports. United Future will be advocating that data-matching programmes need to be installed and extended to include other ports of exodus, irrespective of what mode of transport a person might use to leave or enter the country. Database programmes need to have that capability at the outset of implementation.

Another key change in this bill is the increase of powers given to bailiffs. A bailiff will now receive greater powers to execute a warrant and collect fines and the bail bonds of debtors. United Future will be looking to ensure that those legislative changes have appropriate accountability measures. We appreciate at the outset that there are benefits from the increase in the powers of bailiffs, but that has the potential to be exploited or abused, particularly in rural areas. We will be looking to discuss those provisions in the select committee.

This bill has particular importance for United Future, because it is an opportunity for victims to be considered in relation to payments involving reparation. Figures have shown that in 2002 the total owed to victims was $41.3 million. We believe that victims should be paid reparation before court fines are paid, and we would like to see that more explicitly stated in the appropriate amendments. It might also be worth investigating whether victims in some instances could receive reparation in terms of their greatest need, rather than a blanket rule of payments being made on a first-time basis. Other changes in this bill—like the ability for a warrant for an arrest for unpaid fines to be issued and executed on a Sunday—is, in our view, bringing legislation up to date with current mobility.

We believe it is common sense to coordinate Government department information in the effort to control crime. We predict, as others have, that updating the technology and communication between Government departments will lead to greater voluntary compliance by fines defaulters. We look forward to the select committee examining the concerns we have, and looking in greater detail at the proposals, and potential consequences, of data-matching and increased collaboration between Government departments regarding fines defaulters. United Future supports the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill to its first reading.

I simply have one thing to say to our hapless Minister over there: well done, finally! Welcome to the real world. The Minister might have finally done something to warrant the payment of that huge salary he gets, the flash car he gets driven around in, the flash car he has at home, the ministerial credit card, and all those perks and luxuries that he enjoys.

💬 Hon Tariana Turia: You’re jealous.

💬 Hon Paul Swain: Is this a bit of envy here?

To the protestations of my colleagues in the Labour Party, I say that I have been harping on about this issue for so long, and it has taken as long as this to get it to the House. I hear all these cries and bleats from people on the Labour hustings, campaigning about the need to provide more social services to the community, and about the homeless, the poor, and the impoverished, while sitting out there to one side is $488 million in unpaid fines. Members can just imagine all the good work that could be done in the community with that money, but for the need to say: “Hey Ron, you’re actually right and we’re going to get stuck into it. You were right to raise the question.” But no, that Minister has a track record of knowing more than others, and closing his ears and pretending the problem does not exist until it leaps up and bites him in the face.

That Minister told me in the House that there were no problems with home detention, and no one who had committed serious crimes was on home detention. In 30 seconds flat, we found out we had rapists and people who had threatened to kill on home detention. In 30 seconds flat, we found out that 11 people who had killed people were on home detention. Eleven people—more than I have fingers.

💬 Darren Hughes: This is a very gracious speech.

I do not care about graciousness. I am more concerned about graciousness and care to the victims of those crimes, I say to that young member. He needs to get his head around the fact that victims do not need to hear that that Minister says there are no people who have raped or killed on home detention, and then find out that there are. That is why, if that Minister is so blind, ignorant, and arrogant that he will not listen, we end up with bills like this finally coming in when people have been saying that the problem is out of hand. Who has been saying that it is out of hand? Members should go to the statement of intent from the courts.

💬 Dail Jones: New Zealand First.

New Zealand First for a long time has been saying that it is out of hand. New Zealand First has a couple of principles. We will support this bill. We will look at it very, very closely, and we want it tougher. I do not understand how any Government can grab an old-age pensioner within 7 days of that pensioner coming back from a holiday on the Gold Coast, because he or she left the country and now the Government wants to get back in and get some of the money it might have overpaid because the pensioner was away for 2 or 3 weeks, while, on the other hand, people who owe $30,000 in fines are blithely popping in and out of the country. Duh! Someone has his or her priorities wrong. Someone would much rather focus on bagging pensioners than dealing with criminals who will not pay their fines.

I will give the Minister one accolade—one bit of credit. Apart from winning an Oscar from Winston Peters—that was a Mongrel Mob nomination for his services to justice in New Zealand—he has actually brought a good bill to the House, and right now I want to acknowledge the good work of the officials behind the scenes, who have put this bill together and brought it here. We need to make sure that when we scrutinise this bill—

💬 Hon Tariana Turia: I’m going to nominate you for an Oscar.

Here we go! They do not like it up them, Mr Mainwaring, do they? When we scrutinise this bill, we will be firm about that. [Interruption] The Minister asks what New Zealand First did. Eighteen months is a lot shorter than 4 years, going on 5 years. The mandate we had is a little bit less than the mandate this Government has had. This Government came making huge promises. We know that it broke the one about taxes. Everyone is paying more taxes these days, including the beneficiaries. Members should go and read the food bank report. It came out today, did it not? It is a bad situation.

Look at what the courts have said. I have a rap here for the Minister responsible for the Land Transport Safety Authority, and the Minister of Police. One of the problems that the Hon Rick Barker has to help resolve is that generated by the Land Transport Safety Authority and the Minister of Police with their myopic focus on cash-register ticketing. They are proud of the constable up in Taihape who dishes out 100 tickets in one shift. But in this report, we find that the courts cannot cope with it.

There is one simple principle that must underline all matters relating to law enforcement, which is simply that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done, for if it is not seen to be done, it becomes totally ineffective. If we hand out tens of thousands of traffic tickets and then find that only 46 percent of them are paid within the time they are meant to be paid, and the rest go on the never-never and are never paid—like all the headlines about boy racers tearing up tickets and laughing, saying that no one will chase them—and do not chase those matters up, people start to mock the law.

This statement of intent from the courts is damning. There was a quadrupling of infringement notices issued by the police from 1992 to 2002. Members should compare that with the court statistics and figures on fines imposed by the courts, which, over that same 10-year period, have remained flat.

Now, one comes to a simple deduction. Some people know that ticketing and fining only works to a certain point. Beyond that point we have to throw people in jail. But this Government does not like people being in jail; it wants them on home detention, going to the gym so that they can perv at all the chicky-babes, and going to the rugby to see the Crusaders. They can do all sorts of wonderful things except be in a jail. Victims do not like that. They hate to hear that we have let them out to go shopping. They also hate to hear that the Government is also paying them the unemployment benefit while they are on home detention—gambling, smoking dope, and organising their next business deal with the Highway 61. Hello! Let us be sensible about law enforcement. Let us make sure that the bill that goes through is so tight that no one who has outstanding fines in excess of $5,000 is allowed to roam free.

Remember those statistics that I finally dug out of the Minister? There are 280,088 people who owe up to $5,000 just in traffic fines. I run another business now, but if I were still running my little business in Christchurch, and I let my debtors run up to 280,088 people, all of who owed me up to $5,000, I would be broke. Some Ministers do not understand that, because they have never owned a business. They have never run one. They have never mortgaged themselves up to the eyeballs and employed staff. They do not understand the basic economics of getting money in and putting jobs and services out. We cannot run a credible justice system if we will allow 38 people to rack up $30,000 in traffic fines and laugh at us. No wonder they say the law is a joke.

I will give members a true story. There is a young Māori man—I know him very well, he is close whanaunga of mine—who told me straight to my face that he owes $2,500 worth of traffic fines. I said: “Do you? What are you going to do about it?”. He said that he had just rung up the court the other day and told them to come and get him. The court said “What?”. He told them to come and get him because he owed $2,500 and they were warning him that he had to pay. He said he would not pay, but that he had some books, and he was prepared to do 2 or 3 months, or however long, in one of the prisons. He said they could name the prison, he would go there and catch up on his reading. I asked him how he could do that. He said it was simple. His car was worth only $800, and the fines were $2,500. He said: “Do you think I am going to pay that amount of fines on a car that is worth that? They can come and take my car. I don’t own a home. They can do what they like. I can do 3 months in jail. I will do some reading. I will catch up on the backlog of some letters I need to write, and then I will come out and the fines will be paid off.” Guess what? That is exactly what ended up happening.

💬 Hon Tariana Turia: That’s not true.

It is true. I tell the Minister it is true and that is what happens in the real world. That young man was later convicted of assault, and when he was in jail his case manager on the integrated offender management system—we have these wonderful things—turned around and did all the documentation so his fines were all remitted. The fines for $2,500 were got rid of. He did a 3-month sentence for assault, and he came out laughing. Do members think that the justice ystem will maintain credibility out there when that sort of nonsense is allowed to go on? Frankly, the guy should have got another 6 months on top, to settle out the $2,500 worth of fines. If measures like that are in this bill, the Government has our support. If not, we will try our level best to make sure that they are, and we will put a bit of steel in the Government’s spine, so that it becomes more effective to deal with crime and will lend some credibility back to the justice system that has long since been lacking.

New Zealand First has been right on this, I say to the Minister. We were right on home detention, we were right on deferred sentencing, we were right on police, and police serving on councils. We are here to give the Government any advice at any time that it may want it.

I raise a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to exercise my rights under Standing Order 107 concerning misrepresentation. I simply say to the House that the assertions the previous speaker made about the contents of my answer to a parliamentary question are wrong. I suggest that he read the questions and answers, and gets it correct.

I raise a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can I ask you to guide that member, because the comments I am referring to were his oral answers to questions, which were then followed by my tabling a document that completely disproved what he said. If that member wants that left on the record, fine, and he can pay the consequences of that. I do not have a problem over that.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am ruling on the point of order. That is a debatable matter.

I am a proud member of this Labour-led Government. I have much pleasure in standing to support the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. This is an omnibus bill designed to improve the effectiveness of the Department for Courts’ fines and civil enforcement activities through interrelated amendments to a number of Acts. I support the bill.

Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT NZ): I rise on behalf of the ACT party to support this bill to the select committee, but I do so with huge reservations. This bill purports to get tough on the collection of fines and civil debt, but when we look at the fine print, we see that much of it is simply words. It is interesting that if we look at page 12 of the bill, it talks about the level of debt in New Zealand, the unpaid or uncollected fines, and it quotes the 2001 figures instead of the more recent figures, which show us that as at 1 May 2003 there is $487 million worth of unpaid fines in New Zealand, of which $314 million is overdue. The first thing I would like to say to the select committee that deals with this bill is that it would be interesting to find out from the officials why they used information that is 2 years old. The situation is much, much worse than this bill is trying to pretend.

The problem is that we have a Labour Government that is soft on crime. That is why the amount of uncollected debt has increased so dramatically since Labour has been the Government. It is in all different areas, whether it is civil debt, criminal debt, or beneficiary debt. In all of those areas we find that this is a Government that does not go out and demand that the money is paid. The problem with this bill is that it is without teeth.

The other point about this bill is it fails to deal with probably the most important issue about uncollected debt that this country faces—that is, all those hundreds of thousands of landlords out there who are owed millions and millions of dollars in unpaid rent, yet this Government is doing nothing about it. This bill was the correct vehicle to address this issue. This Government is failing, once again, to get tough on lawbreaking New Zealanders.

The issue is that when a landlord and a tenant go before the Tenancy Tribunal, and the tribunal says that the former tenant must pay some back rent, or some debt for damage done to the property and so on, if the former tenant is a beneficiary, he or she is protected by this Government. This Government is not only soft on crime but also soft on welfare. It is now time that it did something about it.

As I said, hundreds of millions of dollars are owed to mum-and-dad landlords around this country. In fact, $1.6 million is owed to Housing New Zealand by former tenants who have refused to pay. I understand that the biggest debt owing by just one former tenant—owed to Housing New Zealand—is probably in the region of $18,000. I want to know what this Government is doing to collect that $1.6 million debt—a debt owed to the New Zealand taxpayer.

The real issue for mum-and-dad property owners who bought a rental housing unit for their retirement income, is that defaulting tenants are an absolute nightmare. Those landlords take their case to the Tenancy Tribunal—a court of New Zealand. The former tenant is ordered to pay up, but before the court bailiff can go and serve the order on the defaulting tenant, the bailiff has to be supplied with the tenant’s address. If those tenants are in the workforce, that is not so much of a problem, because even if they have moved jobs, they can usually be traced. But if the former tenant is a beneficiary, then it becomes an absolute nightmare. Although Work and Income knows where the former tenant lives, it refuses to give that information out to an officer of the court. In other words, Work and Income fails to uphold the rule of law.

There are some 170,000 private property investors in New Zealand, who invest around $43 billion into the rental property market. They own some 230,000 rental housing units. Every year those private property investors take some 42,000 applications to the Tenancy Tribunal. A small number of cases are taken by tenants against their landlords—the majority against Housing New Zealand—but over 40,000 are taken by landlords against their tenants. These cases are against tenants who have skipped without paying rent, or without paying for damage that has been done to the property.

The problem is that this Government has had an opportunity to really deal with this issue; the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill has now gone through the Social Services Committee and come back into the House. The committee heard hundreds and hundreds of submissions. This issue came up in almost every single case. All the landlords said that this was a major problem for people involved in rental housing. They said: “Government, please, please sort it out.” Instead of sorting it out, this Government has said some nice words and done absolutely nothing. This bill before the House shows that Labour has no intention of dealing with this issue, unless it is forced into it.

The issue was taken to the ombudsman in 1999. Four landlords went to the ombudsman regarding six former beneficiary tenants and asked whether it was fair that the Government hides those people’s addresses and will not allow justice to prevail. The ombudsman spent 4 years investigating this issue. All the landlords wanted was that the new address of the tenant should be given to an officer of the court so that the order for paying the money could be served. That is all they wanted. They did not want the information. They wanted the officer of the court to get the information.

I understand that that is one of the most difficult investigations the ombudsman has had to do, because every time he tried to consult the Ministry of Social Development on this issue, it apparently stonewalled him. Eventually, last September the Chief Ombudsman ruled in favour of the landlords. He ruled that the Ministry of Social Development must give the addresses of beneficiary former tenants to the collections unit of the Department for Courts for the purpose of enforcing a judgment order. He figured that the public interest favouring disclosure outweighed the private interest of the individual debtor.

Mum-and-dad landlords throughout the country welcomed the ruling. They said that at least somebody was seeing some common sense. But on 10 October, proceedings were filed in the High Court against the Chief Ombudsman by the Ministry of Social Development. It tried to stall this ruling being made into law. CIV-2002-485-837 Her Majesty’s Attorney-General v Chief Ombudsman was filed in the High Court. The ombudsman then went on to prepare his case. The New Zealand Property Investors Federation had to prepare its case. The Crown had to prepare its case. Just before the hearing in the High Court on 8 May this year, the Crown withdrew.

So far, the cost to the taxpayer has been enormous. The Chief Ombudsman has now asked for $100,000 to be funded to his office to pay for him preparing his case. The Property Investors Federation will have $30,000 to $40,000 worth of costs as well, and the Government has given me information that shows that it has already spent $100,000 of taxpayers’ money, but it is simply the tip of the iceberg. This Government tried to stop the ombudsman’s ruling going through. The ombudsman’s ruling would have allowed landlords to find justice, and I expect the select committee to deal with this issue.

I stand in support of this bill. The bill will also enable the court to increase payment arrangements when fines defaulters’ financial circumstances have improved significantly, or when it is discovered that misleading information has been given. There will be more scope for collecting and paying out reparation owing to victims in a more timely manner.

I speak on behalf of the Green Party on this bill. As the honourable Minister Rick Barker has said, this is an omnibus bill, so it contains a number of different measures and provisions, some of which the Green Party supports and some of which we have concerns about. We do have a number of concerns about parts of this bill, and I will go through those during my speech. As well, I recognise that the bill contains a number of sensible and positive amendments to current procedure, and I also intend to acknowledge those.

The first thing I would like to address is the amendments to the Crimes Act. The bill amends that Act by allowing a bailiff to execute a warrant to collect any fine or other money that an offender has been ordered to pay, if that fine has not been paid within the specified time. Currently those powers are exercised by a police constable. A bailiff will also have the power, which also at present is available only to a police constable, to make a report for the sentencing judge, regarding the making of such an order as he or she thinks fit as to an offender’s financial means, or to the fact that an offender cannot be found after a reasonable inquiry.

The question that raises for the Green Party is what limitations there will be on those warrants to be executed by bailiffs. The concern we have is that a bailiff is, I understand, appointed by the court, and is not subject either to the kinds of rigorous selection procedures or rigorous training that a police officer undergoes. We think there are real concerns about giving such a power into the hands of a bailiff. We are unclear at this stage as to whether that power to execute a warrant will allow a bailiff the power to detain or arrest people, or whether it is simply to obtain information and collect unpaid fines. That is one of the issues that we believe needs to be clarified with some certainty before we would feel comfortable about supporting this bill.

The second thing I would like to address is the amendments to the Customs and Excise Act. The bill provides for the New Zealand Customs Service to supply arrival and departure information to the Department for Courts, to enable it to locate serious fines defaulters and to take fines enforcement procedures against those persons where a warrant to arrest them has been issued for non-payment of the whole or part of their fines, and the warrant has not been withdrawn or executed. When we talk about serious default, that is defined as a person owing $1,000 or more in fines, or any other amount that may be decided by Order in Council—so we can say $1,000 at this stage, but that could be varied very easily by an Order in Council.

The explanatory note of the bill refers to the enforcement of fines at airports, and it puts forward a number of different procedures that may happen. They include information-matching on some or all fines defaulters against international travellers; information-matching plus advice to defaulters who are identified that they must pay their fines, information-matching plus the interception and arrest of some or all fines defaulters at airports, and general publicity. United Future referred to the different kinds of procedures that may apply at airports, and we understand that they may be in the form of a silent warning—the tagging of a person, and that person being contacted when he or she returns to the country—or that defaulters could be intercepted at the airport and not allowed to leave the country. United Future was concerned that there should not be too much disruption at the airport. The Green Party’s concern is that those procedures are not specified anywhere in the legislation, as far as we can tell. They are simply an idea that is floating around, and we would like to see more statutory clarity around the issue of how those people are to be dealt with at the airport.

The amendments to the District Courts Act provide that a registrar has independent powers to issue a warrant for the arrest of a debtor. Currently, the legislation states that that can be done if debtors cannot be brought before a judge. This provision allows a registrar simply to issue that warrant. I am not clear what the reasons are for that change, and I think the select committee needs to look at that, as well. There are amendments to the Immigration Act to allow the Department of Labour to supply immigration information to the department for the purposes of enabling any person who is in serious default in the payment of any fine to be located, and for appropriate fines enforcement action to be taken. There are amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 1978 around the enforcement of fines imposed by the High Court on an offender on conviction on indictment for a drug-dealing offence.

The amendments to the Privacy Act are another area that concerns the Greens. The bill amends that Act to allow adverse information against an individual, on the basis of a result produced under an authorised information-matching programme, to be acted upon by any sworn member of the police or by any bailiff. Those officers are able to immediately execute a warrant to arrest an individual for the non-payment of the whole or any part of a fine. I think any amendments to the Privacy Act should give us a bit of a warning light, and there are huge privacy implications all through this omnibus bill.

I understand that the Privacy Commissioner has not issued a report on this bill at this stage, although the Office of the Privacy Commissioner has been working with the officials on the development of the bill. I understand that the commissioner will appear before the select committee to discuss matters that concern the office. The Green Party thinks that a more comprehensive opinion from the Privacy Commissioner is required before we would feel comfortable about supporting this bill.

There are amendments to the Sentencing Act with regard to the payment of reparation, simply stating that where reparation to multiple people is required it is on a first-in-time basis, rather than on a pro rata basis. That simply means that if a person owes reparation to a number of people, the one with regard to whom the first reparation order was made should be paid first. That is a sensible amendment, and we support it.

There are amendments to the Tax Administration Act, to clarify the information that the Inland Revenue Department must make available to the courts in respect of fines defaulters.

The last thing I would like to touch on is the amendments to the Summary Proceedings Act. There are extensive amendments in that Act in relation to infringement notices, including things like allowing for separate reminder forms to be prescribed for different infringement notices. That makes sense; it makes things more flexible. There are also amendments to the procedural consequences of the serving of a reminder notice and so forth.

That really brings up an issue with regard to infringement notices that I would like to briefly discuss in the last couple of minutes I have available to me. There is a huge injustice going on in our country where people who have been issued with an infringement notice are told that if they do not pay, the matter will go before a court, and they may then be subject to court costs, in addition. That is fine. Currently, the practice is that when the matter goes before a court the person is not informed that his or her case is before a court, and people do not have the ability or the right to appear in court to defend themselves on that issue. It is a fundamental principle of natural justice that people should be able to appear in court in their own defence. For people to be taken to court without even being informed when or where their case is appearing is absolutely wrong. It is a total injustice. People are then being informed that their cases have been to court and that they have to pay the additional court costs, without having had the opportunity to defend their cases. If people are found guilty and there are additional costs then that is fine, but I say people have the right to defend themselves in court.

I very strongly encourage the select committee to look at this bill and at the opportunity it provides to address that injustice. While we are looking at procedures to enforce the payment of fines, we also need to make sure that those procedures conform to the basic principles of natural justice.

I am pleased to rise in support of this bill. This is intelligent legislation. It will be widely supported by the community, and I commend it to the House.

I am pleased to rise in the first reading of this bill. I agree with my colleague Richard Worth, who indicated that National supports this bill. Primarily, we support the bill because we clearly believe in personal responsibility, and this bill is aimed at ensuring that people are held accountable for their actions by providing for the better collection of outstanding fines and the tougher enforcement of fines.

I personally have an interest, as a former Minister for Courts, in measures that enable the department to be a better collector of fines. I am hopeful that the measures proposed by this Minister will give additional grunt to the huge task that now faces the Department for Courts. Some newspapers now actually advertise the names of people who owe fines. While that certainly may give the department real leverage to collect fines from defaulters, I do not know whether that is necessarily a reasonable development for New Zealand. I am hopeful that the provisions here in this bill might help to minimise that sort of activity. National supports the underlying purpose of the bill and looks forward to its scrutiny by the select committee.

As the Minister has indicated, the bill aims to improve the effectiveness of the Department for Courts’ fines and civil enforcement activities, and it contains various amendments to a number of statutes that impact on those activities. The powers of the Department for Courts to gather information about fines defaulters, and to enforce fines, were significantly extended by the Summary Proceedings Amendment Act 1998, and the new tracing and enforcement options implemented through that legislation have made a significant contribution towards the enforcement of unpaid fines. This bill seeks further improvement in that area.

I want to spend a little time on flagging what I think will be an increasing problem for the Government. I will give the Minister the benefit of the doubt, and hope that he has these issues in his mind. When we look at the summary by the Department for Courts in the estimates this year and see the increasing trend towards infringement impositions, then we really have to worry. The last several years have seen a massive increase in the use of infringement fines as a justice sanction. My worry would be that despite the best intentions of this bill, the sanctions it contains may not be sufficient to get on top of the rising trend. It may be that the Government needs to look at the viability of using such sanctions. We in National are worried that if the Government is unable to bring the fines defaulters to account—in other words, if they are able to get away without paying—then the law will be seen to be ineffective and will be brought into disrepute. We cannot allow that to happen.

If members look at the statement of intent of the Department for Courts, and at its review of the trend towards increasing numbers of infringement notices being issued, then they will see that we have cause to be concerned that even with the additional provisions in the bill, that problem may not be able to be properly addressed. It is something that the select committee will have to look at, because such things as defaulters’ names being published and information being exchanged between Government departments—which this bill allows—even though they may be necessary, sometimes come at a cost. The cost will be, I suppose, in terms of the loss of privacy of information for individuals. I think that all Governments need to ensure that they minimise the extent to which information about individuals can be passed backwards and forwards between Government agencies.

The other matter of concern that I also want to refer to is that the statement of intent of the New Zealand Police states that 30 percent more infringement notices will be issued in the coming year than were issued last year. So already there is an intent there—

💬 Ron Mark: Look out Māori, in your old cars!

That is certainly an issue. My immediate concern, though, is that already we see a trend in the ballooning number of infringement notices being issued, and nothing in the statements of intent of either the Department for Courts or the New Zealand Police suggests there will be any falling-away in the number of infringement notices issued. Parliament will have to keep in mind that at some stage that whole area may have to be reviewed. Unless the Department for Courts can get on top of the fines defaulters—they are absolutely numerous, and the amounts owing are also huge—then we may be back in this House in the near future to look at the whole area again, and that would be a pity. I hope the Minister has taken into account the trends that have surfaced over the last wee while, and also the increasing trend indicated in the statements of intent—particularly that of the police—with regard to that issue.

In terms of the statutes that are included in this omnibus bill, Nandor Tanczos made some comments about an issue that arises from the amendments to the Crimes Act. I touched on this briefly earlier in my contribution in a general way. It is the issue about allowing the law to take its course, and giving proper assistance and support when we call on a Government agency to bring the fines defaulters to heel. However, there is also the issue of balancing against that need—the need for justice to be seen to have been done—the need to provide new powers that possibly have the potential to be used in a manner that would then make individuals wonder whether that is a reasonable sort of development.

Lastly, I say that when nearly 200,000 people are involved with overdue fines amounting to $5,000, that is a huge amount of money owed to the taxpayer. It will take a significant amount of resource for the courts to collect that money. When one looks at outstanding fines of over $30,000 and sees 26 people are involved in them, again I say those amounts are worrying. As I said, the Minister has no doubt looked carefully at this matter in introducing these provisions. I hope that the Government does tackle the issue of the rising trend in the imposition of fines.

New Zealand First welcomes this legislation, because it is long overdue. We have been calling out for something to be done in this area for a long, long time, and at last the Government has finally got around to doing something about it. Ron Mark’s attacks on this issue and his pursuit of the question of fines are well known. Only the other day—about 1 May—he asked a question about how much was now owed in fines. I believe he was told that the figure was $487 million. Of that $487 million, $314 million is overdue. What on earth is this Government doing? All right, we have this legislation, but it will take more than that to make sure that money is collected. It is no use the Minister over there shouting across the floor of the House to me. The public of New Zealand want this minority Labour Government to do something about it. Legislation on its own will not be enough. New Zealand First will continue to make sure that action takes place.

Under the inspiration of this Government and its Ministers, we are now in a somewhat ridiculous situation where, clearly, the police department has been requested to put out more and more infringement notices, regardless of whether it collects the money. There seems to be a belief that if a traffic officer in Taihape stands at the bottom of a hill taking photographs, somehow that will sort out law and order once and for all. I see from the police department statement of intent this year that in 2002-03 the performance standard for issuing tickets was somewhere between 200,000 and 250,000. The department intends to up that figure in the 2003-04 year not just to 275,000, or 300,000, but to 325,000 notices. How stupid can this Labour Government’s policy be! On a policy of about 200,000-plus infringement notices, it cannot collect the money, but it is willing to take the figure up to 325,000. All that will prove is that there will be more money that they cannot collect. The cost and the time taken to put out those notices and suchlike will be an entire waste for the taxpayer, and a waste of the police department. No wonder it cannot cope with burglaries and motor vehicle thefts!

In question time only today we heard how statistics for those crimes were soaring. We heard how the situation in south Auckland—the Minister of Police’s own district—is out of control. Anyone whose car is converted these days will not see a policeman. He or she will ring the police department and be given a number for the insurance company, and that is it. I am sure that the citizens of New Zealand would much prefer to see the police out there inquiring into car conversions, rather than standing on the side of the road taking photographs.

The offenders know the rules. They owe thousands of dollars in fines, but what happens when they finally turn up just before Christmas at Mt Eden and other prisons on a warrant to arrest? It is Christmas, so they are let off. They turn up at 10 a.m. in the morning, and at 10.01 a.m. they are let off again. What sort of a police system is this minority Labour Government running? We in New Zealand First intend to make sure that that sort of problem is looked after in this bill, because it is not at the moment. The Government has turned up with a bill that is a bureaucrat’s dream—all this bill is, is more and more bureaucracy. It is also the fines offender’s dream, as well. All the rorts that were so ably mentioned by Ron Mark in this House today will continue, as well as the rort about turning up just before Christmas. This bill is a dreadful piece of management of our fines collection system by this Government.

Of course, we also have the problem—similar to that of hospital charges—where everyone, particularly in the Auckland area, gets loads and loads of traffic tickets. They park endlessly, double park, and all of those things. One just has to live in Auckland to know about it. What happens? They get all the fines, and then they go back home again. No one collects the fines, and the Minister says: “Oh, look! I have issued another 25,000 notices. Aren’t I a clever laddie? Aren’t we all clever blokes?”. But there is no one there to pay the fines. Everyone knows the system.

💬 Ron Mark: They wouldn’t get away with it in China.

If the fine were not paid in China, I expect the car would be seized straightaway. We need to be tougher. This minority Labour Government is just soft on law and order. It thinks that if more and more notices are put out, somehow that is being tough on law and order. It is not. In practice, it would be better to have fewer notices and collect the money. What is the point of having $314 million-worth of overdue fines? Would it not be better to collect $150 million-worth of that, and really do something about it? It would take fewer people to collect $150 million than not to collect $314 million, because that is what it boils down to. More and more staff—

💬 Ron Mark: Sell it to Baycorp.

We could sell it to Baycorp, but I do not think that Baycorp would buy this one. Baycorp is far too clever for that. I am sure the Government has thought of selling it to Baycorp. There seem to be nods of agreement at that suggestion from members on the other side of the House, but no, that one has not worked.

To conclude, and allow this bill to be introduced tonight, I want to say that I agree with Nandor Tanczos about the sentencing aspects, and about how people should be allowed to turn up at court and be heard on infringement notices. Through a young person with whom I am closely acquainted, I have first-hand experience of the fact that more thought needs to be given to students and low-income people who do not know the system, but get caught up in it. Those infringement notices do nothing to allow students and low-income people to gain a good appreciation of the law.

On the one hand, I commend the Government for introducing this bill. New Zealand First thanks the Government very much for bringing it in; it is what we wanted. On the other hand, we say it is not enough, and we will make sure it is improved upon in the select committee process.

Bill read a first time, and referred to the Law and Order Committee.

The House adjourned at 5.59 p.m.