Courts and Criminal Matters Bill

I want to speak briefly to this part, in particular to the Supplementary Order Paper amendments, and in particular new clause 30AA. This clause was put forward because there have been some significant problems in the collection of fines because of the quality of information. This came to my attention when I read in the Auckland newspaper the mayor of Auckland complaining about the courts department owing money to Auckland City, and not paying its debts. I made inquiries into what this was. It was simply that Auckland City would issue parking infringements and the like, and because they were uncollectable—no one would pay them—they were forwarded on to the courts department for enforcement. The department was unable to collect them.

I went through these and I saw that, in large part, the department did not have the information. For example, a parking ticket or infringement notice might be issued to Mr John Smith, Balmoral Road. Well, it would be very, very difficult to track down J Smith on Balmoral Road—no registration number, no date of birth, nothing. Effectively, that fine was uncollectable. By the time one gets halfway down Balmoral Road the people at the beginning of Balmoral Road have changed addresses and so on. One could go up and down Balmoral Road for the rest of one’s life and never find any J Smith. So we have a large number of fines that are uncollectable.

Elsewhere in the Supplementary Order Paper it provides that there will be a minimum data set that people have to supply—date of birth and so on. If it is not supplied, the fines or infringement notice will not be accepted by the department for collection, because it is simply uncollectable. But this amendment was to tidy up some of those cases currently in the system, and it was supposed to be about information about identity and location. On examination of it more closely, I can see that there is a problem. It seems to me that if we know the identity of the person—for example, my full name and my date of birth—if we are convinced that we know who the person is, it should not matter how long it takes to locate him or her; the fines should remain. But by having the 3-year limit on locating a person, the identity issue falls by the wayside.

My point is that the wording as it is would enable the registrar to wipe fines—even if the identity of the person was known—if the person was not able to be located within 3 years. That is not acceptable, and I withdraw new clause 30AA on that basis.

I am glad to see that the Minister has taken notice of the point I raised with him an hour ago, when I said that I was not prepared to accept that amendment and would make it absolutely clear to Ministry of Justice officials that after the change of Government the provision was never to be used. The clause is a shameful, sneaky means by which this Government was proposing to reduce the level of outstanding debts in this country. I know that was the plan. The Government is embarrassed about the unrelenting increase in the mountain of debt in this country. If that was not the plan—if it was such a good idea—why was it sneaked in by way of a Supplementary Order Paper and not brought to the Law and Order Committee, and why was it never explained to United Future? Why were the consequences of new clause 30AA never explained to United Future? The reason is the one I have given. I raised the issue of this clause with the Minister. I told him it was outrageous, and I am pleased he has given it away.

Does the Minister actually read these proposals? Does he actually read what is brought before him by his officials? The proposal was that even if the registrar of the court knew the name of the person and that person’s location, then the registrar could, if he or she considered the fine uncollectable, wipe the fine after 3 years.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: The registrar would be able to do that?

Yes, the registrar could do it. We already know that judges have wiped $40 million worth of fines, but here the Government’s proposal was to allow court registrars to wipe the fines of people whose names and addresses are known but whose fines are considered uncollectable.

What amounts would that have meant? In the middle of last year the total amount owed in overdue fines that were over 3 years old—which one could say were uncollectable—was $140 million. If the Minister wants to make a name for himself as the Minister who wiped the ever-growing debt mountain, this is not the way to do it. I am pleased he is removing that clause. We may now find ourselves in a position of being able to support the progress of Part 8, but we were very concerned about what was proposed.

I wonder whether the Minister would take a call and say also whether he will allow support for my amendment to the amendment to section 88(3) of the principal Act, in respect of the amount of $5,000. We have provided for the Government to be able to decide that the threshold for stopping people at the airport should drop—and we have put a limit on that, stating it cannot be higher than $5,000. So surely we should be allowing for some flexibility in respect of clause 30(1). I think that that should be done. [Interruption] Yes, and that it is the charging order change. I think that that is sensible, but I wonder about whether the $5,000 needs to be affected there, as well.

It really worries me with this Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister is prepared to yield about the sneakiness of new clause 30AA only at this late hour. What else is on this Supplementary Order Paper that he has not read and does not fully understand? What else has he read in here? Now that he has accepted what the consequences of new clause 30AA could have been, has he read the rest of the Supplementary Order Paper? Will he give an assurance that there are no other sneaky little things like that on it, where one changes a word here or there and completely changes the outcome of the bill? Will there be any of that?

💬 Hon Rick Barker: There are no sneaky things on it.

What was being proposed was simply outrageous—that we could know the name and location of a debtor and wipe the fine as being uncollectable.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: No, you couldn’t do that.

That was outrageous! That is what was being proposed.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: No, it is not what was being proposed.

The proposal was that an effort was to be made to locate information on the identity of the informant, so that the name of the fines defaulter could be known. It was going to be left there, and the debt was going to be written off. That is wrong. That debt should stay with those people. They should pay it back.

Where are the Minister’s ideas about actually paying the debt off? This bill is supposed to be about reducing the debt mountain. We know that when Labour came into office that the debt was less than $300 million. Today it is estimated to be $640 million. We know that the overdue amount itself is close to $340 million. The debt is going up, so what is the Government proposing to do about it? Is it asking the Customs Service to tell it everything it knows about debtors? No, it is not. Is it asking the Immigration Service to tell it everything it knows about the debtors? No, it is not. Is it asking the Inland Revenue Department to give it every piece of information that could help locate those debtors? No, it is not.

What is the Government proposing to do in this bill? It is proposing that if a person owes more than $5,000, is subject to an arrest warrant—which means the person has to be really bad—and turns up at the airport, then he or she will be taken aside and asked to make an arrangement to pay back the loan. That person can then catch the flight to London. Twenty-five thousand people owe more than $5,000 in fines, and this Government says it will pass this legislation—legislation that will affect 117 people—under urgency on a Friday afternoon. When this bill was introduced with great fanfare from the Government as part of a great campaign to collect money, the officials revealed that it would affect only 35 people a year. Only 35 people would be stopped at the airport and asked to make an arrangement to pay back their loan at $20 a week, and then they would be allowed to go off. But the Opposition put the pressure on, and we are now up to 117 people a year who can be stopped.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Two a week.

It is two a week, or one every 3 days. It is just outrageous—one every 3 days. That figure would not be so bad if we thought we would collect many millions of dollars from them, but do people want to know what the officials said? They said that this bill will collect an extra $1.5 million a year.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: A week!

No—a year. We have a debt mountain of $640 million, and this bill will collect $1.5 million a year. That is outrageous. We should get serious about this. I will tell people what the first few steps the next National Government Minister for Courts will take. He or she will bring in amendments to provide that the Inland Revenue Department can make all the identifying information it can available to the collections service. In this bill, the department can provide only the name and address of the current employer. What if we were to have the name and address of the former employer, because the former employer may actually know where the person is living? But the Inland Revenue Department will not be asked to provide that information, although it would be asked to do so in my amendment to Part 9.

I suspect that the reason we are not taking every opportunity to get information to deal to those people is that the Government is very worried about their privacy. Why are we asking only the current employer? If a fines defaulter changes a job, the Inland Revenue Department will tell the collections agency who the current employer is. Well, what about the past employer? What about the people paying interest on the bank accounts of those people? They could provide information. Further information could be provided about those people. None of that is included in this bill. That is why National says that this is a wasted opportunity on a Friday afternoon and that this Minister could have done a lot more.

The fact that at this late opportunity, and at this late time, the Minister is removing what would have been one of his centrepiece changes in Part 8 is very, very concerning. I am not sure that he is on top of his game, because we identified that issue very early on. We raised it with him and his officials, and now, an hour later, we find that the Government is backing away from its proposal completely. What it was proposing was outrageous. It was saying that a public servant should be able to wipe out tens of millions of dollars of fines, even though he or she knows the name of the fines defaulter, and in many cases might know where he or she is, and has not taken the steps to actually get that payment. That was outrageous.

Other members on this side of the Chamber want to take the opportunity to talk about Part 8 and explain why we were concerned about new clause 30AA. They also want to talk about what better options the Government could have had to deal with the situation and why the Government is planning a multimillion dollar advertising campaign for these changes, when all it will collect, possibly, is $1.5 million from 117 people—one every 3 days.

I would like to pick up on the challenge made by my colleague to the Government to tell us which Government members will stand on the podium in the election campaign and quote new clause 30AA in Part 8 of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill when they talk about how they are getting tough on crime. I wonder whether the honourable Minister will do that. I say to the Minister, Rick Barker, that this is his opportunity to make a name for himself in respect of that huge pile of debt. Under Part 8 he can do that. The Minister has already acknowledged that the Hon Tony Ryall has a few good ideas, and he has accepted one amendment. Why does he not use Part 8 to assert himself and actually do something? I am sure the Hon Dr Michael Cullen would be very pleased to get some more revenue. I know that he is a bit cash-strapped at the moment—he keeps telling the public of New Zealand that things are tighter than the National Party would have them believe.

💬 Hon David Carter: He’s got Pete Hodgson doing his Budget.

Well, that is the problem, of course—and it does not matter who does it on that side of the Chamber. That is certainly the case when it comes to getting the dough out of the crooks. The Government knows how to get it from the poor “Joe Hard-worker” Labour voter who is out there battling away—and who will not be misguided enough to vote Labour again—but it does not know how to get tough on the crooks. The Government always talks about getting tough and says that it will do so, as it campaigns up and down the country. I invite the Government to go out on the hustings in this election campaign—which will kick off in a few days’ time when Dr Cullen says he has had enough—and say that it has fixed the problem of the mounting pile of debt by adding clause 30AA. Up to $650 million is owed through all those outstanding fines. The Minister has the opportunity to fix the problem, but he does nothing.

It is a wet bus ticket of a bill that we have here today. I guess we could say that it is progress and that it is incremental. It does represent the aspirational approach that we have seen from this Government. It shows the same kind of level of aspiration in terms of getting on top of this problem as the Budget shows in terms of getting New Zealand back into the top half of the OECD. At the end of this debate, when this legislation is passed by the Government, we will have a situation where 117 criminals will be caught at the airports. Of course, that means they will be kept in New Zealand, when it would be better if they actually got away and went somewhere else. The Minister will be able to retrieve a small amount of money from them. These crooks will be asked politely and treated with absolute courtesy and, once they have made arrangements to give the Government $2.50 or some such payment a month, they will be able to hop on an aeroplane, take off to London, and disappear into the sunset.

So I ask the Minister to take a call on this part of the bill and tell us why he has not exercised the power that has been bestowed upon him to get on top of what is clearly a major problem in his own portfolio. I ask the Minister to tell the people of New Zealand why the $22 million that is outstanding from those who are supposedly paying reparation is being paid off at the rate of $2.50 a week, $5 a week, or whatever it might be, in the order in which the offences occurred. He should tell people why that is so. He should tell people why 25,000 people out there at the moment have outstanding debts, and why the court system is writing off $40 million of that a year. He should tell people why that is so, and give them an explanation as to why the Government has concluded that that is how it should stay. He should tell the people out there why he believes that clause 30AA in Part 8 of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill is absolutely consistent with the Government’s policy to get tough on crime and make criminals pay for their crimes. He should tell the people out there why, when the Government does catch those 117 people at the airport, it will extract from them no more than $1.5 million per year, when the outstanding debt is $650 million. I ask the Minister to tell people why that is so, and I tell him that he is missing an opportunity.

When the Hon Bill English was speaking before, he put his finger on it when he said that this legislation was nothing more than the Government sticking its finger in the dyke. As I said, we are going to support the bill because it does not make things any worse. But we could do this legislation properly, instead of rushing it through in urgency. The Government should go back and see why crime is out of control, why so many millions of dollars are owed in fines, why $900 million are owed in liable parent contributions, and why, according to the Government—if we are to believe it—$22 million are owed in reparation. I find the latter figure very hard to believe. As someone said, if that money was going into the Government coffers, it would work much harder to get it. I cannot see why, if liable parents owe $900 million, criminals owe $22 million—it is totally illogical to believe that. I would say that at least triple that is owed in reparation.

It is obvious from all the changes in Part 8 of the bill that the Government now has an enormous problem with regard to its automatic fines system. I am not at all surprised that it has problems with that. Someone else talked about a constituent who had tried to pay a fine for an adult child who had left the country, and that parent could not do so, because one has to have a PPN number and all sorts of other information, which totally bars one from paying off some of those fines.

I had a constituent come to me recently. She and her husband had split up, and as part of the matrimonial property settlement the husband had taken a car. Both cars had been in the wife’s name, but he had taken one and she had taken the other. The husband, because he was quite a vindictive sort of fellow, decided not to reregister the car. He could park it anywhere he liked—on loading zones, and all that sort of thing—because he did not get the fines notices. They went to his ex-wife, who was being driven mad by all the fines that kept coming through, even though she did not have the car. She applied to the court, which told her to fill out a section 57B form, I think it was. All that did was go back to the issuing authority. She did not get a reminder notice, and then she got the fines again. She then rang the land transport licensing authority and said she did not own the car any more, but that it was actually with her ex-husband, and she told the authority what he was doing. The authority said that it could not force anyone to register a car, but it could take the car out of her name and note on the file that it was no longer in her name.

A few more months passed and a few more fines came in, and the Ministry of Justice rang her, as it does. It is quite good at ringing people these days, to remind them that their fines are overdue. She said that she did not owe the fines, that she was not using the car, and that it was not hers, and she asked the ministry to please go and repossess the car. I am talking about this case, Mr Chairman, because it comes under clause 30B, “Warrant to seize property”. That is absolutely no good at all. My constituent told the land transport licensing authority that the car was no longer in her name. The Ministry of Justice could not seize the car, because although the fines were in her name, the car was not. So my constituent will probably go to the airport and be arrested, or be told that she will get arrested, and she is one of the innocent people. The thing is that she will not be arrested, because she is actually an honourable citizen and she will pay the fines. She realises that she is trapped in a situation where the dispute is a civil dispute, not a criminal dispute, and so she will pay the fines.

So all the fines that are so outstanding, and that we are spending $1.7 million on in the first year in order to try to collect, at best estimate, $1.5 million worth, will not be a drop in the ocean, in terms of the huge problem we have. As somebody else has already said today, the way to fix the problem is to deal with it fast. We should not have such a delay in the justice system. The delays between a person’s arrest and his or her first court appearance are far too long. The delays from the first court appearance to the final outcome are far too long.

I move, That the question be now put.

I wish to clarify my statement to the Committee earlier. I seek leave to withdraw proposed subsection (2) from new clause 30AA set out on Supplementary Order Paper 370. I wish to leave in subsection (3), which enables the registrar to make an order remitting a fine imposed if the registrar is satisfied the person is dead and the fine cannot be recovered from the person’s estate.

Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. The question is that Part 8 stand part, and we have a number of amendments. The first one is in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall. It is an amendment to omit subclause (2) from new clause 30AA set out on Supplementary Order Paper 370. That amendment is now out of order.

The question was put that the following amendments in the name of the Hon Rick Barker to proposed new clauses 25C and 33E set out on Supplementary Order Paper 370 in his name be agreed to:

to omit from new section 71(1B) of the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 in proposed new clause 25C the expression “21(1)(b)”, and substitute the expression “21(3) or (3D)”; and

to insert in new section 255A(1)(b) of the Fisheries Act 1996 in proposed new clause 33E after the words “filed or”, the words “a reminder notice is”.

Amendments to the amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments as amended set out on Supplementary Order Paper 370 in the name of the Hon Rick Barker to Part 8 be agreed to.

Amendments as amended agreed to, and Part 8 as amended agreed to.

Part 9 Tax Administration Act 1994