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 move that the bill be considered by the Law and Order Committee.

The Courts and Criminal Matters Bill presents the most comprehensive set of legislative improvements for the recovery of unpaid fines, reparation, and civil debt, in 12 years. It addresses a number of issues, including a general concern about the levels of overdue fines, the dissatisfaction of victims when offenders do not comply with reparation orders, and the frustration of creditors and debtors using the court’s civil debt enforcement process. The development of the bill commenced under the previous administration, as you know, Mr Assistant Speaker Barker, and I take this opportunity to acknowledge your work as my predecessor when you were Minister for Courts. The present Government enacted an initial set of reforms to improve fines enforcement last year, as part of a package of measures responding to the problem of illegal street racing. The Courts and Criminal Matters Bill extends those measures, as well as introducing new initiatives.

As at 30 April 2010, $778 million worth of fines and reparation remain unpaid. Through the sterling efforts of the staff of the collections unit of the Ministry of Justice on behalf of the courts over recent years, and as a result of the Government’s recent policy changes, the growth in the level of unpaid monies is slowing. Further improvements are necessary, however, if monetary penalties are to remain a credible measure to encourage compliance with the law.

The Courts and Criminal Matters Bill is an omnibus bill that amends 20 statutes. The main statutes to be amended are the District Courts Act 1947, the Land Transport Act 1998, the Summary Proceedings Act 1957, and the Sentencing Act 2002. These amendments will enhance the court’s powers for the collection of fines and reparation, and will improve the processes for collecting civil debt.

The bill contains three major initiatives that will increase the collection of fines and reparation. The first new major initiative introduces driver licence stop orders through an amendment to the Land Transport Act 1998, contained in Part 2 of the bill. This enforcement measure will allow a fines defaulter’s driver’s licence to be suspended when the defaulter fails to maintain payment of outstanding traffic fines. The licence will remain suspended until the defaulter pays the overdue fines or enters into an arrangement to pay the monies owed. Traffic offences make up approximately 99 percent of all infringements filed in the court each year for collection. A driver licence stop order has proved to be a very effective sanction in Australian and Canadian jurisdictions. In Queensland, an estimated 50 percent of fines defaulters pay or enter into a payment arrangement, with another 25 percent doing so when their licences have been suspended. This measure will create an effective, simple, but powerful incentive for people to resolve their fines.

The second new enforcement measure is credit reporting. Under Part 3, which amends the Summary Proceedings Act 1957, credit reporting will enable information on overdue fines and reparation to be released into the private sector credit-reporting system by the Ministry of Justice. The amendment will also enable the Ministry of Justice to use relevant information—for example, updated address information from the credit industry—to assist the enforcement responsibilities undertaken by the courts. The bill includes provisions to address the privacy concerns that may arise in relation to the release of such information from the credit-reporting agencies to the Ministry of Justice, and from the Ministry of Justice to the credit-reporting agencies. Clause 69 sets out the provisions for the exchanges of information. The Minister for Courts must consult the Privacy Commissioner before recommending any regulations to implement the exchange of information between the Ministry of Justice and the credit-reporting industry; as well, the Secretary for Justice is required to monitor compliance with the legislative conditions, and to report regularly to the Privacy Commissioner. Fifty-five percent of people with overdue fines owe less than $500. Credit reporting will provide a strong incentive for defaulters to resolve their fines. In addition, costly enforcement actions by the courts will be avoided, thereby freeing up resources for the Ministry of Justice to concentrate on collecting the more significant penalties. Credit reports will also enable the credit industry to make better, more informed decisions about whether to lend money to individuals. This measure is closely linked to the third major initiative.

The third new measure is super priority, which will increase the collection of monetary penalties. This initiative, which is also in Part 3, will give the court priority over secured creditors when a person’s overdue fines balance was reasonably discoverable at the time that new credit was granted. Super priority will occur when the court has seized secured property to sell in order to resolve overdue fines. If there were overdue fines at the time that new credit was offered by a provider, the court will get priority for an amount up to the value of those outstanding fines. Super priority will provide the credit industry with a strong incentive to request overdue fines information from the Ministry of Justice. It will also help to clarify who is entitled to the funds realised when the property is seized and sold.

The payment of reparation is an important method of holding offenders to account. Currently offenders may receive a reduced sentence if an offer of reparation is accepted by the court. If the reparation subsequently proves to be uncollectable, the offender cannot be resentenced on the original offence. The bill amends the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 to provide for an offender to be resentenced if he or she subsequently cannot pay the reparation. Another change will allow the court to hold an offender in custody for up to 2 hours until a payment plan has been set or any reparation ordered. Payment conditions will be able to be set by court registrars as well as by judges. These changes are designed to assist victims.

Vehicle confiscation provisions enacted last year by the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill are further enhanced by amendments to the Sentencing Act 2002 and the Summary Proceedings Act 1957. Appropriate vehicle seizure provisions will be extended to apply to all seized property. For example, registrars will be required to search the Personal Property Securities Register for financing statements registered against all seized property, instead of seized vehicles only. Ownership of confiscated vehicles will not have to be transferred to the court before the vehicle is sold or disposed of.

The civil debt enforcement system can be procedurally onerous for creditors and debtors alike. The most common enforcement process requires personal attendance of both parties at a hearing to examine the debtor’s ability to pay a debt. This can be an inconvenience for both parties, especially if they live in different parts of the country, as the law requires that the hearing be held in the court closest to the debtor. The amendments to the District Courts Act 1947, set out in Part 1, will provide greater flexibility for all parties. For example, creditors will be able to request that the court examine the debtor’s means on their behalf. Not only will such changes improve the experience for creditors and debtors but also they will free up resources needed to support the court’s enforcement processes.

When a person does not comply with the law, a monetary penalty is the most common sanction imposed. The Sentencing Act requires the courts to assess a person’s ability to pay before imposing a fine or reparation order, ensuring that the penalties imposed are credible. Most monetary penalties are, however, imposed by way of an infringement notice. Approximately 2.7 million notices are issued each year, mostly for traffic offences. Unfortunately, 1.1 million notices remain unpaid each year and are filed for enforcement as fines by the court. By agreement with the collections unit of the Ministry of Justice acting on behalf of the courts, offenders can tailor their payment arrangements to reflect their ability to pay. Many do so; others do not. This bill will increase the enforcement options available to the court to collect overdue fines and other monetary penalties.

The three new major enforcement measures are designed to create a strong incentive for people to proactively resolve their overdue fines and reparation. Changes to existing provisions will strengthen the currently available enforcement tools and processes. The bill will also provide creditors and debtors with an enforcement system that is better tailored to their needs. This bill delivers a comprehensive package to enhance the collection of fines reparation and civil debt. I therefore commend this bill to the House.

The Labour Party will support the referral of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill to a select committee. I thank the Minister for Courts, the Hon Georgina te Heuheu, for her acknowledgment of the efforts of the previous Minister, the Hon Rick Barker, in this area. I think that perhaps the most successful innovation in respect of fines collection in recent years has been the change made to the law while he was the Minister to allow information to be processed at the border from people who were trying to travel overseas. Those people were not allowed to board their aircraft if they had unpaid fines in New Zealand under the New Zealand fines system. That has been a very successful measure, which has improved the collection of fines.

I agree with the Minister that it is important that we have a system that holds people to account for penalties that have been imposed upon them; otherwise the system stops working if people can effectively avoid the sanctions imposed upon them for breaches of the law. If I were to be a little critical, it would be that the policy behind the major change here, which is the introduction of driver licence stop orders, was agreed on back in the middle of 2008. We are 2 years on from then before now seeing the introduction of this legislation, despite the fact that the policy was agreed to by both the previous Government and this Government, and that seems to be a bit slow.

I think that driver licence stop orders will be the most effective part of the changes made in this bill. There is a process that is followed, and that is fair. Liable persons are sent a warning notice, giving them 14 days to resolve the issue between them and the fines authorities before their licence is suspended. People can make an arrangement with the collection agency for the proper payment of their fine over time. It does not have to be paid in one lump sum; they just have to have an arrangement in place. If they do not do that, the people who are in default will lose their licence. They will lose their right to drive.

People who are in default will also lose a limited licence. I am not convinced about that provision; I think that is something that the select committee should look at. I am not sure whether it is in society’s interest that we should cause people to lose their job as a consequence of this legislation. I think they should lose their licence for non-work purposes. But I am not convinced that it is always in their interests—

💬 Sandra Goudie: If they have a job, they will be able to pay their fines.

We hear another erudite contribution from Sandra Goudie. That would be unusual, I know. I am not sure about depriving people of their livelihood, because that is the means by which they would pay a fine and meet their other obligations to society to look after their families, or to pay family support if they have children. If people need a limited licence in order to drive for the purposes of their employment, it might be going a step too far to deprive them of that limited licence and, therefore, of their livelihood.

💬 Sandra Goudie: I did not say that.

Sandra Goudie said that she did not say that, and I do not want to misrepresent her. I just acknowledge—

💬 Sandra Goudie: If they have a job, they will be able to pay the fines.

A job can often require someone to drive, and that is the only reason that someone has a limited licence, I remind Mrs Goudie. I am sorry that she did not know that, and I see some of the members of her party smiling at the fact that she thinks people get a limited licence in order to go down to the pub every night. They get a limited licence only if they need it for their employment. It is a bit of a shame that the member does not know that. Given that she chairs one of the select committees that deal with law and order matters, I would have thought that she knew that already. In any event, I think that the select committee should look at that issue. I am not sure whether the balance is quite right. It may be, but it needs to be looked at carefully.

I want to talk about a couple of other measures. An order of priority has been created in respect of the priority that fines have against assets that are secured—for example, under a hire purchase contract. It is a really good provision that the information that the justice sector has about unpaid fines will now be made available to credit agencies. That is a really good step. Credit agencies will want to know that, because it will be reflected in their opinion as to the reliability of a person who is being lent money. So that provision is good for credit agencies, and it is also good for fines enforcement. In respect of the creation of an automatic super-priority for fines, we again have to be a wee bit careful. I see the attraction of it, but I can envisage a situation where we might have a solo parent living on a pretty modest income who needs to enter into a hire purchase contract for a washing machine. I would want to make sure that that could still happen.

I think it is very fair that there has to be an arrangement for the payment of fines. However, I am not sure whether it is right that the fines should have to be paid in full, because that might be beyond the means of the person and have consequences that are a little too Draconian. At the select committee we will be checking to see that the legislation enables the advancers of hire purchase contracts—in the example I gave of the washing machine—to be able to do that safely in reliance upon their security, so long as there is a fines payment arrangement in place rather than the whole of the fine having to be paid.

Another issue that needs to be checked is in respect of driver licence stop orders. My understanding is that those orders apply only to traffic offences. From my reading of the bill that appears to include all traffic offences specified in regulations made under the Transport Act, which I presume includes the parking fines imposed by councils. We should check on that, because I know that it is a matter of concern to councils that they do not have the ability to enforce the collection of those fines. They have to do that through the Ministry of Justice. I would hope that council fines are also captured through this process, because the current system is a source of frustration for them. As in the case of central government, we should have proper collection processes for those small amounts of money, which none the less ought to be paid—or generally they are small amounts of money.

Another idea that I have heard mentioned by the Hon Rick Barker, and that I have also had reflected to me by councils—including the chief executive of the Dunedin City Council—is their concern that there should be some sort of trigger in the system when fines accrue past a certain level. We know from the statistics that when fines accrue to quite high levels, say $2,000, thereafter the likelihood that those fines will be paid diminishes significantly. It becomes such a burden for people that they almost think they cannot pay their fines off, so they will just give up. If that is the case, there should be a trigger in the system that flags a person who already has fines of over $2,000 if that person comes before the courts again. There should be a measure that causes such cases to be pulled out and looked at again, to assess whether the amounts are realistic or whether the cases will sit there for ever as debts theoretically owed to the Crown that will never be paid. Such debts clog up the system, hang over people, and show up as an asset of the Crown, which is in reality a loser. In those sorts of situations it may be better to get such people back before the courts and resentence them to community service or another penalty in lieu of that which has been already conferred. It disappoints me a little that that issue is not addressed in this bill.

The other area that is improved in this legislation is the collection of civil debts. I agree with the Minister that some of the processes around obtaining attachment orders can be arcane. An attachment order is an order by the court that an amount is owed by a debtor, where the creditor has proved to the court that he or she is owed money and therefore has a judgment against the person. To enforce that judgment one can go to the court and seek an attachment order on someone’s wages, and that order then requires the employer to pay a certain amount each week in reduction of the judgment debt. Those attachment order processes are, at the moment, quite complex. They can be simplified. The Minister has already clarified to the House how they can be simplified, including not necessarily requiring people to appear in person in order to make an attachment order but to be able to do it on papers: statements that ought to be provided by people as to their means and their income. So I welcome that as an improvement in the law, as well.

Overall, this bill looks as though it is good legislation. It will help with the collection of overdue fines and the collection of civil debts. Subject to the comments that I have made about certain issues that I think the select committee will need to look at, I am pleased to support the bill.

I applaud the Hon Georgina te Heuheu for bringing the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill to the House. It will be my absolute pleasure as chair of the Law and Order Committee to progress this bill through its process in the select committee.

I invite David Parker from the Opposition to swap with Clayton Cosgrove, because that would be really good. We would love his expertise, and it would create a whole new dynamic at the select committee. That would be really great; it would be tremendous. We would love the expertise that David Parker would present, especially as he has spoken so well of this bill and has applauded the Minister in the words he expressed in the House.

I am sure the other members of the Law and Order Committee would also appreciate the expertise of Mr David Parker and his presence on the committee. I am sure that Mr Cosgrove would absolutely relish a stint on the Justice and Electoral Committee. Would that not be marvellous? [Interruption] Just a moment; I hear the members of the Justice and Electoral Committee objecting to that suggestion, and I cannot understand why that would be.

As other speakers have said, the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill is an omnibus bill. It amends a number of statutes to enhance the court’s powers and processes for the collection of fines and other monetary penalties, and civil debt. It will enhance the court’s powers to collect fines, reparation payments, and civil debt, and it will strengthen the enforcement measures available when people do not arrange to pay, or continue to pay, outstanding moneys as ordered by the courts. That happens all too often—people do not arrange to pay outstanding moneys, or continue to pay outstanding moneys.

I pointed out to the previous speaker when I interjected that if a person has a job, his or her vehicle should not be seized. If a person has a job, he or she should be able to pay the fine or arrange to pay outstanding moneys. People can arrange to pay over a period of time so that they are not putting themselves or their families in a difficult position. If they have a job, they should be able to make those arrangements so that their vehicle is not seized.

I understand that about 2,400 vehicles are seized by the courts each year. However, that may continue, because National is committed to working towards accountability. People must be accountable for their behaviour, and if they transgress and break the law, they must be made to take accountability for their actions and pay the fine. This bill will ensure that court-ordered payments or reparations to victims are paid sooner, thus continuing National’s focus on a more victim-based justice system. As at 30 April 2010 there was $778 million of reparation—

💬 Dr Cam Calder: How much?

$778 million—that is KiwiRail, is it not? Of reparations, fines, other monetary penalties, and court costs, $778 million remained unpaid.

💬 Simon Bridges: Outrageous.

That is pretty outrageous. Some people just keep building on one fine after another. The tragedy of that is that those fines get wiped, so they are never held to account for those fines. I know it absolutely incenses the good, honest, hard-working individual Kiwis—who may have one or two transgressions, but they will pay.

💬 Simon Bridges: Salt-of-the-earth Kiwi battlers.

Yes, that is it—good, solid Kiwi battlers. But we get the odd one who just racks up one fine after another and gets them wiped, and it is just a blight on justice. Despite increases in the amounts recovered by the collections unit of the Ministry of Justice, acting for the courts, the total debt continues to grow. Those unpaid fines and monetary penalties just continue to grow. That is why this bill is such an important bill.

The Minister for Courts is definitely to be commended, because this bill will help turn round that situation. Then that $778 million will be put to a good use. The total number of fines and other monetary penalties, especially infringement notices, filed with the court for enforcement has increased 47 percent between 2001-02 and 2008-09. That is a huge amount. Unpaid traffic fines are a significant concern. We want that $778 million, and that is what this bill will help to deliver.

I am pleased to follow the member who just spoke, Sandra Goudie. I think one of the more significant omissions that she made in her address was not acknowledging the work of the Assistant Speaker the Hon Rick Barker as the drafter of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill, which Labour will obviously be supporting. I acknowledge that it is good to be here discussing a sensible law and order policy. It was a Labour bill, courtesy of Rick Barker.

I have been disappointed with the debate in this House of late on law and order and justice matters. Probably the most recent bill that comes to mind is the “three strikes” legislation. I have to acknowledge my disappointment in the position of the Minister of Justice, Simon Power, on that legislation. Although members like Sandra Goudie may be all for things like “three strikes”, I think that members such as the Minister of Justice may acknowledge that it is a retrograde, backward step. All of the international experts are clamouring to come to New Zealand and help us before we go down that—

💬 Jonathan Young: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether we could just focus on the correct bill. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): I will respond to the member by saying that National’s previous speaker, according to my calculation with the clock here, spent 2 minutes discussing the membership of the Law and Order Committee, to the merriment of the National benches. I could have taken a point of order, because that discussion was well outside the scope of the bill. So I am allowing a little bit of latitude; there is a bit of give and take here. Having taken the point of order, I will not give the member the ruling, but the point has been made to the member speaking.

I note I have 1 minute and 30 seconds left, then, to dwell on other matters, and I will save that for a little later on in my speech. I think that the point has been made.

I come back to the bill. It is, obviously, an omnibus bill. It amends 20 bills in total, so I acknowledge that it was a significant piece of work for the Ministry of Justice. Ultimately, this bill focuses on the recovery of unpaid fines. There are two elements within that recovery. I think the efficiency with which those fines collections take place should be primary in our discussion; some parts of Labour’s original bill have not been picked up, in that regard. I might touch on them briefly. Also there are elements here where the Ministry of Justice—rightly, I think—has pointed out that we always have to take into account the difficult balance between inserting realism into our fines collection system whilst not allowing offenders to abdicate their ultimate responsibility as part of their punishment as awarded by the court. There is always a very difficult balancing act. In all of that mix we have to make sure we maintain a credible fines system, both in terms of the awarding of those fines and in terms of their collection.

I touch just briefly on Labour’s position. Obviously, we support the bill, but I express some disappointment at the lack of speed at which the bill, which was essentially ready in 2008, has been brought before this House, and, as I mentioned briefly, at the omissions in the bill. One in particular that I will touch on is the overarching agency that was originally proposed to have responsibility for fines. At the moment we have multiple points of fines collection and multiple agencies involved in that role. We sought to address that point, which, for some reason, has not been included in this bill. I hope, if there is not some discussion about that in the select committee, that perhaps in the Committee stage the Minister for Courts might like to address that point further.

The Government, though, in the absence of addressing that point, has said that this is the most comprehensive set of legislative measures for collecting unpaid moneys in 12 years. The Hon David Parker touched on the other significant actions that Labour took when we were in Government. The Government now claims that this bill demonstrates its determination to address the high level of unpaid moneys, but, again, I find the timing of it quite interesting. Some of the statistics, we already know, are that between July 2008 and June 2009 the courts wiped $95.1 million of the total $806 million in unpaid fines. I would have thought, perhaps, that at the same time the Government was looking at making that decision, it might have spent some time making sure it was progressing this legislation so that it had a dual track on fines collection. Also, given the large and growing amount of outstanding penalties, I think perhaps there is a wider debate to be had over the role of monetary penalties as a sanction for offending, and whether it is being eroded as the level of unpaid monetary fines continues to accrue. That is a significant debate, I think, and one probably best had at the select committee.

I think, as well, it is a worthwhile point that the regulatory impact statement states: “As at 31 May 2008, Credit Reporting would have affected over 270,000 people who owed more than $400 million in overdue penalties.” I think we are seeing a concentration of individuals, much in the same way that we see a concentration of individuals committing a large amount of the crime in New Zealand, particularly in the youth justice sector. A small amount of individuals are responsible for a large number of overdue fines and penalties. Perhaps that is why the number of unpaid fines remitted to community work has more than tripled over the last 5 years.

I will pick up on that matter a little later on, but it points to the question of whether, when the court is handing down a fine, it is taking fully into account some of the provisions of, for instance, the Sentencing Act, which requires that the ability to pay is taken into account. I again highlight that it should not be used as a tool to abdicate from an individual’s responsibility to make amends through our sentencing regime, but if individuals have been awarded fines when it is blatantly obvious at that point that their ability to pay is limited, that is the point at which it would be best to hand down sentences under which they would be obliged to fulfil their debt to society, rather than having the fines fall upon them, stagnate, go through unpaid, and eventually translate into community work. That is why I think that that front-end process is very, very important.

I think it would be useful if at some point the Minister for Courts could perhaps share with us why there was an extension of time. If this bill was ready in 2008, why have we had a delay? Did some redrafting take place, or was some extra information required? It does not seem immediately obvious to me.

💬 Colin King: Busy, hard-working Government.

If indeed it is because the Government has been busy, implementing legislation like “three strikes”, then the only assumption I can make is that its priorities are all wrong.

I will touch on some of the main provisions of the bill. I think my colleague David Parker did a very good job of pulling out some of the issues that the select committee may like to spend a greater amount of time on. We have obviously had attachment orders, which have allowed deductions to be made from wages and benefits to pay debts. The Justice and Electoral Committee touched on that matter briefly when we were looking at the Government’s proposal to impose a blanket $50 tax, I guess, on individual offenders. I just point out to the Law and Order Committee members, who I understand will be considering this bill, that it may be useful to look at the impact of deductions if, for instance, they are coming from small businesses. It is a cost on them that we have not considered that is perhaps worth looking at.

In relation to the credit-reporting initiative—which, again, David Parker pointed out was useful—and the super priority by which the District Court can obtain high priority over the secured property of a credit provider if the loan was advanced when the overdue penalties could have been released under the credit-reporting proposal, I want to throw in there an unintended consequence, or a related matter, that the Government may wish to consider. If we are dealing with individuals who find themselves in an economic situation in which they are not paying their fines despite being pursued, and we are putting an order of priority on their repayments, we may find situations whereby some of those debtors look to other channels in order to pay off their debts. That may lead to their seeking out, for instance, unsavoury loan sharks.

If the Government wanted to be truly comprehensive, and to make sure there were no unintended consequences of what are otherwise good measures, perhaps its members would consider supporting Carol Beaumont’s member’s bill, the Credit Reforms (Responsible Lending) Bill, which cracks down on loan sharks, which often have uncapped interest rates, and ultimately impact severely on some of our low-income citizens in New Zealand, including members of the Pacific Island community. I would say that that bill stands on its own merits, in fact, and in many ways we do not need another bill prompting us to make that reform. But if this is the avenue in which I have to raise it, I extend that challenge to all members: please explain to me why we should not support her bill.

The Green Party has given extensive consideration to the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. It is always difficult, we think, to form a single policy on such a wide-ranging omnibus bill, and I acknowledge the work initiated in this respect by the Hon Rick Barker earlier. Forming a policy is difficult because the bill’s key provisions would amend various pieces of legislation, and in particular, four Acts. So let me consider each one in turn.

First, the bill would amend the District Courts Act 1947 to make it easier to recover civil debts by setting up mandatory deductions from wages and benefits. The mandatory fines deductions could disproportionately affect low-income and beneficiary families. If a system were developed to means test convicted defendants, it could be a worthwhile proposal.

Secondly, the bill would amend the Land Transport Act 1998 to allow for drivers’ licences to be suspended for failure to pay traffic fines. Suspending licences for failure to pay driving fines could also be seen as excessively punitive if the incidence of malfeasance rested disproportionately on the poor. If not, an argument exists for suspension. Those two proposed changes raise the whole matter of the degree to which legislation rests on empirical evidence. In the explanatory note of the bill the Government provided no evidence about which income groups were primarily affected by fines.

The issue of the facts that we have at our command, as a country, on this kind of issue is, quite frankly, unsatisfactory. Green members have, for example, sought to research the question of whether fines exacted on convicted defendants in New Zealand fall disproportionately on lower-income groups overall. Neither the Parliamentary Library nor the Ministry of Justice was able to ascertain that fundamental fact pertaining to social equity within our judicial system.

Reports, we are told, indicate that young people have difficulty in paying their fines, presumably, in part, because of their lower incomes. But that presumption is not based on any rigorous research. Indeed, no research along those lines appears to have been done. Yet through our collective intuition we strongly suspect, even if we cannot prove it conclusively, that fines are exacted disproportionately on the lower-income group. That, of course, correlates with two categories: age—young people—and ethnicity. With regard to youth, it is a telling story. As of June 2008 we find that over half a million individuals—about 16 percent of all Kiwis over 15 years of age—owe fines. That is one in six. The amount owing, as has been noted, totals $783 million. About 7 percent of the individuals owe 52 percent of that sum. Half of those are under 30 years of age. Most of them, we are told, cannot afford to pay those fines, so the fines remain uncollectable. Some who can afford to pay choose not to do so until resource-intensive enforcement action is undertaken. Some 54 percent of fines by value are passed to the courts for enforcement action. About 41 percent by value of those unpaid fines is owed by people under 25, and 60 percent of that relates to just two categories of offence: vehicles that are unlicensed or lacking warrants, and drivers who have violated their licence permits.

The Ministry of Justice concludes that with young people, default is partly due to inability to pay, but, more fundamentally, to a matter of inability to deal with the regulatory system. Let us set aside for a moment the major crimes of violence, drugs, and property. Let us simply take traffic offences, which are, after all, the most likely specific crimes to result in a fine—about 55 percent result in fines. For traffic offences, we are given statistics relating to ethnicity and gender, but not to age. What is more, the statistics date back only to 1998. Setting aside that shortcoming, we find that fines, as opposed to other penalties, are imposed less frequently on Māori and Pasifika than on Pākehā. With Māori it is 34 percent, with Pasifika it is 49 percent, and with Pākehā it is 58 percent. The conclusion is that other sentences, either more severe, such as preventive detention, or less severe, such as community service, are imposed relatively more frequently on Polynesians than on Europeans. So what is to be our conclusion with regard to those two proposed amendments? The Green Party finds that there is an unacceptable shortcoming in the data pertaining to means testing for fines. But we conclude that there is strong indirect evidence that incapacity to pay is correlated with lower-income groups, and that it affects particularly both young people and our Polynesian people.

The third change introduced in the bill would be to amend the Summary Proceedings Act, and it would do so in three ways. First, it would authorise the release of the amount of overdue penalties by the Ministry of Justice to potential creditors, and the release of credit applicant information to the Ministry of Justice, to assist with fines enforcement. The release of credit information to and by the Ministry of Justice seems to us to be reasonable. Secondly, the Summary Proceedings Act would give courts priority over secured creditors for seized property when the overdue penalties could have been discovered before finance was advanced. In that respect, giving courts priority over secured creditors, if they knew about overdue fines, makes sense to us. Thirdly, the Summary Proceedings Act would authorise home detention or prison sentences to be substituted for “unaffordable and unenforceable” reparation orders. In that respect, the provisions that would allow prison sentences when people cannot pay reparation orders seem to us Draconian and inappropriate, and they would place a further burden on our stretched prisons. Putting people in jail also increases the likelihood that they will commit further crimes. It will add to an already overstretched prison population and an already overstretched public purse.

The final change that would be introduced by the bill is to amend the Sentencing Act 2002 and various other Acts to improve the operation of reparation and vehicle confiscation as penalty regimes. The Green Party has previously opposed the vehicle confiscation and crush regime as being ineffective and in breach of human rights. It follows that we would oppose those sections of the bill.

Given the dubious implications of some of the provisions of this omnibus bill, the Green Party will vote against it. Thank you.

I rise to speak to the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill, presented by the Hon Georgina te Heuheu. The Minister recently congratulated the court staff who participated in a highly successful joint operation with the police in Waitakere, which saw 10,000 vehicles stopped and thousands of dollars of fines recovered. This issue of unpaid fines is one that many people get upset about. Even this year I received correspondence from a very upset constituent, when a large number of fines were cancelled because of the inability of the courts to recover them. This bill goes a long way towards making the recovery of fines a more thorough process, in order to see accountability and responsibility placed upon the shoulders of people who, firstly, infringe the law and incur a fine, and, secondly, do not step up to the plate and take responsibility for the payment of their fines.

It has been stated that a great percentage of fines issued to young people are not paid voluntarily and are filed in the court for enforcement—90 percent of infringements, in fact, and that is a very high percentage. Local authorities report an 80 to 90 percent voluntary payment for parking infringements, and the police report that 75 percent of speed camera infringements are paid voluntarily. We must note that a very high proportion of fines, particularly fines incurred by young people, are unpaid. The issues that lead to the fines, in terms of vehicle usage, the speed of the vehicles, and like matters, are obvious to all of us. Huge expense is incurred in the purchase and the running of vehicles, but there needs to be the responsibility that is essential for the safe driving of motorcars in our communities. Fines are a very good way to bring a disincentive to bad behaviour.

A huge amount in fines is outstanding, as other speakers have mentioned, and $778 million represents a lot of extra police on the beat, or more elective surgery, or better classrooms. It can mean that our deficit is lower and less of our tax revenue goes towards paying interest on overseas debt.

We do not like to see a huge number of people receiving infringement notices, but it is a fact and a reality in our society. But what we do expect, and which this bill will go a long way to assist, is a responsible attitude to the payment of those fines. I believe that this is a good bill that will bring improvement. I acknowledge the work of the Hon Rick Barker, and look forward to the bill proceeding to the Law and Order Committee. Thank you.

There is some legislation about which I can stand proudly in this House, hand on heart, and say that it is what our people want. I am thinking of legislation like the repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 or the members’ bills that just happen to be in my name, such as the legislation to remove GST from healthy food and the legislation that is coming up to remove 1080 poison. I am sorry to say that the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill is not one of those bills. Not one of the Te Tai Tonga constituents whom I have spoken to has written to me, called me, or knocked down my door pleading that we do something about enhancing the powers of the court to bring about the collection of fines.

To be quite frank, the issue of overdue fines will inevitably have a disproportionate impact on Māori because, as this House well knows, Māori are four to five times more likely than Pākehā to be apprehended, prosecuted, and convicted for a criminal offence. One of the great realisations of the work proceeding under the Drivers of Crime strategy is the absolute complexity involved in addressing the overrepresentation of Māori in this area. It is vital that the courts system is under the same scrutiny that we should demand all levels of the criminal justice be exposed to. But this is not the time to analyse the causes behind such a disproportionate overrepresentation of Māori in the criminal justice framework. Our focus instead must be on recognising that this inequality exists, and recognising also that socio-economic circumstances provide a particular backdrop for understanding the precise impact of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill.

With a median income of approximately $20,000 per annum, Māori will inevitably be adversely affected by court-imposed fines and the offender levy. There is a virtual avalanche of evidence about the barriers that low-income people already experience to obtaining access to credit, to rental tenancies, to employment, and to bridging finance to put towards homeownership or even a decent car that will not end up costing more than its worth through unpaid fines.

The possibility, therefore, that this bill will bring about a whole new tranche of pressures upon whānau is something that we have to take very seriously. Over the passage of time, Māori Party MPs have brought to this Parliament devastating stories of families dealing with precarious financial difficulties, and falling prey to ruthless lenders getting away with obscene rates of interest. We would hate to think that one solution to address the millions outstanding in reparation and penalties forces our poorest communities to turn to unscrupulous moneylenders whose only concern is profit.

I acknowledge the responsible and wise counsel of the Minister for Courts, who has received these concerns both from the Māori Party and also, I believe, from the Minister of Māori Affairs and his agency, Te Puni Kōkiri. She has made it very clear that the purpose of this bill is not about more penalties and punishments, but is about creating incentives for those with overdue fines to contact the court. The Minister made a statement that has enormous meaning. It is that all impacts from these initiatives can be avoided by a person with overdue fines contacting the court to resolve them. This sounds so easy, and we hope it will be.

We welcome the initiative of establishing an 0800 telephone number to encourage people to pick up the phone, and subsequently for the court to help them with options for getting the matter resolved. I need to talk about this 0800 number, because I remember when I was in a community law centre that people were not able to use 0800 numbers because the phone had a toll bar and as soon as they dialled 0 it would switch off. I hope that in this case that problem has been taken care of, that that is no longer the case, and that people will be able to call an 0800 number even if a toll bar has been put in place.

The ability to go to the court and discuss unpaid fines is a culture shift and it will require a significant investment in public relations to inform people of the helpline and to make the message clear to people that if they contact the court to resolve their fines, they will cease to be put through the credit-reporting queue. I say it will be a culture shift because it will require considerable effort on behalf of the courts to convince the public that they are not on the chase to slap an even greater fine on a lapsed offender or, worse yet, to pack them off to jail.

I make it known that the Māori Party is the first to promote the value of collective responsibility, and we understand the concept of paying one’s dues. If money is owing and fines are due, it is a responsibility that must be met. But we also understand the dire situation of too many families, and we want to ensure that they are fully informed of the chain of events that might be triggered if they do not take action. The key is in getting the message through that if a family is facing financial hardship, then options are available to help it resolve its debt, and the options do not involve loan sharks in any shape or form. The options are all about taking the responsibility to talk to the courts about ways to resolve debt while taking into account financial circumstances. It might be about setting up a time payment option, or there might be the possibility of having the fines remitted and an alternative sentence imposed.

Of course, ideally we would want to take the preventive approach of ensuring that the crime does not happen in the first place. I give praise where praise is due in respect of a story relayed to me about the police in Kaitāia. They have been helping young people to stay safe and on the right side of the law by running programmes that help them to get their driver’s licence. I believe that there are even programmes in practical car maintenance. Such basic strategies are an excellent investment that we hope avoid further criminalisation.

We are concerned about the exchange of information that this bill will authorise in the amendment to the Summary Proceedings Act. The amendment will authorise the Ministry of Justice to release the amount of overdue penalties to credit-reporting agencies in order to assist with fines enforcement. There will also be provisions to give the courts priority over secured creditors to seize property where the penalties were overdue before the property was purchased. We understand from the Minister that there will be a review of these provisions in 2 years’ time, but we are not convinced that sufficient measures are in place to prevent the capacity for abuse by the authorities. We will be looking forward to hearing from the Privacy Commissioner during the select committee process as to the precise extent of the invasive powers.

Another part of this bill is the intervention to approach an employer or Work and Income when a fine is overdue, rather than approaching the person him or herself. We wonder about the balance between privacy concerns and the public good. We worry that this bill could place whānau in the situation of having to turn to marginal lending agencies, so another expectation that the Māori Party has is that the select committee turn its attention to the detail of the communications strategy to ensure that the information is out there to encourage people to proactively contact the court.

We balance the onus of collective responsibility with other values such as rangatiratanga and manaakitanga. We are acutely aware that we would not want to further disadvantage victims, so we support the notion of creating strategies to encourage the payment of debts or of compensation that is owed. We are prepared to let this bill go before a select committee, but we will certainly be keen to hear all of the arguments and all of the evidence that will come from those who are potentially most affected by this legislation. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to stand and speak in support of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. I join many colleagues from all sides of the House in congratulating Rick Barker, because the drafting of this bill was done under the previous Labour Government. I do not want to be churlish, but it is a pity perhaps that this bill was not brought forward. It could have been in the raft of bills that was rushed through under urgency when this Government first came into office; I think this bill would have been far more effective than many of the bills that were passed at that time. Labour is supporting this bill not just—but mainly—because Labour drafted the bill. However, one thing missing from the bill that Labour drafted is an overarching agency with responsibility for fines. There is no provision for it in the legislation. Like other members, I welcome the bill’s referral to the hard-working Justice and Electoral Committee, I think—

💬 Hon Member: Law and order.

—no, it is the Law and Order Committee. It is a relatively hard-working select committee. It is not quite as hard-working as the Justice and Electoral Committee, of course, but the bill will go to that select committee, where, as members who have spoken earlier have said, the public will be able to make submissions and the bill will be given very careful scrutiny. It amends at least 20 pieces of legislation. I know that with the support of the hard-working staff of the select committee and officials, extra bits are often picked up during that process to enable the legislation, when it is enacted, to work effectively. This bill is certainly long overdue, and members on this side of the House support it.

Basically, the bill introduces the driver licence stop orders proposal that we have seen in other countries. If I can use Australia as an example, it has increased the success rate for the collection of fines there. I will pause and look at how large the amount of unpaid fines is. Between July 2008 and June 2009, the courts wiped $95 million in fines, and that was out of a total of $806 million in unpaid fines. The amount wiped was absolutely substantial. As we are all aware, if fines are not paid, then the penalties mount up and it becomes an ever-decreasing circle for offenders. Given the large and growing number of outstanding penalties, the effectiveness of having monetary penalties as a sanction becomes eroded, because it almost becomes impossible, once the fines are not paid and the penalties mount up, for offenders to look realistically at paying them. Also, if we look at the number of unpaid fines that were remitted to community work, we see that their monetary value has more than tripled over the last 5 years, from $16.6 million in 2005 to $55.7 million last year. We are talking about a substantial amount of money, and it is very important that we retrieve that money.

I will talk briefly about some of the amendments to Acts made by the bill. Part 1 amends the District Courts Act 1947 to allow deductions to be made from wages and benefits in order to pay debts. The bill is aiming to streamline the enforcement process by enabling judgment creditors to file a financial statement to enable deductions to be made. This is obviously of assistance in terms of getting the money, but it also assists someone who is in trouble. As there is a process for paying off those fines, then obviously there will not be an escalation of penalties for the offender that would only escalate the problem of paying back the money.

Part 2 amends the Land Transport Act 1998. That part authorises driver licence stop orders. This is a new enforcement measure. As I said before, it is successful. It will allow for the suspension of drivers’ licences where the driver has not made any arrangements to pay overdue traffic penalties. Under this new measure, liable persons would be sent a warning notice, so there is that warning. The bill gives them 14 days in which to resolve those penalties before the suspension of their licence. If that does not happen, then the driver licence stop orders would suspend all drivers’ licences held by people in default, and that would include limited licences. So it is getting quite tough. There is the warning. You have to—not you, Mr Deputy Speaker; certainly not you—but offenders have 14 days in which to pay those penalties. But if that does not happen, then the regime is able to be followed through. Following a driver licence stop order, until all the overdue traffic penalties are resolved through payment or there is a negotiated payment agreement, that order stays in place. If a person drives in breach of that order, then his or her vehicle will be impounded for 28 days. So there are behavioural consequences. There is some clarity in terms of how to get the penalties paid—to either pay them or enter into an agreement. If those penalties are breached, there will be actions taken against offenders.

Part 3 relates to amendments to the Summary Proceedings Act 1957. There is also streamlining of the infringement system. The Act will be amended to improve the operation of the infringement system, the court collection, and enforcement processes by addressing inconsistencies that are already in place, and by increasing operational efficiency and flexibility. That operational efficiency and flexibility will be very, very positive. It is not all Draconian; it will actually enable offenders to take responsibility for their actions, and, at the same time, not have mounting debt, because they face up and get that debt paid off. As I said before, it is a pity that there is no single agency that has responsibility for fines. It will be interesting to see whether it is within scope that some amendments can be made. But history has shown us, and I think the Ministry of Justice research shows, that when people cross a certain threshold of money owed—and that is around $2,000 for a young person—they become unwilling and unable to even attempt to pay off those fines. That is a lose-lose situation. There are no winners in that. If we can address this matter and begin to get those fines paid off, then it will obviously be to the advantage of offenders, because they will not have escalating debt, and it will also be of advantage to the Ministry of Justice coffers.

So, along with my colleagues, I again offer my congratulations to Rick Barker, and even to the National Government—being perhaps a little tardy, but none the less picking up this bill. I am very happy to speak in support of it.

It is a pleasure to speak to the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill in its first reading. I commend the Minister for Courts, the Hon Georgina te Heuheu, who brought this bill to the House. Without her, it would be languishing on the Order Paper. As at 30 April 2010, we have $778 million worth of unpaid fines, reparations, court costs, and penalties—three-quarters of a billion dollars or 778 Lotto jackpots of $1 million—that have not been paid by the New Zealand public. We know how elusive Lotto jackpots can be. It seems that our fines are also as elusive as that; $778 million worth of unpaid fines is a huge amount of money. The total amount of fines and penalties grew by 47 percent while Labour was in Government. A significant amount of that total sum, 82 percent, relates to unpaid traffic fines worth about $637 million.

The other day I got a $40 parking ticket. We know how annoying parking tickets can be. I was at Auckland University for a breakfast meeting—if one gets there before 8 o’clock and leaves before 8 o’clock, one does not have to pay the $2 or $4, but my meeting ran slightly over time and I was 10 minutes late. To my annoyance I got a $40 parking ticket. We know how it is: one gets a parking ticket and then one panics. One thinks that one has to get to the Auckland City Council site and pay the parking ticket. I went to the website to pay my parking ticket, but it was not loaded yet. So I had to wait for a notice in the mail to pay the fine. I might be a little bit neurotic about fines, unlike some people, and I have to pay that parking ticket. But it seems that an awful lot of New Zealanders are not that way. We need to make them understand that we will get tougher.

Previous speakers have said that the previous Government tried to get tough. It postulated the situation, and even ran an advertising campaign saying, that if people do not pay their fines, they may get stopped at Auckland Airport or wherever they are travelling from when they take an overseas trip. But even that scare tactic did not work. The campaign served the purpose of educating the public on the consequences of non-payment, but it did not do enough to address the problem. In 2008 the previous Government had 6,000 suspended drivers still on our roads. Lack of accountability means that the rest of us who are responsible and accountable carry the burden of those who do not.

So how will we get tough? We will get tough in several ways. This omnibus bill amends the District Courts Act 1947, the Land Transport Act 1998, the Summary Proceedings Act 1957, the Sentencing Act 2002, and 20 other Acts. One way in which this bill takes action is to routinely release the amount of overdue penalties by the Ministry of Justice to credit-reporting agencies to assess fines enforcement. This bill gives priority over secured creditors for seized properties where their overdue penalties could have been discovered before finance was advanced to purchase the property.

One of the things I really like about this bill—some members have said they are worried about it—is the driver licence stop order as a new penalty enforcement measure in relation to people who have not made arrangements to pay overdue fines for traffic offences. It does not say “pay”; it means arrange to make the commitment to pay the bill. That means they are taking the onus; they are taking ownership of their fines. Their licences will remain stopped until the offender makes arrangements to pay the fines. This instils a sense of ownership, which I think is a great thing. They need to become accountable for their actions.

This bill also improves the operation of reparation and vehicle confiscation as penalty regimes. This National Government is committed to ensuring the matter of unpaid fines is successfully addressed, and this bill will see improvements in the operation and efficiency of the courts enforcement systems. This bill is about accountability for action. As a member of the Law and Order Committee, I look forward to the submissions on the bill. I commend the bill to the House.

The Courts and Criminal Matters Bill we are debating today is another bill that was developed by the fifth Labour Government. I acknowledge the excellent work done by the previous Minister for Courts, my colleague the Hon Rick Barker. Although not all of his proposals made it through to this bill, it is still a reflection of his hard work as the previous Minister. I congratulate Mr Rick Barker on his work.

Before I get stuck into the detail of this bill, I need to point out a slight contradiction that was just made in the House by the previous speaker from the Māori Party, Rahui Katene. The Māori Party is voting for this bill, but it disagrees with the measures for collecting fees.

💬 Rahui Katene: We want to make sure the education is done.

Well, there was something in Rahui Katene’s speech concerning the disproportional effect on Māori with regards to where the collected fines go. I remind the House that in December 2008 there was an Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill, through which we saw a doubling of the fines for truancy. The Māori Party supported that bill, even though there could have been an argument put at that time that Māori would be disproportionately affected by it. I think, in some ways, there is a slight contradiction with that matter.

According to the current Minister for Courts, this is the most comprehensive set of legislation measures designed to strengthen the recovery of unpaid fines and penalties in 12 years. It is “critical to the credibility of the justice system” as it establishes better processes for monetary penalties. We on this side agree that it is worthwhile legislation; that is why Labour developed it when we were in Government. Unfortunately, National has been in Government for almost 18 months, and it has taken this long for National to bring it to the House. We struggle to understand why, if it is that important, as the Minister for Courts, the Hon Georgina te Heuheu, pointed out, it took 18 months to bring about its first reading. The legislation was almost ready to go when National took office, as Rick Barker had done the lion’s share of work on it. Something that National consider as important as this Courts and Criminal Matters Bill still took a year and a half to come to Parliament, despite the Government’s “tough on crime” rhetoric.

We heard that empty rhetoric when we were debating the “three strikes” legislation, the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill, yesterday. We have been told by the Ministry of Justice that that bill will do nothing to act as a deterrent to crime. We have had advisers and other people tell us that that bill will see more taxpayers’ money going towards punitive measures, rather than taxpayers’ money being freed up to put into places like education, health, or rehabilitation programmes. We were also told, and we heard it from this side of the House, that with the “three strikes” bill we will see a lot of money going into the private companies the Government will give contracts to in order to run our private prisons. That legislation was seen as urgent enough to push through, despite the fact that it was incredibly controversial; however, this bill, which members agree with, took 18 months to bring to fruition and to the House for its first reading. We on this side have to be glad that at the end of the day it made it here; we just wonder why oh why it took so long.

Labour will support this bill as it is a result of the work that Rick Barker did as Minister for Courts—work that we consider to be very important. It is important to recognise that courts are wiping millions and millions of dollars a year of unpaid fines; meanwhile, the amount of outstanding money owed continues to grow. It is a problem that needs to be addressed. We saw figures released earlier this year that showed that between July 2008 and June 2009 the courts wiped $95.1 million of the total $806 million of unpaid fines. Common sense tells us that if we are going to charge these fines, we should collect on them as well. The amount of outstanding fines is increasing each year. Given the large and growing amount of outstanding penalties, the effectiveness of monetary penalties as a sanction for offending is being eroded.

The regulatory impact statement to this bill states that many people can afford to pay their fines but choose not to until costly enforcement action is taken. I think that often the line is run that people cannot afford to pay the fines, and in some cases that is the case, but research says that a large number of them can afford to pay the fine; they just do not get around to doing it until action is taken. The amount of unpaid fines remitted to community work has more than tripled over the last 5 years from $16.6 million in 2005 to $55.7 million last year. There are a few other things that I will touch on with regard to this. The fines and monetary penalties are only effective if there are procedures in place to enforce the penalty, as without that these penalties are just empty threats and will do nothing to deter criminals. We do not want legislation put through that is purely aspirational with regards to fines—and that could involve fines like we saw in the Education (National Standards) Amendment Bill, with the truancy fine doubled—and with no intention to ever collect them.

One of this bill’s major policy proposals is the driver licence stop orders initiative. I would like to take the time to discuss this in a little more detail. The driver licence stop orders initiative is a new method of enforcement that would allow the suspension of driver licences if people have not paid or given intention to pay outstanding traffic penalties. The driver licence stop orders scheme was approved by the previous Labour Government in July 2008. It is based on similar successful initiatives, notably in Australia, where these orders have greatly improved the rates of collected fines. In Queensland the scheme is successful in collecting three-quarters of fines owed by people who are threatened with licence suspension or who have their licences suspended because of unpaid fines. As well as Australia, other countries such as Canada and the US have driver licence suspension as a fines compliance measure.

Another major policy proposal in this bill is credit reporting. Through this system private sector lending companies and others will be able to find out if someone has overdue penalties. This will encourage people to pay fines and will make them accountable for the money they owe. It also means that the Ministry of Justice can use information stored by credit-reporting agencies to collect fines. This system will affect people who can afford to pay fines but choose not to because they have not previously faced any serious consequences for not paying.

We will be supporting this bill, but I make it clear that it is not the bill that the previous Labour Government would have passed. We would have liked to have seen a great deal more ambition and reach in this bill. It has potential, but it stops short of addressing some of the more pressing matters related to the issue of unpaid court fines; for example, there are over 80 issuing authorities dealing with these fines. That is crazy and it hinders a successful collection of fines. If this bill were to create a single agency to deal with court fines—which is what Labour Government and what this side of the House would have preferred—it would have been a great improvement and we would see a much better rate of fines collection. Labour suggested that, but it has been left out of the bill before the House today. I am unsure of the logic or the reason for that, and it is an example of the kind of forward-thinking that we would have liked incorporated into the bill.

Another important matter that seems not to have been considered is the feasibility of huge fines, especially when the person being fined is young. Research from the Ministry of Justice showed that once people cross a certain threshold of money owed—and for young people this threshold is usually around $2,000—not only are they unable to pay the amount but also they become unwilling to even try to pay off some of the fine. The last thing we want is for our young people to be burdened with unnecessary fines, so it would have been good if this bill had taken that into consideration in some way or another. I go back to what my colleague Jacinda Ardern was talking about before when she made the connection that our Minister for Courts is also the Minister of Pacific Island Affairs.

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on this most important Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. It was with some surprise that I heard the previous speaker ask why it has taken 18 months to bring this bill to the House. If my memory serves me well, Labour had 9 years in Government to bring this bill to the House.

This bill is necessary because under the late, unlamented Labour administration—those loquacious lobbyists for lassitude and legislative lethargy—the amount of outstanding penalties continued to grow unchecked so as to seriously erode the very effectiveness of monetary penalties as a sanction for offending. It is fair to point out that, year on year, the value of fines collected grew, but the total amount of fines owed continued to increase.

I pay respect to my colleague the Hon Rick Barker. We know that he attempted to restrict international travel for those with unpaid fines, but he was a lone voice crying in the wilderness. I hear people ask how useful the previous Government’s efforts were to combat this. They were as useful as a sticking plaster to replace a tile on the hull of the space shuttle! As useful as a ticket to The Checks concert for a lover of Debussy! As useful as a unicycle when climbing Kilimanjaro!

The public have, understandably, reacted to recently released figures that state that there are outstanding unpaid fines of $778 million. This National-led Government is listening and is taking steps to address this iniquitous situation. I commend this bill to the House.