Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I move, That the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

The purpose of this bill is in line with the coalition Government’s commitment to reduce debt, reduce Government spending, and get back to surplus. The bill will increase from 10 percent to 14 percent the amount that the Crown can retain from fines, including infringement fines such as parking fines, collected by the Ministry of Justice on behalf of local authorities and other organisations.

That increase will come into effect on 1 July 2024. The bill has been developed as part of the response to the Budget priority to deliver effective and fiscally sustainable public services—listen up, Labour!—and identify enduring savings across Government departments and agencies. The increase in the percentage the Crown can retain from fines collected by the Ministry of Justice is expected to increase net revenue by $2.697 million across 2024-25 to 2028-29. The increase in the percentage retained by the Crown from fines collected on behalf of local authorities and other organisations better reflects the increased costs of operating court services over time.

It is fair that users of courts’ collection and enforcement services, who receive most of the fines collected, pay an appropriate fee for those services. The bill is a part of a package of proposals which will increase revenue from changes to the collection of court fines and increases to fees in courts and tribunals. This bill, along with other changes, will ensure the more effective collection and enforcement of fines.

The overarching goals of the Government are to build a stronger, more productive economy, deliver more efficient, effective, and responsible public services, and get the Government’s books back in balance. This bill will support that goal. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a tragic little day in Parliament when the Government’s getting excited about imposing a tax on parking fines. This document, the cost recovery impact statement, is really all you need to read. I mean, what it sets out is just a list of shortcomings in this policy. Throughout the debate so far, no one’s actually touched on the options in the document that have not been considered. It runs through a number of options, but it, basically, says, “We didn’t look at anything else.”—it’s as if you wanted to run a lesson on how not to do good public policy—“We didn’t want to look at anything else, because ‘This was not possible in the time available. Other alternative options could not be explored due to time constraints.’ ”

So here we’ve got a Government who talks about doing things right and efficiently and all those kinds of things, and yet they won’t take the time to make sure that the framework they’re putting in place, even for something like how we collect fines and how that’s paid for—they won’t actually just do the work, because, of course, here it is: “To progress this option”—which was removing the initial filing fee to lower the barriers for local councils—“extensive consultation and data collection would be required to determine whether it would be worth progressing”. And then it says, “We basically couldn’t be bothered doing that—couldn’t be bothered consulting.” That’s the Government we’ve got now. They’re imposing costs on local bodies, and they couldn’t be bothered consulting on whether there was a better way to go about it.

💬 Andy Foster: There’s much bigger things.

Yeah, well, funny you say, Mr Foster, that there’s much bigger things to do, but here we are 10 o’clock on a Friday night, and we’re debating this trivial little parking tax bill. And, of course, over there, they’ve been saying, “Oh, this is all about good stewardship and cost recovery.” But the document itself makes it very, very clear what the motivation behind this bill is: “To support the Government’s Budget priority of finding $1.5 billion per annum in savings” to fill their cavernous fiscal hole that this Budget has. [Interruption] Hey, look, on the other side, you have got the pride of place of being the largest borrowing Government in New Zealand history. You have just incurred—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not “you”.

No. That Government has just got the pride of place of being the largest borrowing Government in history, which, over the next four years, has to find $9 billion in interest payments. And this is how you’re going to do it. That’s right; it’s you. The Government just borrowed billions of dollars for tax cuts for landlords, and they are filling this fiscal hole with $200,000 of cost recovery. It is absolutely ridiculous.

The other thing is that there are some pretty clear guidelines about how levies and charges should be imposed. In fact, the document there sets out quite clearly that the costs recovered should be justifiable. And the Minister in the chair couldn’t actually tell us in any coherent way what those costs were—what was the equitable proportion to be borne by the State or the council, and what was the equitable proportion to be borne elsewhere by the person who had the parking fine. So that is part of the process to actually go through and think about what is an equitable and just way to do it.

And the irony is that in the document there’s basically a checklist that’s got the principles on one side and the assessment on the other, but they bear no relationship to each other, because none of those principles of good lawmaking, good regulation, and good levying and charging exist. So they don’t even know, for example, whether it’s efficient. Is this the best way to go about recovering these costs? And then it just gives you a long paragraph about how many there are and gives you a description of how it operates. It does not say that we have thought about how we could recover costs and this is the most efficient way to do it, or it’s not the most efficient but it is the most simple and that’s the trade-off we choose. That’s the kind of analysis we need.

Of course, the one that really sticks in the craw is equity: “The charges should be administratively fair: identify the impacts of cost recovery, do not seek to recover costs from one group that could benefit a previous or future group.” This is so that it’s spread out evenly. Now, the irony is that if you have a $1,000 fine, the cost recovery will be $140. If you have a $100, the cost recovery will be $14. So the costs of recovery are going to be the same, but there is a massive cross-subsidisation in there. So a percentage figure on a radically varying amount is actually quite inequitable. That’s what this Government—and this is a Government that is spending tens and tens of millions of dollars in setting up a vanity Ministry for Regulation so that these kinds of things are done right. And then, straight out of the gate, with one hand they throw cash at David Seymour’s ministry, and at the very same moment, the other hand is doing rubbish like this which just cuts across all of the regulatory principles. We don’t need a Ministry for Regulation, the principles are all there, the answers are terrible, but the questions are the right questions, so we don’t need it at all.

And, of course, the other thing in this document which this Government should be ashamed of is the fact that it makes it clear that the burden will fall hardest on those who are struggling most. This is part of a package which is seeking to fill the Government’s coffers. And when you look at who’s paying, it’s people who don’t have the money to pay their parking fines—people who can’t find the money to pay infringement offences. They might have scrabbled around, pinned the infringement notice to the noticeboard by the kitchen or on the fridge or whatever, and then they’ve put it away because they know they either have food in the fridge or pay the parking fine. They’ve made that trade-off, they’ve chosen to feed their kids, and all of a sudden they get the notice from the court or from the local body saying “You’ve got to turn up to court. It’s now not only a $40 fine, it’s a $100 court cost, and if you choose to argue it, it’s going to be more costs on top of that.” That’s who’s going to be paying, ultimately, for these increased charges, which are part of this package.

So we’ve got a Government here that’s chosen to splash money around, particularly offensively, for landlords, and then they’re saying, “Oh, we’ve got it all from savings over here.” And, on the other hand, they’re borrowing money—billions of dollars; they’re borrowing billions of dollars. So you—

💬 Hon Andrew Bayly: You borrowed $100 billion.

Now, you’re not allowed to heckle from there, Mr Bayly.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s true, Mr Bayly.

The fact of the matter is that we’ve got a Government that’s failed at the first hurdle. They’ve made all kinds of promises. They’re scrabbling around for $200,000 in cost recovery, and here they are disappointing New Zealanders by breaking their election promises—serious election promises. Not the $250 tax break promise—we all knew that was a joke—but there are people out there who honestly believed that they were going to get their cancer medicines because they were promises seriously made to serious people. And that is a tragedy. That is an affront. And there are people out there who are heartbroken because this Government promised that they would be taking certain steps, that they would be funding certain medicines, and they’re not. And those people are sitting there and this is all the Government can do. A little bill—a terrible little bill—that scrabbles around, looking for a few hundred thousand dollars here and there. [Interruption]

Yeah, no, I can see why you’re hanging your heads—I would too—because you’ve made big promises and you’ve let people down, and you come up with a bill like this which actually—the very similar people, people who are in hardship and struggling, you’re bashing them down again.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not me, Mr Webb.

It’s shameful. No, you’re not. Those Government members are bashing them down again and it’s shameful, it’s a terrible piece of legislation, and it’s a terrible way to pass it with this kind of urgency as well. What a waste of this House’s time.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is quite the “Inequality and War on Poor” Budget, and this legislation makes it incredibly, incredibly clear. This is shambles legislation and fiscal irresponsibility from this Government, because they’re just looking after those who are already doing it well, rather than looking after those struggling to make ends meet. They will cut costs at any expense, even if it means throwing people in poverty down a cliff who are criminalised as a result of not being able to afford fines. And for all their complaining on the other side—don’t trust me; trust the advice; trust the legislation and the pieces of paper they’ve put in front of us. They’ve written it themselves. The Government worked on this legislation, and now they’re shaking their heads and, effectively, telling the public that they’re delivering for everyone, when they’re leaving behind those doing it the toughest. This legislation was a result of a desperate attempt at finding ways to put the burden on the poor to pay for tax cuts for those doing it well.

So, throughout the debate, it’s been clear that the Minister in the chair, for all his talk about localism and his commitment to actually put in place solutions that would work for local communities, doesn’t take his own words seriously. If we look at the pieces of paper in front of us, there was no consultation with key stakeholders impacted by this legislation, and this includes local authorities, Local Government New Zealand, the judiciary—this is absolutely irresponsible and a betrayal by the Minister himself, who’s supposedly committed to localism. It reeks of desperation for a Government that talks about things like localism to put forward legislation that directly impacts local government without even bothering to consult with them, because they don’t care. They tell us that they care about localism, but they don’t care. They simply care about holding true to their promise that they hate people in poverty.

And let’s make something clear too: this is a Government that does not care about criminalising people who are struggling to make ends meet. At the end of the day, those who cannot afford to pay fines will end up being criminalised and will end up with higher costs due to the enforcement fee increases. I’ve seen this myself, as somebody who worked at the front line with people who are being criminalised as a result of unpaid fines. I’ve seen people facing benefit sanctions like the warrant to arrest sanction, which Minister Louise Upston multiple times talked about in the media. She talked about how she thought that those people who had unpaid fines, who then faced sanctions, were a threat to the public. Then she had to face the truth in the media and was embarrassed by having to admit that, actually, that wasn’t the case and that she was factually incorrect. [Interruption] And the members yelling on this side fail to connect the dots. While this may be a small bill, it’s connected to so many parts of the system. The impact of the criminalisation of people in poverty who cannot afford to pay fines is clear and has ramifications in other parts of the system.

This is a bill that will lead, I tell you, to higher warrant to arrest benefit sanctions. [Interruption] And the members on the other side would do well to turn their faces from this echo chamber back to the streets and the communities who this bill affects. But they’ve shown us, time and time again, they don’t care about the people who are out in the communities doing it the toughest. They will talk rhetoric and make no action, and clearly the pieces of paper in front of us show that this bill was produced hastily with no evidence. [Interruption] They just want to go home and not do the work. It’s their fault. It is absolutely their fault that we’re here in the House debating this piece of trash legislation, because it was them who put us in this position to begin with. We didn’t want this. If it was up to me, we would be debating a bill that would be ending poverty and tackling the climate crisis, not a bill that criminalises people in poverty—come on—and not a bill that betrays the Government’s own supposed commitment to localism. Let’s be real here.

Look, they may be complaining about what I am saying, but, ultimately, it’s all in the regulatory impact statement. Do they not believe the advice that they themselves put in front of us? Come on; let’s get real. Those members, like I said, need to turn their faces back to the street. The advice itself made it incredibly clear that it will be young people, particularly those under 45, who will face the burden of the negative impacts of this legislation. And this is a Government that—let’s be real—when they talk about the advice around fines changing behaviour, it actually doesn’t change the behaviour of people who are on our salaries and the wealthy few. It doesn’t, because the fines that people often face are a free pass for those who are doing it well. A parking fine doesn’t mean much for someone who owns multiple properties and is on a six-figure salary. It doesn’t have good enough consequences. But, for someone who’s actually on the bread line, it has a massive impact. As I’ve said before, it’s the difference between them paying their rent and putting food on the table. It doesn’t actually change behaviours in the end—

💬 Hon Member: That’s why we gave them a tax cut.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: —if you’re someone who’s struggling to make ends meet. This is a Government that is, frankly—yeah, tax cuts. They spoke about tax cuts. Want to talk about tax cuts in the context of this legislation, Mr Speaker? Well, let me tell you, Mr Speaker. They talk about tax cuts, but the people who will be criminalised for not being able to pay fines also happen to be the ones benefiting the least from the tax cuts.

Let’s get real. There’s nothing in this Budget or this legislation for the disabled people on income support or for people who have been living homeless—it’s breadcrumbs. They’ve told their communities that they deserve breadcrumbs and they, effectively, deserve higher fees, higher punishments, for unpaid fines as a result of this bill, at the same time depriving local government of key resources at a time where, actually, the Government should be putting in far more resources to local government to address our infrastructure challenges of today. We should actually be supporting and passing resources.

💬 Hon Member: Three minutes—three more minutes.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: They’re saying, “three minutes”. They’re complaining about the fact that we are actually holding them to account. You know, I challenge them to make a substantive contribution beyond their 12-second calls that make a mockery of this piece of legislation. But you know what? The circus is run by people who themselves admit that this whole thing is just a show; it’s a theatre for them. It’s a performance for the people on the other side. This is not about serving our communities. This is about the theatre of Parliament. It takes a lot for people to come here and claim that they’re here to serve our communities, when they clearly make a whole circus out of serious issues.

Once again, when I call this Government fiscally irresponsible and illiterate, it’s because trickle-down economics has not been shown to work. It is not based on evidence. In fact, we have decades of research and facts—and younger people such as myself grew up in times affected by the impacts of failed policies such as these ones that claim to deliver for the many but all they end up doing is increasing inequality. So this bill, while it may not have the name explicitly in and of itself around increasing inequality, it will do exactly that. I challenge the members to talk to people in poverty who, because of poverty level benefits, haven’t been able to pay their fines where they find themselves in court, potentially transient through multiple addresses, unable to present themselves to the criminal justice system.

I think Parmjeet Parmar, to my left, who is shaking her head and looking confused—but if I look at her contribution throughout multiple debates, she has constantly failed to actually speak to the heart of the bill that she speaks to. Again, this goes back to a Government that is deeply unserious, that will go to such dramatic lengths to orchestrate and fabricate tax cuts—

💬 Hon Member: One minute.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: —for the wealthy few—and they’ll continue yelling at me and saying, “One minute” and “I hear the bell”, but the truth is they’ve landed us in this fiscal mess. At the end of the day, the cuts to public services and the inability to address poverty will have costs beyond what they can imagine in the long term, costs in our healthcare system, costs in our public housing system and emergency housing and, then, people getting more into debt just to make ends meet. Their short-term thinking will land us into long-term problems. This is a Government that has its head in the sand and refuses to see the truth, which is actually in front of us. This is a bill that will punish the poor. All it requires is the members to read their own advice they’ve received to see the truth. The Green Party will continue opposing this and fighting for a system that works for all of us, not this Government’s wealthy mates.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of ACT to support the third reading of the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill.

That was a very interesting contribution from the Green member Ricardo Menéndez March, and he did say that, yes, I looked confused and I was shaking my head. Definitely I was doing that, because I couldn’t see which bill the member was speaking to. The bill that is in front of us doesn’t bring any new sanctions; it just increases the percentage of the amount that is retained by the Crown for the fines that are collected by the Ministry of Justice. So that’s why I was confused and I was shaking my head. I wish he had spent some time reading the bill.

Very quickly to respond to the Labour member the Hon Dr Duncan Webb. Dr Duncan Webb said that this bill is a waste of the House’s time. No, I wish he had read the bill and understood the bill as well. It’s a very sensible bill, and that is why the ACT Party is supporting this bill. I challenge those members to go out and buy that item they bought in 1989, now, at the same price. This 10 percent that is retained by the Crown has not been reviewed or changed since 1989, and that’s why it’s a sensible bill, and that’s why the ACT Party is supporting this bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I just wanted to remind the House of Speaker’s ruling 65/3, which tells us to not do the countdown when we’re looking at the clock. Do it inside your mind, if you must, but not aloud.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Sometimes less is more, and, on behalf of New Zealand First, I am going to commend this bill to the House because it’s a really good bill. That’s all I’d like to say.

The next call is a split call, and I think it’s split between Labour and the Greens.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ve just got a lolly in my mouth, so I’m just going to try and finish that up seamlessly so no one notices, and everything will be good.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I don’t know if there’s a Speaker’s ruling on that.

Ha, ha! Well, I mean, this is the third time I’ve got the opportunity to speak on the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—

💬 Hon Rachel Brooking: In just one evening.

—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill in just one evening, as my colleague Rachel Brooking points out. That’s because, obviously, we’re in urgency and it always makes the bills feel a bit funny when there’s not that break in between to just let things settle, to think about things, to think about the information—sometimes new information, sometimes explanations from the Minister; all those things that might help create a better picture.

But we’re not afforded the opportunity to do that tonight, because we are here in urgency. In fact, this is the second bill that the Government has chosen to put up as part of the suite of bills that it will be taking through the urgency process, which we can see now is obviously, clearly, going to take several days. It’s the second bill that they’ve chosen to put up as part of the suite of bills that need to be passed in urgency as part of the Budget 2024. And what a wee ripper it is, isn’t it? The crown jewel in the Government’s suite of policies that they’re introducing.

I can understand that it’s been a little bit vocal from the other side of the House tonight, as the Government backbenchers have got quite animated about this bill. Sometimes, opposite things happen and the less substantive something is the more you sort of overcompensate, so there has been an awful lot—awful lot—of overcompensation tonight. But this bill, specifically, is a means by which to collect money to make the Budget add up. We know that for two different reasons. We know that because—

💬 Carl Bates: At least you’re acknowledging it adds up.

—it says “Budget”—I said to try and add it up—

💬 Carl Bates: No, you didn’t; you said, “so that it adds up”.

Make a contribution—make a contribution. He’s animated. Oh, Mr Bates, Mr Bates, Mr Bates—it’s like you’re just gagging to be in the Hansard.

We know that that’s what it’s for, because it occurs on two occasions—firstly, in the title it literally says “Budget Measures”, and when you look at the cost recovery impact statement, as has been mentioned several times tonight, to support the Government’s priority of finding $1.5 billion. And yet, on the other hand, here we are rushing through a process of urgency. We’ve heard things tonight about the commencement date—1 July—kind of thrust upon councils with almost certainly not the requisite amount of time needed to lead in to make sure that this is seamless.

We’ve talked tonight about the difference between good public policy and bad public policy and the fact that the Minister claimed that this was an example of good public policy, despite the fact that (a) there’s almost no evidence that this needs to be done in the first place—i.e., other costs not being met at the moment—and that (b) we keep hearing the same argument about some sort of inflationary effect with a proportion, a percentage of an amount, of course, which adjusts.

So I think, finally, as has been mentioned on several occasions, we do need to consider this bill, and we’re allowed to, because it says so in the title that it’s about Budget measures. So we are allowed to, and it’s incumbent upon us to consider it within the context of the Budget. As I said, the title affords us the opportunity to do that. And when I think about the context of the Budget, this is another means by which the Government has desperately been trying to find money to account for reckless tax cuts, and they’ve found money in various places. This is certainly not a headline Act. This is a small amount of money in comparison—certainly a small amount of money in comparison—to the $3.3 billion worth of money that was hauled out of climate funding, and certainly a small amount of money compared to the 13 new cancer drugs that were promised as part of this Budget and were not delivered on.

The Government were really, really specific about that, and I think it does bear mentioning. The Government were really, really specific, when they removed the exemption for the $5 prescription charge, that they were doing that to fund these drugs, and they haven’t done that, which I think is deplorable. It’s upsetting. And yet, as several people have said tonight, we could be debating those things, we could be talking about those things, but, no, we’re not doing any of that; we are literally talking about a parking ticket tax. I do not commend this bill to the House.

On behalf of the Greens, we do not support the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. I support my colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, who spoke about the disproportionate impact on Māori and Pacific that is listed by the Ministry of Justice. But I want to focus on the lack of good faith—the lack of good faith—with local government.

No one who voted in the election—that seems a very long time ago now—expected that this cost would be rather randomly transferred from central government to local government. Nobody campaigned on that transfer, so I don’t see why there is a justification for the urgency, for the complete lack of consultation, and for the complete lack of evidence. And how much revenue? Let’s just take that little part that is coming from increasing the retained percentage: $285,000. Well, I can understand central government trying to scramble to pay for the $2.9 billion in tax cuts. This really isn’t going to get there.

This amount of money is not collected in the rural councils. Many rural councils don’t have parking enforcement at all, because they don’t have those issues. It’s going to be, fundamentally, the large urban councils that this will affect the most. And I would make a somewhat educated guess that probably about $100,000 of that will be directly to Auckland. They’ve just gone out and they’ve done their consultation on the long-term plan. I’m horrified that $100,000 in a council’s budget is landed on them from 1 July, when they have already set their budget and planning.

It isn’t the hugest quantum that councils have to deal with, but it’s symptomatic of not respecting local government’s consultation processes. It shows a disdain. Even if this had to be confidential because it’s so urgent, such an important part of the Budget—which I am sceptical about—at least somebody could have let local government know yesterday when the Budget came out. But, no, they found out for themselves this morning. I don’t think that shows due respect.

💬 Grant McCallum: Is that it? Are you sitting down?

Wait and see—wait and see.

💬 Glen Bennett: Pause for effect—I love it; it’s powerful.

I’m just not sure what the effect might be, so we’ll see! There is such limited financial information. There is no reasonable basis for decision making. Yes, it may be in the scheme of $2.9 million—billion, sorry. Actually, it’s small even compared to $2.9 million, but I don’t think that the amount is an excuse for bad process. It’s a studied arrogance rather than a partnership. There is nothing else in this whole Budget that helps local government. There is nothing for city and regional deals. There is no GST back on rates, whether it’s new developments or whether it’s actually the whole of the rates system. Where is the money in the Budget for central government to pay rates on the buildings it owns? It’s just an unfair system that could have been worked better in partnership.

Maybe we’ll look forward to the next Budget actually having some lines where that money is returned, and, instead of having one of the lowest percentages of spending for local government compared to central government in the OECD, maybe we can balance things and give back more to the local community.

The other thing that has not been mentioned here is the suggestion that councils will be 45 percent—I’m not quite sure—

The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, we’ve heard a lot tonight from members opposite about the length of contributions on both sides of the House—especially this side of the House—so, bearing that in mind, I just want to quote the full speech of Rachel Boyack from the third reading of the Income Insurance Scheme (Enabling Development) Bill, where Rachel Boyack said—and I quote—“I commend this bill to the House.”

Point of order, Mr Speaker. This is the third reading, and the member’s comments should be confined to this bill. I think that the contribution was out of order.

Point taken. Please focus on the bill. You may continue.

💬 James Meager: I finished. I finished the call.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Next call.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, here we are, at the third reading of this bill, which is quite a use of the House’s time. In Budget urgency, we are discussing savings of about $400,000 that this bill enables. It’s a penny-pinching bill to implement a parking fine tax, and the poor old Minister of Local Government had to shepherd it through. I mean, come on!

Here we go with the Minister of Local Government, who has stood on the stump and told mayors and councils around the country that he will be on their side, that he will sort out their infrastructure woes, that he will sort out Local Water Done Well, and that he will localise policy and not have central government telling them what to do. But we’ve caught him out. We’ve caught him with his hand in their pockets, using Budget urgency and telling them, on the day, that he will change a 10 percent charge—that is genuine cost recovery of the Crown—to 14 percent, but with no justification of that actually being a cost recovery. He’s not out there telling mayors and councils that the actual costs have gone up and that the Crown needs to levy this for a good reason and that the rationale for this is that the Crown’s cost is increasing. No—no, no, no. In fact, his actual documents that he introduced alongside this bill paint this as a tax grab. So, if we’re calling it a tax grab, let’s call it the parking fine tax. Let’s see it for what it is. This is a tax on local government that is designed to remove the funding that local ratepayers put towards their locally elected councils and put it back in the Government’s coffers.

This kind of legislation is poor legislation. It’s poor legislation at the best of times, but this is a situation where we have not had a select committee stage, we have not had local councils consulted, and we do not understand the regulatory impact of this on local ratepayers. This is the very worst kind of legislation. It’s taxation with very little cause, and it’s suspiciously exactly the same amount in the forecast period as that Minister cost with a muck-up at select committee. He has cost his finance Minister $1.5 million in the forecast period, and he’s gone away and penny-pinched that out of his other budgets, his Minister of Local Government budgets, which he is responsible for, and he did not take the opportunity to challenge any of that in the committee of the whole House. I put those questions to him twice, and he has not told this House that that is wrong, so we can only assume that this is a very clear message to the mayors and the councils of New Zealand that this Minister will do anything to move money around the budgets which he is responsible for. He will take from mayors, he will take from councils, he will take from local boards, and he will take from parks, from playgrounds, from libraries. He will take from the services that people rely on in their local communities to pay for a muck-up in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.

Former mayor Andy Foster is sitting here loving this contribution, because he knows exactly what happened in that select committee. It was a muck-up that cost the Minister, suspiciously, exactly what this bill saves him. So here we are—here we are—using the House’s time, not only using central government resources that cost probably more than $400,000, which is saved in this financial year, but not only that, we’re asking every council around the country to tell their legal departments, “Quickly work out whether we can comply with this. It’s a very short time frame; we have to comply with it by 1 July. Please, quickly go and give me some advice.” Shout-out to all those lawyers around the country who are watching this because they need their governing bodies to be able to make decisions which are required under this change. I hope you know that this is to save $400,000 for the central government. That’s not $400,000 of money that we’re taking from some big corporate entity and that’s not $400,000 we’re taking from another pot of money that we are levying to change behaviour; that is $400,000 that is coming directly from local ratepayers straight into the central government coffers. Thanks to everyone who has made an effort today to understand this bill that has cost far more than the amount it has saved. This is the worst kind of legislation.

Now I can get to my actual points. I’ve got five minutes left, and I intend to use them all, because the opposite members are so keen on this speech, so I will start that. The first point that I have to make is that given that there were no answers at the committee stage, I think it’s still important for not only this House but for local government to understand what the real cost of the Crown administrating these fines is, because if it was a full proportion, 100 percent of the 10 percent levied by the Crown on top of these fines, then we’d be in a situation in New Zealand where the taxpayer was subsidising local government to do this. We haven’t had an answer to that, but that is a situation that we should properly understand, because it’s not appropriate for central government to subsidise local government to levy fines in that way. It creates a perverse incentive for local governments to set fines in a way which doesn’t result in the kind of policy outcomes we want.

So we then need to understand that. Is the fines regime working for local government, if that has been the case for a long time? What kind of perverse incentives has it created to levy or not levy parking fines, and do we have a situation in our cities where parking fines are not being administrated in the way they should?

💬 Ingrid Leary: Invercargill.

Well, exactly—exactly. My colleague the honourable—not the honourable; I’ve given you a promotion. My colleague Ingrid Leary—

💬 Ingrid Leary: Dishonourable.

—who is an excellent local MP—she’s not dishonourable as she says—gave us a really good example about how, when parking fines are levied ultra vires to the law because the law hasn’t been used in the correct way, we then have a real problem that affects real consumers in their everyday lives. These regulations need to be applied accurately, and everyone needs to understand how they work.

So we may need to better understand this, and I’m sure members from around the House, especially those Green members who have made contributions tonight, would be interested in a select committee inquiry at the Transport and Infrastructure Committee about whether parking fines are being levied appropriately in our cities and whether they are creating the kinds of policy responses and the kinds of incentives and disincentives for people that we would want. But the Minister wasn’t able to provide us with that information. We don’t know. A useful conversation starter would be at the select committee stage.

The next point I have is about the secondary legislation which sets these fines, because at no point in the committee stage were we able to actually engage with the values of that. Is secondary legislation the appropriate way to set parking fines? Should councils have their parking fines set in primary legislation so that ordinary people, like you and me, can have our say, because as they are currently set, it’s simply a technocratic exercise of being able to set them, and, really, the reality there is that people don’t review these things often. They’re not something which is regularly kept up with, and so the appropriateness of parking fines is not something which is subject to the democratically elected process.

Perhaps they should be in the primary legislation. Perhaps, you know—imagine that we had a local government Minister who was committed to localisation and actually was allowing councils to set their own fines. We have one very large council, Auckland Council, that is now the size of some Australian states, that would be able to set its own fines and has the internal capacity to do that. Why hasn’t the Minister come to this House and suggested an amendment like that, which would actually make a difference and would actually be worth this House’s time, because we would be able to set the kinds of incentives that were useful for cities to decide where parking was appropriate and where it was not.

This is a bill—and I’ve said it before: it’s a penny-pinching bill that sets a parking fine tax, but it was introduced in the context of a Budget which did nothing for local government. The Budget has no commitment for additional funding and financing tools for local government—nothing—and with only $40 million committed to the water reforms, that money sits at central government. We have a Prime Minister who comes to this House almost every week telling us that he has succeeded in delivering local water with Auckland Council, where Auckland Council set the agenda and came up with the solution themselves. Great work, but how does that commitment allow local councils to lead that work around the country when it’s sitting with central government? There is nothing for local government to actually empower local decision making here. There is no commitment from the local government Minister to actually resource the work that needs to be done, and that is a missed opportunity.

There is no national resilience plan in this Budget—it has been scrapped. There is no climate resilience funding—that has been scrapped. Those are initiatives which resulted in local programmes which otherwise funded local councils’ work. That is the kind of Budget investment we need, not $400k taken out of local councils and put straight back into the Government coffers because of an administrative error.

I want to talk specifically to this bill, and I want to also make a public service announcement. This bill is part of a package of proposals that support the Government’s Budget goal to deliver efficient, effective, and fiscally sustainable public services. The public service announcement is this—one word: www.budget.govt.nz/taxcalculator. I commend the bill.

The next call is a split call. I call Glen Bennett.

That previous contribution was outrageous, and it was shameful in this House—absolutely outrageous. I think it is appalling and it is shameful that this is democracy—this is evidently democracy, and I find that a sham and I find it shameful.

Democracy, so we say, is a wonderful thing, but democracy is a strange thing. Democracy also is a slow burn, and as I watch and as I listen, and I hear the meerkats on the other side going on and jumping up and down, I feel like democracy is being ridden roughshod over today, because this piece of legislation, this Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs-Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, is nothing more than slamming things through in urgency which do not need to be slammed through. They need to be parked. People need to put their money in the meter, they need to wait, and they need to relax and chill out for a bit and then to wait the time to get this legislation right, to allow local government to have their say, and to allow local government to engage and be part of democracy. But, no, we’ve got to run fast; we’ve got to run loose—that is what this Government does.

As we know, the “c” word—that’s right, I’m going to use the “c” word, Mr Speaker. I’m not sure if it’s the Standing Orders, but I am going to use the “c” word. It’s all about choices. And this Government is making some serious choices which are offensive—some serious choices which are rude and are disgusting. The “c” word; they are making some really bad choices. And it is grotesque, and teenaged children and little kids who are watching tonight should close their ears right now, because that “c” word—the choices are horrific as we watch what is going on here.

Now, we look and we watch what this Budget is about. And nature, it’s been parked—did they have to put their money in the meter? Did they have to wait and ensure that they clipped their ticket on the way down for the National Party? We look at our just transitions trying to move us forward. It’s been parked. But, that’s OK, we’ll throw some money in the meter, and, of course, they’ll clip the ticket, and they’ll move on, and we’ll ignore our just transitions. Oranga Tamariki, our most vulnerable children—they’re being parked, and no money can be put in the meter to justify that, because that is outrageous and that is wrong, but that is what this Government is doing with this Budget.

When it comes to funding cancer drugs, when it comes to climate change, when it comes to universal free prescriptions, they are parking it all, and they are hoping, and maybe some of them are praying and hoping—I don’t know what their beliefs are—that, somehow, when they leave this House, maybe Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday next week, when we get through this debate, they can justify to their constituents, they can justify to the people of Aotearoa New Zealand, that the Budget that they have presented and championed and that they’ve said so many wonderful things about—about how they’re actually going to be able to look people in the eye and say, “I’m sorry.”, because we use the “c” word in this legislation. We use the “c” word in so many pieces of legislation. We made choices that are taking New Zealand backwards, choices that are offensive and are wrong.

This legislation is only adding that extra 4 percent on top of that, obviously, in terms of the ticket that they can clip, and that is wrong. I just think, as we sit here in this place and as we look at what is going on in New Zealand, that they are looking and finding every way they can to find a bit of extra money behind the couch—you know, a bit more money behind the sofa to see how they can find a way to fund their tax cuts—because, of course, there’s the “b” word. And I’m going to be outrageous: I’m going to use two offensive words tonight: the “c” word and the “b” word. That’s right. They’re going to be borrowing—borrowing; the “b” word. They’ve been borrowing for these tax cuts and doing everything they can with this legislation to ensure that they can find every little cent and every little penny they can to ensure that they can give their tax cuts to their mates and to their friends.

So, as we look at this legislation, as we look at urgency, it is unnecessary. It should have gone to select committee. This legislation should have at least talked to our local democracy and our people. This is wrong.

Behind all of the emotion and the words and the rhetoric and the forgetfulness of the past six years and where we are now, this bill is an opportunity, a tool, to get the Government books back in balance. I commend this bill to the House.

This is just really bad law, and it’s really unfair. If I think of my own family, I have the blessing of being from a mixed Dutch and Pasifika family, and the reality is that members from both sides of my aiga—my extended whānau, and sometimes in our own little unit—will do things like forget their registration on their car or maybe park for five minutes longer or whatever. And they get a fine, and then it becomes difficult, because in my family, most of us don’t have accountants, we don’t have very organised ways of doing things, and we work organically. The fine comes in, and then we hang it on the fridge, just as Dr Duncan Webb said, and then for many of my family, it comes down to, “Am I going to bring something to the church service on Sunday to contribute—

💬 Hon Member: Or going back to the Waiheke vineyard!

—or am I going to feed the extended family who are coming around? Oh, maybe I’ll just keep that on the fridge and leave it alone.”

Somebody mentioned something quite sarcastic over there, and I’m speaking really seriously here. The things that the Government members find funny and trivial are realities for many people. So when we look at the impact of this law, what happens in that situation? Somebody doesn’t pay their fine, maybe they even stick it in the bottom drawer, they get reminder letters, it becomes overwhelming, and then the Ministry of Justice rings up and says, “How about you do a payment plan?” And you say, “Oh, yep.”—and everything else that you have to say to make them go away—and you agree to have a direct debit out of the bank account. The direct debit comes around, and, again, the cost of living takes over, and, next minute, there’s a $25 bank charge and maybe another one when it bounces and maybe another one. And these bills line up and pile up and pile up and become quite unmanageable.

And this is the situation that is really unfair for families that are going to be impacted, and it’s come out in the costs recovery impact statement, in the report that talked about the unfair impact. Now, that is bad enough. But, then, if we look at the jurisprudence of this—and the lawyers on the Government benches should know what I’m talking about, about the strict-liability nature of fines—and the fact that people who are in this situation in the first place, it might be a small fine, but it starts as a guilty-until-proven-innocent. So to contest, perhaps, that that little registration ticket that was supposed to be shown on the window wasn’t visible, because it fell on the floor, somebody needs to be able to contest that. They have to pay the fine unless they can prove that they weren’t liable. So that means, under the laws of natural justice and normal jurisprudence, we should take even more care when we are imposing additional cost or additional liability to those groups of people. But what are we doing here? We’re sitting in urgency and without a select committee process—and I’ll come to that in a minute, because there’s some really sloppy drafting in the bill that we didn’t even get to in the committee stage, because the debate was closed down before we got to ask questions about some of the words in Schedule 4.

The Minister was sitting in the committee stage trying to say that this is good public policy and that there was an evidence base for saying that it was about cost recovery. There was no evidence base to prove that. We asked numerous questions, from this side of the House, about what the numbers were and what the baseline was and also, actually, what type of fee this was even going to be. It appears that it’s a tax, when I look at it, because we know that a levy looks across a situation and requires payment across a class of expenditure. A fee is much more about a sort of vertical digging down. So this would appear to be a fee. But also what was deeply concerning was the purpose, because if it is a fee or a levy—and it’s being dressed up as a levy; I actually think it’s a tax, but it could be a fee—it has to be justified really carefully, and there has to be a good reason to do it. Now, under the legislation, it is saying in the purpose that this is about cost recovery, but in the title, it is talking about “Budget Measures”. What we’ve heard in the contributions from the Government tonight is that this is a way of trying to fill a fiscal hole.

We know that the Government had to borrow $12 billion to pay for the fiscal hole created by the $2.9 billion handout to landlords. And now they’re scrambling around. But a good law would be very clear about whether the purpose is cost recovery or whether it is a tax, and what we have had is mixed messages. We asked that in the select committee—no, we didn’t have a select committee process, of course; in committee—and we didn’t get a satisfactory answer. In fact, we put amendments forward to say, “Let’s take the words ‘Collection Costs’ and just keep ‘Budget Measures.’”, because this is clearly about trying to fill the Budget hole that’s been left. Who’s it impacting? It’s impacting people who are the least likely to be able to afford it. And I think that’s really unfair.

When I look at the bad drafting—and there’s lots of things around the drafting, including the date. I mean, July coming up—that is extremely fast and doesn’t allow for the systems to be able to cope correctly. And I’ll come to that in a minute with the Invercargill example that I’ve mentioned. But if I look at the Schedule, in new Part 4, clause 11(3), in this clause it talks about “amount of a fine includes”, and then it’s got the words “without limitation, an instalment—(a) of the fine; and (b) paid under a court order”, and so on. Now, what really concerns me is bandying around the legal words “without limitation”. If we had a select committee process for this, that would have been tested. We would have tried to understand. If it is a fine without limitation, a strict liability offence where the mens rea is already assumed unless somebody can prove that it’s not, what do we mean by “without limitation”? I don’t even get to ask that.

What do those words mean? They could mean anything. Is that going to be something about interest, is it going to be some other thing that is added on to the final—I’m not sure, and perhaps it’s just irrelevant. I suspect the answer, if we had got to this in the committee stage, would have been to cross those words out. But that is sloppy drafting, and the members opposite know that, in this House, it is about precision of language. That is what creates fairness and that is what avoids unintended consequences. And so it’s really disappointing to see that kind of drafting. And it’s no surprise, given that we’re doing this in urgency and that we’re doing it without a select committee, where we would have had people like the Law Commission, where we would have had interested groups and others say, “Actually, Minister, or, actually, select committee, what do those words mean? Do we need to strike them out, or do we need to define them further?”

I turn finally to the example of Invercargill. And I did mention this in the committee stage, because the Government treated the questions that we asked with a lot of disdain and acted as if this was some kind of ridiculous situation in which we were posing hypotheticals. Just last week in the newspaper, the Invercargill council have done the right thing, actually. They have decided to repay $500,000 worth of parking fines to local people. I commend them for doing that. It was a difficult decision, and the reason is because they had made a mistake under the administration. And we know with strict-liability offences that the legal requirement is for the law and the evidence burden to be very strictly applied, given that the burden of proof has changed from a presumption of innocence to a presumption of guilt unless innocence has been proven. So I do commend them for doing it. But what really concerns me is that the Invercargill City Council is also trying to consider whether to pay $90,000 to subsidise public transport for the kids who won’t get that now that the subsidy’s gone. And they need to catch buses to go from the south of the city to the north of the city to play their sports games. And that is something that is around social inclusion. It’s keeping kids out of trouble and keeping them active.

You may ask, “What has this got to do with the bill?” Well, everything. This is a direct result of administration and carelessness where it had profound results that had a fiscal cost which meant that, now, our most underprivileged and our most needing people who really want to get out there, play sport, and participate cannot do so, because of the type of administrative shonkiness that this bill presents. It’s lawmaking that’s done from the Wild West. It’s done far too fast. It’s done for the wrong reasons—it’s done for the intention of filling a tax hole rather than a genuine cost recovery reason. We know that because we haven’t seen the evidence base. And it breaks my heart, because I know, from the communities that I live with, that the people who will bear the cost of this, because it will be passed on from councils, will be people like my aiga and my Dutch extended family, who just can’t afford to pay the fines and get hit time and time again. It’s bad lawmaking.

Thank you very much. Look, I’d just like to respond to a couple of thoughts that were thrown around throughout this whole debate. The words “sneaky little bill”—this bill was referred to as a “sneaky little bill”. Well, what about the sneaky fuel tax and the sneaky ute tax that were thrust upon our people in the last six years? And the “broken promises” they spoke about—well, what about the promise to extend free breast cancer screening for people up to the age of 74 years old? Broken promises, 2017, 2020—

💬 Ingrid Leary: Point of order, Mr Speaker. This is the third reading of the bill and I’d just like to point to the fact in the third reading, the member must speak to this particular bill, rather than referring to other bills. So I just hope you can make a ruling on that, sir.

💬 Hon Andrew Bayly: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I just wondered when we got our fourth Speaker.

This bill was being referred to as a broken promise—

💬 Ingrid Leary: Speaking to the point of order, sir. Speaking to this point of order raised by the Hon Andrew Bayly. Mr Speaker, I hope you will make a determination on it. I’m having some difficulty understanding what the member was asking, so if he could indulge the House and re-ask his question, perhaps we could then get you to rule on it.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Could you repeat that, Mr Bayly?

💬 Hon Andrew Bayly: I’m just asking when was the fourth Speaker appointed to assist you in your Chair role? I didn’t think a fourth Speaker had been appointed to a new role.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Well, thank you for thinking about my benefit. Just so I must make a ruling on that, if the member can confine her comments to this bill.

To the bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I understand you all want to stay here tonight, but let’s get a move on.

This bill is a great bill, and I commend it to the House.