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 second time.

I would like to thank members for their contributions on this bill in the first reading debate. To recap my earlier speech, the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill makes a minor amendment to the Public Finance Act 1989. This will increase the percentage of local authority and other organisation fines collected by the Ministry of Justice that can be retained by the Crown from 10 percent to 14 percent, with effect from 1 July 2024.

This bill is an addition to a suite of Orders in Council that will adjust fees in courts and tribunals and fees and costs for collection services to account for inflation since fees were last updated. The increase in the amount retained by the Crown from fines recovered for local authorities and other organisations is comparable to the rates for private debt collection but remains competitive. It is important that local authorities, who receive most of the money collected, should pay a reasonable amount towards the cost of the recovery of these fines.

The change from 10 percent to 14 percent will come into force on 1 July 2024, which will realise revenue immediately and contribute to the Government’s Budget goal of delivering a more efficient, effective, and responsive public service.

I note members on the other side of the House have been spending their entire debate trying to drag out speeches on a bill which makes a minor but important change to ensure that the functioning of Government can actually be delivered efficiently and that the costs are appropriately recovered—principles of good Government which were ignored for the last six years. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, such passion over parking fines; it’s so good to see. Look, the fact of the matter is, the irony of this is, that the premise that the Minister of Local Government brings this to the House with, that there’s been cost inflation in collection, makes no sense on a number of grounds. The most obvious one is that if you’re charging a percentage of something, then there is no cost inflation. As the fines go up, the amounts recovered go up. The documents make it absolutely clear that there’s no research been done on this. The Government doesn’t even know how much it costs to collect these fines. The documents are there on the Table in the cost recovery impact statement.

The bill adds another 4 percent levy, so 14 percent, when a local body goes to court to get a parking fine or a noise breach fine or something like that. They’re now going to not get all of the money. They were previously getting 90; they’re now going to get 86. It’s interesting that the Government’s now competing with debt collectors, because in the documentation, they say this is comparable with what a debt collector would charge if they were to collect this debt, as if they’re in the market for debt collection services, which is a very strange way to approach what size you impose on some charge or levy. In fact, it’s not just strange; it’s outright wrong. The idea that there’s a market for it and, therefore, you should pitch it at that market when you’re the Government just makes no sense.

Now, when the Government delivers a service, the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee principles, which are really quite useful, are very clear on this matter. The task of the Government when imposing costs of this nature is to determine what the cost delivery is. Now, there’s latitude for when there’s overs and unders in multi-year ebbs and flows, but, at the end of the day, you should never be charging someone an amount which has an extra bit of added fat. But that’s exactly what we’ve heard from Simeon Brown. This is all part of, you know, running a not-too-massive deficit, right? He’s going to impose this extra 4 percent and he’s going to reduce his Government’s deficit by around $200,000. Now, when we get to the committee—of course, we could’ve had a much closer look at this if we’d gone to a select committee, but the time for that kind of examination will come next, and I’m actually going to be asking him some questions, so he might want to get the work done in advance about how he thinks he is going to make this money, because I, frankly, can’t see it. But at the end of the day, this is just hurting ordinary New Zealanders.

The devil, of course, is actually in the regulations which are paired with this piece of legislation where, you know, it talks about increasing the court cost and filing fee from $30 to $55. Now, that’s actually going to raise more money than the levy itself. Also adding to, essentially, the enforcement fee—currently $102; going to $133. Now, as is common with this Government, all of the documentation says, “We haven’t actually had enough time to work out where the money’s coming from or exactly how much it will bring in, but this is our best guess.” It’s really just not good enough. It’s, essentially, another little tax, because if it’s not shown to be cost recovery, it’s a tax. So here we go, a nice little tax snuck in through urgency. Well, you know, local bodies aren’t going to love you for this.

Ultimately, particularly around those court costs, people are going to go and say, “You know, I didn’t park there. It wasn’t a double yellow line.” They’ve got their right to go to court and have their say, and now when they lose, they’re going to be paying more for their right to go to court and ask the question. So that’s actually an access to justice question. What we’re doing is we’re saying, you know, “If you want to have an argument about whether or not you should pay this $60 fine or this $40 fine, then if you lose, it’s going to cost you a hell of a lot more.” The actual likelihood of people asking the question—legitimate questions—is going to fall, and so that’s really, really unfortunate.

So the cost recovery impact statement is on the Table, and I would implore members to read it, because it’s actually a useful document, and I actually do commend the Government for making sure it was generated before they came to the House, but what is abundantly clear is it’s littered with references to the fact that they haven’t had the time to actually work through whether this is appropriate, whether it is actually cost recovery or—

Arena Williams: Hot reckons.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —a hot reckon; thank you, Arena Williams. I believe it is a hot reckon. Actually, it’s just a guess. It’s just a finger in the air, or it’s more of a “What do you reckon we could get away with?” That’s really what it is.

It’s rushed, and the other thing is, look, it’s absolutely unnecessary for it to be here today. The lion’s share of the increases in revenue are actually outside of the control of Parliament, other than the Regulations Review Committee, because the biggest gains are being made by the increases in the court costs and so on, which is done by Order in Council. But, no, for some reason, and I am perplexed—and I will ask the Minister, when he is obliged to answer, or sort of obliged, why he’s come here when he really didn’t need to. It’s the most trivial of all of the things he could’ve done. So it’s nickel-and-dime stuff, and there’s not really been the work done.

In fact, I’ll quote from the information statement, which says there’s limited financial information which provides a reasonable basis for decision making. So it’s just classic bad regulatory practice. It’s making law in the dark and it’s unnecessary and it’s rushed, and, not only that but it’s such a small matter that it would’ve been no problem at all to have it done on another occasion in the normal way. So why it’s been crammed into this urgency, I really don’t know.

Of course, the fact of the matter is, even at the 10 percent levy, we already have, as the impact statement says, some councils choosing to use debt collectors because it’s more effective. So the irony is that by increasing this amount, there’s a—well, the economists amongst us would say, as night follows day, more councils will use debt collectors because the Crown has become less competitive. That’s actually not a good thing. I’m not sure we want to be creating an industry of debt collectors who are making money off collecting money for local bodies. You know, I think we should really avoid that.

Maybe that’s what this Government wants. Maybe they, you know, want to privatise parking fine recovery. That’s the kind of Government we’ve got. Basically, this is an unfair levy. It doesn’t bear a relationship to the actual costs; it can’t be shown, and that’s something that a Government which has come in with a hiss and a roar, saying, “We’re going to examine regulation. We’re going to make sure we do things by the book. We’re not going to run fast and loose. We’re not going to”—and, of course, this is exactly, right down the middle, what they rail against: random taxes which aren’t thought through. Here we have it: it’s not shown to be justifiable, it’s not shown to be cost recovery, it hasn’t gone through a good process, and yet, boom, there we have it—in urgency, rammed through.

Of course, the percentage amount—you know, the Public Finance Act has been there for a while, and it imposed this 10 percent amount on the basis that across all of the fines, it was roughly enough. Of course, as fines have gone up, so has the amount recovered. I am curious—and the Minister will no doubt ask—why he thinks that this will get $400,000-odd in 2025-26 but go to $600,000 in 2028-29. Unless he’s going to get the councils to issue more parking tickets, I just can’t see what his basis is—unless, of course, he’s intending to further increase that percentage amount. Of course, the comparison with private sector fees is entirely inappropriate. The idea that what the Government should charge for a levy is based on what the competition does in the private sector actually cuts fundamentally across what imposing a levy is. Imagine if that’s how Zespri levy, or some other thing. It would—

Ingrid Leary: Judicial review—judicial review it.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Unfortunately, Parliament isn’t subject to judicial review, but maybe it should be. That’s a whole other constitutional conversation. But, silly little bill, poorly proofed, and I cannot commend it to the House.

I rise to speak against the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. This is almost the only mention of local government in the whole Budget. Minister Brown has talked up a big storm about working with councils, devolving decisions, letting local communities have their say, but what do we have here? We have an ambush, not a partnership between central and local government.

The Ministry of Justice says: “Finally, the paper does not meet the consultation requirements because the proposals in the paper have not been the subject of any substantial consultation with relevant stakeholders.” There’s the “consultation” word again. The Local Government New Zealand chief executive tells me they were only made aware of this, this morning.

Hon Simeon Brown: It’s called Budget urgency.

CELIA WADE-BROWN: Is it? Or is it a trivial little ambush—an arrogant ambush for a relatively trivial amount of money? There’s no budget for city or regional deals. There’s no budget for GST back on rates for existing or new properties. There’s no allowance—zero allowance—for paying rates on Government buildings.

Hon Member: Talk about the bill, for goodness’ sake!

CELIA WADE-BROWN: We are in a discussion about urgency during the Budget.

Hon Member: No, no. We’ve had the urgency debate already. We’re talking about the specific bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Order! Order! I don’t want a commentary. Continue.

CELIA WADE-BROWN: There is a context in which this bill has been proposed and it is not an attractive one. Some people have trivialised the issues of where we have fines and enforcement, but let me give you some examples. Nobody likes paying fines, but they’re avoidable. If we can’t shift cars that are parked on the footpath, that’s an issue for anyone with a pram or a wheelchair. If we can’t shift cars out of bus lanes, that’s an issue of congestion, which I would have thought the Minister in his other hat might have been interested in.

Hon Member: How are those cycle lanes helping?

CELIA WADE-BROWN: And, yes, it would be a good idea to move the cars out of the cycle lanes—good thinking over there. I think this is cynical and unfair because we are recovering a trivial amount of money for central government, but you are not helping local government recover any of its costs.

There’s been a recent article—I don’t always agree with the third Brown that we’re talking about here. We have Minister Brown, we have MP Wade-Brown, and we also have Mayor Brown, so it can get confusing for people. So you might need to be pay attention as to which Brown we’re talking about.

Hon Matt Doocey: Who’s your favourite Brown?

CELIA WADE-BROWN: OK, we could have a little poll, but at the moment—and this is something that could have been changed. You could have changed this. Auckland Transport can only charge $53.60 for towing, towing off the footpath, towing out of the cycle lane, towing out of the bus lane, towing off the dangerous corner, and the average tow cost is $99.00. You are really not helping local government. You’re getting your measly little extra 4 percent, but you’re not helping local government. There are many other—

Hon Member: Who’s next on the list?

CELIA WADE-BROWN: —you can call me “Your Worship”, I don’t mind. I’m sure Mr Foster won’t mind either.

Hon Member: Where is he?

Hon Simeon Brown: He’s a better “Your Worship”.

CELIA WADE-BROWN: So you want to recover all of the central government costs—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Please don’t refer to the absence of members in the House—and continue to have a conversation with the Speaker.

CELIA WADE-BROWN: Through the Speaker—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Yes.

CELIA WADE-BROWN: —this Government wishes to recover its pathetic little recovery costs, but there’s no partnership. In fact, there’s—

Hon Member: It’s an ambush!

CELIA WADE-BROWN: It’s lovely to have the help from the Opposition or even the Government.

Arena Williams: They’re just being horrible. Keep going Celia—keep going.

CELIA WADE-BROWN: I shall, I shall. What are fines for? What are the courts for? They are when people want to go and argue the case—and we do need to recover the costs. There’s no disagreement about that. But why recover central government costs? Why focus on that? Why not support the councils? Whether they’re unitary, whether they’re regional, whether they’re city, whether they’re district, they all have issues that need enforcement. It might be dumping—it might be dumping rubbish into reserves. Oh, we don’t want to condone that. But where are you helping local government to recover all of its costs?

So we have councils, 76 of them, who already don’t quite agree with some of the things that this Government’s promoting. Why not form a bit of a partnership? Why not at least talk to them about how we can work together to bring the enforcement into a more even and effective system? It’s cynical, unfair, and I think it shows perhaps a lack of understanding of the needs of local government. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair and go for a kai. The House will resume at 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Members, we are up to the second reading of the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. We’re up to call No. 4, which is the ACT Party call. I call Parmjeet Parmar.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am taking this call on behalf of ACT to support the second reading of the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. This is a sensible bill, and it shows that this coalition Government—that is, National, ACT, and New Zealand First—really wants to see that our public services are financially sustainable. We know that this is about the amount that is retained by the Crown from the collection services that are delivered by court for local authorities and organisations. This is going to be increased from 10 percent to 14 percent. The last time this price was set, which was at 10 percent, was in 1989; so it’s been around 35 years. It’s been a long time, and what it does is bring it in line with what private debt collectors charge. It is a very sensible policy, and I think we should all support this bill. The ACT Party is supporting this bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. Now, it makes a minor but very important to the Public Finance Act 1989. It’s common sense, and as I said in the previous reading, anything that is common sense New Zealand First will support. I commend it to the House.

It’s a privilege to take this call and I’m very happy to do so. My call will be short, but I want to make some important points about this ridiculous bill that absolutely is not worth our time in urgency. This Minister has come down to the House and he has asked us to sit here on a Friday when we could otherwise be in our electorate serving our constituents and talking to them about their concerns when it is Budget week, whereas, instead, we are dealing with parking fine taxes.

Hon Simeon Brown: Don’t be so workshy.

ARENA WILLIAMS: This Minister is in charge of it too. He’s not the justice Minister but he is the Minister who cost his finance Minister about $1.5 million from the land transport plan. When did that happen? Was that at the Transport and Infrastructure Committee? Who was on that? Remind me how much that cost. Was it about—I don’t know—1.5 over the forecast period? Is this how much this bill saves? Good on that Minister for finding savings, but, unfortunately, those savings are coming straight out of the pockets of ratepayers, straight out of the pockets of mayors and councils that that Minister got on the stump at election time and said he would be fighting for. He told local councils around this country that he would be on their side, yet here he’s on their side reaching into their pockets to pull out another 4 percent of the costs that they are levying on ratepayers.

That’s the approach of this Government. It’s to make sure that the Government is getting more of people’s money so that they can announce it on Budget day as a tax cut. Well, good on that Minister! At least he made up for it when I spox’ed him at the select committee. So I am going to be raising some issues at this committee stage. [Interruption] It will be a lively committee stage debate, you can see, because there are a number of Government members who want to contribute just in my call.

What I’m going to get to is it’s sort of about the reasons why one would charge a levy or a fee. I want to start to unpack why this isn’t in fact a fee—it’s more like a penalty that’s being imposed on people—and why this isn’t the appropriate way to do it, in legislation. The cost recovery statement that we’ve been provided with does go into that and, as some of my colleagues have spoken about, this shouldn’t be thought of as pure cost recovery, because it’s not. Because we haven’t had any policy advice about whether that 10 percent that is levied now does in fact not meet the costs to actually recover the debt. If that’s the case, if it was in fact a bright idea from this Minister to make up for some of the costs, then that’s not actually cost recovery. It’s being levied on councils, who ultimately pass it on to ratepayers, who are exactly the same people who would otherwise benefit from other savings. So it’s just passing costs here to people out there to pay, and that’s not actually what the cost recovery mechanisms should be used for.

I’ll also be asking some questions around whether it’s reasonable that local government should pay more for the collection of these fines, given that they already have a mechanism to increase the actual dollar amount, which is through the Orders in Council. It is important that local councils are able to levy fines. You create some certain policy outcomes by only allowing very, very small fines, and you create certain policy outcomes by levying larger fines.

Celia Wade-Brown made an excellent contribution, which was continuously interrupted by that side of the House, about why, for instance, with parking fines, you create a certain policy outcome if they are artificially low. So there are reasons why you might want councils to be able to levy appropriately high fines in that situation, but then there isn’t necessarily a policy rationale for why—on those fines, when the cost of recovery will go up in dollar amounts, if that cost also rises because it is a proportional amount—you would then need to increase the proportion as well. I’m sure we’ll tease that out in the select committee stage—

Hon Rachel Brooking: I’m looking forward to that.

ARENA WILLIAMS: —and we are looking forward to that, as my colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking says. Parking fines are something which actually do change consumer behaviour. They are something which affect the way that our cities feel, so it is useful for us to really get into the detail of what the rationale is for charging those fines, which is very different from why you would charge court fees. Court fees raise all sorts of access to justice issues, and there are also different policy rationales for that. This bill uses a blunt instrument to treat them as if they’re both the same, and that is the wrong way to do this. So I cannot commend the bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Before I begin my contribution, I just want to acknowledge my colleague Celia Wade-Brown, who was making some really important contributions—particularly around the work that central and local government are yet to do together. I think it really speaks to the other side of the House, because I was paying attention to the interjections. It really speaks to the approach around this from the other side of the House when they would rather mock style than substance, and when they themselves are making 12-second contributions because they cannot substantiate the bills that they’re putting forward, because they just want to go home.

For a party that talks about hard-working Kiwis and yet are not able to work hard to back up their shabby bills, I think they owe the public a bit of respect when it comes to, for example, this nonsense of a bill. All it will do is actually deprive local government—it will continue to widen the divide both in relationship but, actually, in resources of central and local government. It says a lot that this bill was introduced under urgency at a time—

Carl Bates: Efficiency.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: —when actually we should—it’s not efficiency. I want to pick up on that comment, because this Government thinks, as we have debated through urgency, that doing poor, non-robust work to produce legislation is efficiency. They think that putting bills that ultimately impact those who have the least resources the most amounts to efficiency.

The reality is that they’re so desperate to create savings that they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, putting legislation in place that touches actually on a subset of criminal offences that, as has been well traversed, impact low-income communities the hardest. This is something that is reflected in the regulatory impact statement, and the members haven’t been able to give contributions as to the substance of this. So I think it’s really important that we contextualise this bill, as I said before, in the broader Budget, a Budget that is cake for those who have it well, and crumbs for everyone else.

I want to go back to the regulatory impact statement. They talked about not just low-income people but Māori, Pasifika, disabled people, and other communities who are most disproportionately impacted—and young people as well. In fact, the criminal offences that we’re going to touch on here—or the subset of those—affect young people the most. People with fine debts are also, as stated in the regulatory impact statement, more likely to be under 45. In fact, 73 percent of those are aged under 45. When we look at, for example, the previous bill that we were discussing, it’s easy to see why this is not just an attack on the poor but also an attack on young people.

Yes, fines can sometimes play a role in changing behaviour, but we have to remember that fines, at the end of the day—because they’re basically a flat amount and they’re not actually increased by your income—are basically a free pass for those who can afford to pay them. So when it comes to changing behaviour, we have to also remember that, ultimately, it’s not just the behaviour that changes; it could actually result in people being put in a position of hardship. Whereas if the members to my left commit anything that results in them having to have these fines, it amounts to nothing. They don’t have to make any tough choices to pay these fines. But, for somebody who’s on benefit—a disabled person who relies on income support—and receives those fines, actually, it can be the difference between putting food on the table or paying the rent.

I’m seeing frowns on the left side of the House, but the reality is this shows their disregard for the communities least benefiting from the tax cuts yet most affected by this unserious piece of legislation, this desperate, desperate attempt at producing savings from a Government that is ruling for the wealthy few but not the many. The Green Party will continue opposing this bill and calling out the absurd behaviour from a Government that is absolutely fiscally irresponsible. Rather than seriously investing in public services that reduce the cost of living, like free healthcare and free education, they’re actually cutting back subsidies, putting out this shamble of legislation and actually exacerbating the cost of living crisis.

We are witnessing the decline of the once-great workers’ party. Not content, in Government, with reaching into the pockets of New Zealanders and taking their tax, they now, in Opposition, want to reach into the pockets of working New Zealanders and take their tax relief. This is a very simple bill. It takes cost recovery from 10 percent to 14 percent to deal with the rampant inflation made under the previous Government. It’s a bill by a great Minister, shepherded by a great Minister. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Just before we—

Carl Bates: Read the title!

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: No, I won’t do that. Just before we start, though, I thought that was an interesting comment made by James Meager across the aisle about it being somehow something to do with inflation, when we’ve just traversed this topic about it being proportional, which makes absolutely no sense—but that shouldn’t be surprising.

Thinking about this bill again—and, honestly, I almost had a wee yawn when I stood up, because I thought to myself, “How much attention can we pay to this silly little bill on a Friday night?” But, as it happens, I’m prepared to spend a good nine and a half minutes talking about it. The contributions from the other side, from the Government, have been quite revealing, I think, haven’t they? They haven’t really been able to justify. When they have made contributions, they’ve been a little bit erroneous. They keep just saying that it’s important. As my colleague Riccardo Menéndez March has just said, we do have to take this in the context of the Budget, and we should be able to do that, because that’s what this Government has done—but to put it at number two in their line-up of important things to go through during an urgency period! So we have to think of it in the context of the overall Budget.

When I think of the overall Budget, the first thing that comes to mind, again, is the fact that it’s all about broken promises. There were heaps and heaps and heaps of families yesterday who were expecting to get a $250 tax cut. That’s just simply not going to happen. For most people, for those families, it’s around $60 to $70 a fortnight. Then there’s the pensioners—a couple; two pensioners—$4.50 a week. But the thing that’s galling, the thing that’s really, really galling, is the $3 billion taken out of climate funding. When you think of all the damage that that does, the fact that we’re sitting here talking about parking ticket tax at this time of night feel like a little bit of a parallel universe, doesn’t it? So let’s—

Carl Bates: Well, sit down, then.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: No, I won’t sit down. Let’s have a deep dive into what this bill does. It kind of feels to me that the Government backbench MPs don’t know what this is about, so let’s just go through some details. The bill enables the Government to take an extra 4 percent on top of the existing 10 percent when it collects fines on behalf of local bodies. Now, it’s anticipated that other costs such as collection fees imposed on citizens will be increased by regulation. That’s nothing to sniff at; that’s something that I think we should think about a little more deeply.

Now, some may say that this is a money grab; it’s an effective tax on local bodies. I think so too. Taking money that would go to local authorities to meet the cost of tax cuts, and that’s what it is all about, isn’t it? As we’ve heard tonight, it’s like they went through line by line and decided what random thing could they squeeze a little bit of money out of, and by little—and I do mean little: it’s trivial; it’s a ridiculous amount of money in terms of the Government’s coffers, but it does mean a lot in terms of local government. [Interruption] And you’re right, Kieran McAnulty.

Hon Kieran McAnulty: I know.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: I know you know! Look, the increased costs will ultimately be borne by the people that pay these fines. As we’ve also heard tonight, we know that, disproportionately, it’s often the people who have the least that end up in situations, because vulnerability begets more vulnerability, where they incur fines. Once those increases are made, therefore they do that more tough. So in a Budget that’s already hit those very same people in the pocket, it’s hit those very same people in terms of their high expectations, the promises that they were sold, so to turn around and have the second thing that comes through this House tonight under urgency being an increase to fines feels a bit rich, doesn’t it?

Now, the cost recovery impact statement, which is an interesting document—it’s several pages long and we can probably have a look through that as well; it’s got some good tables and some figures. But, briefly, the cost recovery impact statement, which is like a regulatory impact statement—it’s like a RIS but it’s a CIS—it highlights several things, and if we were to truncate that and to summarise it, so to speak, the main things it highlights is the fact that this is not a problem and somehow we’re trying to fix something that doesn’t need fixing. It’s also got no information. It states, through the CIS, that there’s almost no evidence to base this on. There’s no evidence to show us that the 10 percent fee that currently exists isn’t doing its job, that it isn’t covering the costs of making those recoveries. This is just a means by which this Government has gone, “I tell you what: here’s a bit of something that hasn’t been increased for a while. We’ll hoick that up 40 percent, and that’ll make us a little bit of extra money because we’ve got to pay for those tax cuts.” that Nicola Willis and Chris Luxon bet their reputations on.

The other thing is that clearly this is rushed, isn’t it? It’s rushed and it’s unnecessary. As my colleague the Hon Duncan Webb said earlier, it’s, essentially, nickel-and-dime stuff, isn’t it? It feels a bit trivial. It feels quite trivial to even be having these conversations, but yet here we are.

The other thing that the CIS makes clear is that, as I said, there’s limited information—certainly limited financial information above which we would be making those decisions. So, clearly, this is kind of a pre-determined thing just to find money, so it certainly doesn’t make sense. The other thing that I think was quite notable, when you look through the information, through the CIS, is that I think you have to be really wary, because it’s kind of a move to shift the recovery of fines—well, you’ve got to ask yourself: when the Government is making comparison between what the private sector is doing—and by the private sector we mean debt collectors—and when they’re saying, “OK, what are debt collectors doing out there? OK, they’re getting away with this much, let’s see if we can kind of, you know, meet them.”, as my colleague the Hon Kieran McAnulty said earlier. It’s like the State’s joining the market—the debt collector market.

Arena Williams: Or the mafia!

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: Or the mafia. But I think the question is, once you get over that and think to yourself, “Where could this be leading?” Is it a move to shift the recovery of fines completely to that private sector? Is the Government, at some point, just going to go, “Let’s just quit with this.”, and—

Hon Rachel Brooking: There’s a theme—there’s a theme!

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: —yeah—just head in that direction altogether? So, you know, if the mandatory charge of Government collection is outrageous, or it’s either an unfair levy—or it’s kind of like privatisation by stealth, really, isn’t it, and that’s something we have to keep our eye on.

As I said when I first made my contribution, the percentage amount bears absolutely no relationship to the amount of the fine, and I think that’s something also worth noting. So, regardless of whether the fine is $100 or it’s a thousand dollars, the percentage amount bears absolutely no relationship to that amount. Again, when we look at the CIS, it totally avoids whether the increase is needed for efficiency. This Government, for all their flaws—and they certainly rate themselves as economic geniuses, and we’ve never really seen much proof to be able to highlight the efficacy of those claims. But for all of their flaws, they do at least talk about efficiency and the need to favour efficiency and the need to look towards efficient uses. This thing does absolutely nothing in that direction. It’s yet another example of where efficiency is just a buzzword, and when the proof comes to the pudding, it’s all just hot air and nothing actually happens.

I think that when we think about—

Hon Kieran McAnulty: They want to go home.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: They do want to go home. But when we think about the progress of this bill, obviously this is the second reading and we’ll be heading into the committee of the whole House after this, and my colleague Arena Williams has already intimated that she’s got several pressing questions that she wants to ventilate and to prosecute, and she’s going to, I think—

Hon Kieran McAnulty: And she will.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: And she will. She’s looking forward to doing that very much, I can imagine, and it’s a meaty thing to have to talk about!

But here we are, coming towards the end of the second reading, and, again, let me just highlight: this is about choices. There were always choices in this Budget. We have to think about this stupid little piece of legislation, this stupid little bill, in the context of the wider Budget, which I think most New Zealanders will be sitting there tonight feeling pretty disappointed in what they were sold and what the reality was. So, on that basis, I certainly do not commend this bill to the House.

Here we have the Labour Party suddenly concerned about costs! It’s suddenly concerned about costs, but what did they vote against just a couple of moments ago? The tax cuts that 83 percent of workers would benefit from; 93 percent of households would benefit, and they voted against tax cuts for low to middle income workers.

As Mr Meager has said, this is a small cost recovery adjustment, making this small amendment to the Public Finance Act 1989. The previous speaker, Dr Tracey McLellan, says they can’t justify it. Well, I’ll tell you how they justify it: the fee has not increased since 1989. The increase from 10 percent to 14 percent is much, much less than inflation since then—136 percent. This is very, very small. I commend the bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Just for those who are watching at home, you may not be able to hear the kind of tone in the House or the gibes from the other side, but it’s a bit of a shame when they are—it feels like a bit of a classroom or a school assembly, and people are shouting and joking, when actually the legislation we’ve had in the House today has got real impacts on real people.

I’d like to acknowledge, as the spokesperson for seniors, retired couples, who are the biggest losers. I am going to bring this back to this bill because they are impacted by this. As Dr Tracey McLellan said, they were expecting $13 a week before the Budget. They’re now going to be getting $2.15 each a week if they’re a superannuitant couple. This bill—even though it’s a silly little bill—it’s actually tax by stealth. It will impact those people. It’s quite desperate, because they haven’t been able to fund their tax cuts, despite—it was bizarre when somebody in the House today said that they didn’t use borrowing to pay for the tax cuts, because, in fact, they have borrowed $12 billion to pay for $14.7 billion of tax cuts. So they clearly haven’t read their legislation.

This bill is bad law and it’s unfair. The reason it’s bad law is because, first of all, I’d say it’s a tax, but technically they’re calling it a levy. Now, it’s not a levy. If you look at it technically, it’s a fee, because it is targeted. A levy cuts across users and a fee is targeted. But it’s, really, at the end of the day, a tax.

What irks me is that this applies to strict liability offences. This means that when somebody goes down the road, parks their car too late, they are guilty until proven innocent. It reverses the burden of proof. Now, that’s really unusual in our parliamentary system. So that in itself should be a reason why this should be going to select committee. It’s a reason why it shouldn’t be done under urgency. Any time that we’re using urgency and this process to bring into being a change where somebody is guilty till proven innocent on the burden of proof is just bad lawmaking when it comes to jurisprudence.

It’s also the impact that it will have on marginalised communities, including Māori and Pacific. The costs will be passed on. There is no way that councils are going to sit here and have the Government do their big reach into their pocket and do their money grab and not pass those costs on. They will pass them on to the people who can least afford to pay it. Now, if we look at who’s been really impacted by these cuts that the Government has made by these types of bills, it is, as the Hon Kieran McAnulty—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I’m sorry to interrupt the member. It is becoming difficult to hear from up here. There are quite a few separate conversations going on in the Chamber.

INGRID LEARY: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Would you give me another five minutes?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): I’ve stopped the clock. I’ll restart it now.

INGRID LEARY: I’d be very keen to extrapolate. I’m sure that people couldn’t hear any of it, to be honest. But anyway, I’ll carry on.

The Hon Kieran McAnulty talked about the rates going up and the fact that this is another way of the Government kind of throwing councils under the bus, because it will be councils that will increase their fines, that will pass that on to the people who are fined. When I look at what’s happening in my electorate in Clutha, we’ve got the mayor there saying, basically, the way the rates are going up because of what’s happened under three waters and the fact that the water reforms that this Government is requiring councils to now pay, when we had a solution for them—those rates are going up between 14 and 20 percent. Superannuitants in my electorate are paying up to 20 percent of their income into rates. So when I talk about superannuitants being the biggest losers under the Budget, and I talk about the impact that this type of legislation has, it’s very, very real for them. The costs that will be passed on because they maybe get a fine or they pay their fine slightly late and costs are added, there is no way that councils will not pass those on.

So this is more bad news for superannuitants. It’s more bad news for councils, who are going to seem like the bad people here when, in fact, it’s the Government throwing them under the bus. Why? Because they didn’t cost out their tax cuts, because they’re desperately trying to find little pinchy ways to try and get their coffers adding up, and they’re doing it in urgency when they haven’t thought through how they’re going to get a decent amount of money in a proper legislative way. It’s bad lawmaking, as the Hon Dr Duncan Webb has said. There is no rationale for the 10 percent that’s been justified through the private market. In fact, if we look at what the cost recovery impact statement says, it says that a fee is only justifiable when it’s fair and appropriate. So is it based on the dollar amount? Is it based on the volume? There’s no justification. There’s no evidence. It’s a silly piece of law and I’m not supporting it.

Madam Speaker, thank you. So many words have been said. It’s a simple bill. Ten percent to 14 percent; 4 percent increase in Crown retention. The Opposition say that “This is trivial; it’s small money.”, but to a fiscally responsible Government every dollar counts. We commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now, it is quite bizarre that the day after the Budget, following what was a very long debate on the tax bill, this is the second bill that the Government puts up. This is what they want to put forward for New Zealanders. This is why they’re here on a Friday night. It’s because they want to charge people more for the cost recovery of their parking fines. I mean, we’re really, really focusing on the big issues, aren’t we?

I mean, they could have put a bill up tonight about how they’re going to move forward on funding cancer drugs. That would have been a better option. They could have put a bill forward about how they’re going to fund more public houses. That would have been a good bill. But no, none of these things. Instead, they have a parking ticket tax to bring to the House on a Friday night. I hope those people who are listening on a Friday night will be hearing that the Government’s major priority after tax is to add a new tax through a parking ticket tax.

Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Those people should write to their MP.

RACHEL BOYACK: They should write to their MP. I mean, one person has actually written to me tonight, calling the tax cuts a complete laugh. I won’t go into the full email because it’s actually quite depressing for that person. That is the kind of person who could well and truly be hit by this increase in the cost recovery of a parking ticket.

So the Government’s priorities are all over the shop. Then they’re trying to blame cost pressures for this. Now, what’s caused the biggest issue around cost pressures? Just looking here at the cost recovery impact statement, the biggest issue actually is cuts—cuts from that Government side where they’ve said, “What we’re going to do is we’re going to borrow and we’re going to cut so that we can give out unaffordable tax cuts to landlords.” Then what they’re going to do is introduce a nice sneaky little bill straight after the income tax debate called the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. What this bill will do—it will create this nice little parking ticket tax and it will enable the Government to take an extra 4 percent where it collects fines on behalf of local bodies.

Now, this is a Government that has, as other speakers have said, gone around the country and said, “Local government, we love you. We’re going to do some things for Auckland’s water. We’re not quite sure how it’ll work for the rest of the country, but we’ll probably figure that out later. Let’s see what happens. We’re going to help you out here, but oh, by the way, here’s another little cost. Here’s another little cost for you to have to gather more revenue for us.” Actually, when I talk to local councils, one of the things I hear is the frustration from councils when costs are imposed unnecessarily by central government. This is actually an unnecessary addition to costs that councils have to collect on behalf of central government. I actually don’t think it’s OK.

When you look further at the cost recovery impact statement—you know, we’ve heard from people. I’ve had emails from people who are literally only getting $2 a week in their tax cut. It is those people who will be disproportionately affected, if you read through. [Interruption] It’s interesting that the other side love to have a bit of a chat when we’re chatting, but they don’t actually—I mean, when they do their own calls, they could stand up and say all these things in a call, right? I mean, it’s like you’ve probably done a 10-minute call of interjections. Why don’t you just do the 10-minute call? I mean, it’s just a suggestion.

One of the things that the cost recovery impact statement has made really clear is that this bill will disproportionately impact low-income New Zealanders. Actually, that’s really serious, because a lot of the changes that have been made through this Budget will disproportionately impact low-income New Zealanders—things like removing free prescriptions; things like another transport matter, things like removing free public transport for young people. All of these things are placing the burden on to people who actually have lower incomes disproportionately while they’ve given $2.9 billion worth of tax cuts for landlords. So it just shows the Government’s priorities. I think the Government priorities are massively, massively out of whack.

What it also made clear, when you read through—I mean, you could, instead of talking amongst yourselves, you could actually have a read of this cost recovery impact statement. It’s quite interesting. One of the things is that the increase has been rushed. There has been limited financial information for this process. So it’s like the Government has thought to itself, “Heck, we’ve promised these tax cuts. We’ve staked our claim on it. We’ve said we’ll resign if we don’t do it.”

Hon Members: And we delivered.

RACHEL BOYACK: Oh, you did? Yes, you did. Seeing as you’ve mentioned the delivery of the tax cuts, I might just mention this person who said to me, “A complete laugh. As a single person living alone in hardship, I will get little to no benefit. With the reinstatement of prescription charges I am losing even more money. I have eight to 10 drugs each time, at a charge of $5 each item—more nails in my coffin. I’m struggling and just hate life at the moment. I’ve worked hard for many years. Everything I have had is nearly all gone.”

Maybe the members opposite actually should listen to the response from the New Zealand public to the changes that they have introduced. Again, I say, after making changes that actually proportionately impact on the wealthiest, those who own multiple investment properties, they then said, “The next thing that we’re going to do is introduce this nasty little parking ticket tax.”

I also remind members opposite that this Government promised no new taxes, and yet transport seems to be the one where they’re thinking, “Hey, we could find a few little curly ones here.” For some reason, it’s transport that’s getting hit with these. We’re going to pay more to register our car. We’re going to have some massive increases in the future into some of the levies that are taken, and then we’re going to do this nasty little thing for people who get a parking fine.

Now, I’ve had parking fines—[Interruption] Absolutely. I know; very outrageous. I mean, come on; who in this House hasn’t had a parking fine?

Hon Member: Celia.

RACHEL BOYACK: Who hasn’t? Who hasn’t?

Hon Member: Celia only rides bikes.

RACHEL BOYACK: Oh, Celia Wade-Brown hasn’t had a parking fine. Well done, Celia Wade-Brown. That’s impressive. I mean, I’ve had parking fines. Recently, my husband got a phone call from the Ministry of Justice to say that he hadn’t paid a parking fine from around 20 years ago, which he’d never actually seen.

Hon Member: Oh, shame.

RACHEL BOYACK: Oh no, he’s a very honest man, my husband. Actually, it ended up that he had paid it, but it hadn’t made its way through the system. But the reality is that many, many, many of us—many, many, many of us—have had parking fines. We know what happens when we overstay in our car park. As MPs, our meetings often go over. Then when those situations occur, if you don’t pay your fine on time, that’s when the cost recovery costs come along.

We know that it’s people on low incomes. We know that it’s those people who live week to week. We know it’s those people who think, “Actually, it’s going to be tough to fill the car this week. It’s going to be tough to pay the rent or the mortgage this week.”—those are the people who will often make the decision that they’re actually going to delay paying the parking fine. Unlike us, if I get a parking fine, I’ll pay it within a day or two, because I’m diligent—very, very diligent. But it’s also acknowledging that I have the ability to pay for that parking fine as soon as I get it.

That email from my constituent tonight was really sobering, because it just showed that this Government has its priorities all wrong. It’s basically blaming cost pressures on departments that they have cut the budgets for and they’re moving to more of a user-pays model with this lovely, lovely little parking ticket tax where they had promised no new taxes. Instead, what we’re seeing is a priority from this Government. As soon as they passed the income tax Act tonight, they said, “Right, we’re going to get into this really, really, really important bill.” This is the most important thing for this Government to be working on on a Friday night. It’s those most vulnerable people who will be disproportionately affected, who don’t pay their fines on time, who will end up having to pay significantly more at a greater cost to them and to councils. It’s a terrible little bill from a terrible Government that’s not standing up for working people.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, this bill, the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, has been referred to by people across the floor as a pathetic little bill—trivial, nickel-and-dime stuff, a silly piece of law. Why? Because it’s generating about $400,000 only, they say. I mean, that may be less than what they spent on a slippery slide once upon a time, but $400,000 will go a long way to community organisations. $300,000 went a long way recently for the Takanini Gurdwara in my electorate of Takanini. It refurbished their kitchen, which feeds thousands of people per week. It’s not trivial. It’s not pathetic. I commend this bill to the House.

This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill.

In Committee

Clause 1 Title