Beaumont Carol: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — In Committee 
Beaumont Carol: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:673;Page:19795] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to talk on Part 3 of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. As others have mentioned amendments are made to the Summary Proceedings Act 1957. Part 3 is a fairly substantial part of this bill. Quite major things are covered including quite a large area that covers “Service under this part”. Another large area covers default balances to certain authorised persons which are the credit reporting provisions that a number of recent speakers have talked about. There is a huge area on seizure release and sale of property so there is quite a lot in this part of the bill. 
I will talk about two things first of all the bit that my colleague Lynne Pillay talked about which is the credit reporting element. This is about the release of overdue penalty balances of eligible people to the private sector credit industry. The Hon Rick Barker when he spoke earlier made particularly good points on the fact that debt to the Crown was perhaps harder to ascertain than debt to private sector organisations and that did not seem right. This part deals with that. It provides for a credit reporting scheme. Importantly it does not include those people whose penalties are not overdue including those who are subject to a payment plan. 
I think as Chris Hipkins said it is very important that people who are finally taking responsibility for paying back the fines they owe and who have come to some agreed arrangement should not be further penalised. We all know that at the moment it is tough for people to make ends meet and people can easily get into debt situations. The important thing is that they come to an agreed payment plan where they are paying back that money. It is important that that arrangement is specifically precluded from this credit reporting scheme. The Ministry of Justice is authorised under the bill to use information from credit reporting agencies such as updated addresses and so on to collect fines. 
I was interested in the bit about the Privacy Commissioner. The Hon Rick Barker mentioned this bit as well. The bill requires the Minister for Courts to consult the Privacy Commissioner before recommending any regulations that implement the exchange of information between the Ministry of Justice and the credit reporting industry. When I look at this bill I see that this was quite a significant matter that was dealt with by the Law and Order Committee and the Regulations Review Committee had quite a lot to say about this. 
It has been interesting as a new member of Parliament to see the role of the Regulations Review Committee. It seems to me that it is very important that— 
Aaron Gilmore 
: Hard-working committee. 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: I have to agree with the member opposite. It is very important work and somebody needs to keep a very close eye on the powers that are given to make regulations. As I understand it the Regulations Review Committee expressed concern that the regulation-making powers in this part potentially had a high policy content which could infringe on the right to privacy. Select committee members also felt that it would allow regulations to be made that could override the general provisions of the Privacy Act. Consequently the Law and Order Committee clearly thought quite long and hard about this and this part requires the Minister to consult the Privacy Commissioner before recommending any new regulations to the Governor-General. That provision was further strengthened by amending clause 69 to require the Minister for Courts to be satisfied that any proposed regulations are consistent with section 92B of the Summary Proceedings Act. 
The committee went a step further and amended section 92A of the Summary Proceedings Act by amending the definition of “recognised user”. When I look at section 92I(1) in clause 69 I see that “The Governor-General may by Order in Council made on the recommendation of the Minister for Courts make regulations for …” and then there is a lengthy list of things. So it seems to be quite important. Some of those things include quite serious matters including prescribing the period for which fine status responses may be retained or used by recognised users and subscribers and requiring the destruction of those responses on the expiry of specified periods. 
It is really important I think that individuals have the confidence that although they have some responsibilities—and this bill is about making sure people fulfil those responsibilities to pay fines for things they have done—they also have rights and there is some balance. I think that quite a lot of thought has been given to this matter by both the Regulations Review Committee and the Law and Order Committee in trying to get that balance right. It is quite a lengthy provision and I think good work was done by the select committee. 
The select committee did not go as far as the Regulations Review Committee would have liked. The commentary on the bill states: “We do not propose adopting the Regulations Review Committee’s suggestion that the bill be amended to require confirmation by Parliament of any regulations made under subparagraph (h) that overrode the general provisions of the Privacy Act relating to the use and disclosure of information.” I think committee members tried to take account of the concerns and they came up with some reasonably robust provisions but they certainly did not go as far as the Regulations Review Committee would have liked. 
The other thing I found interesting in this part is the bit about “Service under this Part”. It is not something I know a great deal about but I was quite interested to see how extensive the provisions were. It talks about the various ways that a document can be served. It can be personally by mail electronically or anything else. Interestingly enough it has a whole section section 79B of the Summary Proceedings Act “Mode of service under this Part modified in special cases” inserted by clause 58. I wondered what they were. 
They include situations where somebody is served who is “living or working on board any vessel (including any vessel belonging to the Royal New Zealand Navy) by an authorised process server delivering the document to the person on board who at the time of service is apparently in charge of the vessel:” So it even goes as far as talking about serving notices on ships and to members of the New Zealand armed forces although there will be fewer of them of course as we have seen major cuts in our Defence Force. But none the less those who remain may have something served on them by delivery of the document “at the barracks camp or station to the officer for the time being in command of the unit or detachment to which the recipient belongs:” It was interesting to see just how detailed this legislation is with regard to the service of these documents and the way it is done in special circumstances some of which I have just outlined. 
Finally an area in this part that is quite significant is called the super-priority seizing of property. The District Court can obtain higher priority over secured property of a creditor provider if the loan was advanced when the overdue penalties could have been released under the credit reporting proposal and when that property is subsequently seized by the court some or all of these discoverable penalties are still overdue. Lenders for example can check registers and so on but the court will retain a higher priority over secured property. I did not go into a lot of detail in looking at that bit but I am interested in hearing more about the super-priority that is provided in Part 3 which I have been speaking about. Thank you.