Coddington Deborah: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Coddington Deborah: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:626;Page:21710] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 I shall carry on from that member on the issue about aliases. There are two issues on Supplementary Order Paper 370 in the name of the Hon Rick Barker that relate to Part 4 and they are both important issues that should have gone to the Law and Order Committee so that for a start the airlines could make submissions on them. Why are we making the airlines responsible for helping us to catch criminals? They may be pretty relaxed about that or they may not be. But they should at least have had the opportunity to have their say on it. It is extraordinary that it has suddenly come to the Minister’s notice at this very late stage when we are putting this legislation through in urgency that those two very important things suddenly need to be included or excluded. 
Before I move on from the subject of the airlines we wonder why our airfares go up and up. It is because of all the compliance things that are put on to the airlines. The Minister says that it is just a simple thing like noting that if certain bags belong to a person of interest the airlines need to keep them out. But that is never a simple thing for a business. Anything that adds to the handling or the time businesses spend adds to their compliance costs and affects their bottom line. Of course their prices go up. In order to try to attract passengers when they advertise they break their fares down into all the little bits and then they are taken to court by the Commerce Commission because they are breaking their prices down into little bits and add-ons. The commission says we are all stupid we cannot add them up we do not know the full cost and we need to be protected from ourselves. So that is the first issue that this provision relates to. 
I am pleased to support the “Ryall amendment” which will go in. That is a very good idea. It is extraordinary that it was overlooked before—that it was not a higher amount. 
The other issue relates to aliases. If one looks at the way that people behave we see they always behave according to incentives. People’s behaviour is guided by incentives. For instance when they have one child and are on the domestic purposes benefit if they know they will get more money and a bigger house by having two or three more children then they will have two or three more children while they are on the domestic purposes benefit for that reason. It is just human nature. We had the classic example of supplementary minimum prices which were taken away in 1984-85. It was social welfare for farmers—and my father was one of those farmers and I probably benefited from them. But in the long run it was better for them to be taken away. Farmers were paid more money according to how many sheep they ran if one wants to put it simply and the sheep were ground down for fertiliser. That is how bad supplementary minimum prices were for the country. Some of our erosion problems are a direct result of those incentives. So incentives affect people in short-term and long-term ways. 
Mr Chairman is probably wondering how that relates to Part 4 and I am about to get back to that point. If we are to remove the reference to aliases here—and the only reason we have had from the Minister to remove it is that his officials have advised him we should remove it because of the issue of mistaken identity for the Hon Richard Barker when he goes overseas—what will people do? They will use aliases. That is the first thing they will do; it is the logical thing to do. People will just go out there and use an alias. It is a very easy thing to do for instance if one has a car and the fines are traffic fines. It is a very easy thing to have aliases so that is what will happen. That will send a signal out there straightaway. Not only does someone have to owe $5000 and have a warrant out for his or her arrest but all that person has to do in order to escape these provisions after that is to rack up fines under a whole lot of different aliases. Then one will not come under this legislation according to Part 4 of this bill. The Minister needs to give a better explanation than he has given for removing the reference to aliases.