Mark Ron: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Mark Ron: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:626;Page:21691] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I acknowledge your guidance Mr Chairperson but given that the debate has been opened up widely by the Minister in the chair the Hon Rick Barker and because unfortunately I will not be here after 2 o’clock to give the Minister any further guidance I intend just to follow his line. 
Firstly the Minister said that the measures that have been taken at airports are “as much as they can do right now”. He admitted that. I must say it is good to hear that and I would love to have heard it admitted in question time when we asked about those problems some time back. The Minister also admitted that the Government will have to come back to the House with another amendment bill to amend all those Acts—the Crimes Act the Customs and Excise Act etc—and that we will be addressing this legislation again. I ask the Minister then why the Government did not agree to my motion put earlier today which would have meant that the bill went back to the Law and Order Committee so we could get stuck in and tidy it up? 
Let me give the Minister some guidance. This bill would have been far more effective if the Government had recognised one thing. Having bailiffs stopping people at airports as Part 1 allows is the very last thing we should be doing to collect those overdue unpaid fines. The very first thing the most important thing which is not included in the bill is giving the Ministry of Justice through the courts carte blanche access to Inland Revenue Department records. 
At the select committee we asked the officials about that and the guidance we had was that the Government would not be receptive to such wide and far-reaching legislation which would impinge upon the Privacy Act. The Government itself is the handicap. The officials quite clearly were gleeful at suggestions from the Opposition that the Ministry of Justice should be given that ability. But no the Government sees more importance in strengthening the Privacy Act than in collecting $600 million worth of outstanding fines. 
The very last thing we should be doing is stopping people at airports. If our systems were robust if the bailiffs had the same investigative capability as the Inland Revenue Department or even Baycorp and if the courts on finding that an offender had missed one payment were able to go straight into the computers of the Inland Revenue Department or Work and Income to find the person—whether he or she was receiving a benefit or the dole where the cheques were being posted to and which account they were being credited into—they would have that person by the shorts within seconds. But this legislation does not do that. Instead we are focusing on trying to catch people at airports. 
Well we agree: anyone who is trying to have a holiday in Hawaii but who has $5000 worth of outstanding debts should not be allowed to leave for Hawaii. We are pleased that the Government has taken that on board. But we think the threshold is too low— 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: You have to have an arrest warrant! 
RON MARK 
: They have to have an arrest warrant. The point is that the failure is occurring at the very front end of the system. Members should look at the answers I got from the Ministry of Justice on 28 May 2003 when I asked how many people had up to $5000 outstanding. The answer was 199458 people. So nearly 200000 people as at 28 May 2003 had outstanding fines of up to $5000. The number of people owing fines between $5000 and $10000 was 1903. How could we possibly allow such a system to exist? But it has happened and I say to the Minister that it is no good throwing the issue back at the Opposition and saying that National had had 9 long years to do something. This Government has had 15 years. 
Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.