Katene Rahui: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — First Reading 
Katene Rahui: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:663;Page:10998] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 There is some legislation about which I can stand proudly in this House hand on heart and say that it is what our people want. I am thinking of legislation like the repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 or the members’ bills that just happen to be in my name such as the legislation to remove GST from healthy food and the legislation that is coming up to remove 1080 poison. I am sorry to say that the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill is not one of those bills. Not one of the Te Tai Tonga constituents whom I have spoken to has written to me called me or knocked down my door pleading that we do something about enhancing the powers of the court to bring about the collection of fines. 
To be quite frank the issue of overdue fines will inevitably have a disproportionate impact on Maori because as this House well knows Maori are four to five times more likely than Pakeha to be apprehended prosecuted and convicted for a criminal offence. One of the great realisations of the work proceeding under the Drivers of Crime strategy is the absolute complexity involved in addressing the overrepresentation of Maori in this area. It is vital that the courts system is under the same scrutiny that we should demand all levels of the criminal justice be exposed to. But this is not the time to analyse the causes behind such a disproportionate overrepresentation of Maori in the criminal justice framework. Our focus instead must be on recognising that this inequality exists and recognising also that socio-economic circumstances provide a particular backdrop for understanding the precise impact of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. 
With a median income of approximately $20000 per annum Maori will inevitably be adversely affected by court-imposed fines and the offender levy. There is a virtual avalanche of evidence about the barriers that low-income people already experience to obtaining access to credit to rental tenancies to employment and to bridging finance to put towards homeownership or even a decent car that will not end up costing more than its worth through unpaid fines. 
The possibility therefore that this bill will bring about a whole new tranche of pressures upon whanau is something that we have to take very seriously. Over the passage of time Maori Party MPs have brought to this Parliament devastating stories of families dealing with precarious financial difficulties and falling prey to ruthless lenders getting away with obscene rates of interest. We would hate to think that one solution to address the millions outstanding in reparation and penalties forces our poorest communities to turn to unscrupulous moneylenders whose only concern is profit. 
I acknowledge the responsible and wise counsel of the Minister for Courts who has received these concerns both from the Maori Party and also I believe from the Minister of Maori Affairs and his agency Te Puni Kokiri. She has made it very clear that the purpose of this bill is not about more penalties and punishments but is about creating incentives for those with overdue fines to contact the court. The Minister made a statement that has enormous meaning. It is that all impacts from these initiatives can be avoided by a person with overdue fines contacting the court to resolve them. This sounds so easy and we hope it will be. 
We welcome the initiative of establishing an 0800 telephone number to encourage people to pick up the phone and subsequently for the court to help them with options for getting the matter resolved. I need to talk about this 0800 number because I remember when I was in a community law centre that people were not able to use 0800 numbers because the phone had a toll bar and as soon as they dialled 0 it would switch off. I hope that in this case that problem has been taken care of that that is no longer the case and that people will be able to call an 0800 number even if a toll bar has been put in place. 
The ability to go to the court and discuss unpaid fines is a culture shift and it will require a significant investment in public relations to inform people of the helpline and to make the message clear to people that if they contact the court to resolve their fines they will cease to be put through the credit-reporting queue. I say it will be a culture shift because it will require considerable effort on behalf of the courts to convince the public that they are not on the chase to slap an even greater fine on a lapsed offender or worse yet to pack them off to jail. 
I make it known that the Maori Party is the first to promote the value of collective responsibility and we understand the concept of paying one’s dues. If money is owing and fines are due it is a responsibility that must be met. But we also understand the dire situation of too many families and we want to ensure that they are fully informed of the chain of events that might be triggered if they do not take action. The key is in getting the message through that if a family is facing financial hardship then options are available to help it resolve its debt and the options do not involve loan sharks in any shape or form. The options are all about taking the responsibility to talk to the courts about ways to resolve debt while taking into account financial circumstances. It might be about setting up a time payment option or there might be the possibility of having the fines remitted and an alternative sentence imposed. 
Of course ideally we would want to take the preventive approach of ensuring that the crime does not happen in the first place. I give praise where praise is due in respect of a story relayed to me about the police in Kaitaia. They have been helping young people to stay safe and on the right side of the law by running programmes that help them to get their driver’s licence. I believe that there are even programmes in practical car maintenance. Such basic strategies are an excellent investment that we hope avoid further criminalisation. 
We are concerned about the exchange of information that this bill will authorise in the amendment to the Summary Proceedings Act. The amendment will authorise the Ministry of Justice to release the amount of overdue penalties to credit-reporting agencies in order to assist with fines enforcement. There will also be provisions to give the courts priority over secured creditors to seize property where the penalties were overdue before the property was purchased. We understand from the Minister that there will be a review of these provisions in 2 years’ time but we are not convinced that sufficient measures are in place to prevent the capacity for abuse by the authorities. We will be looking forward to hearing from the Privacy Commissioner during the select committee process as to the precise extent of the invasive powers. 
Another part of this bill is the intervention to approach an employer or Work and Income when a fine is overdue rather than approaching the person him or herself. We wonder about the balance between privacy concerns and the public good. We worry that this bill could place whanau in the situation of having to turn to marginal lending agencies so another expectation that the Maori Party has is that the select committee turn its attention to the detail of the communications strategy to ensure that the information is out there to encourage people to proactively contact the court. 
We balance the onus of collective responsibility with other values such as rangatiratanga and manaakitanga. We are acutely aware that we would not want to further disadvantage victims so we support the notion of creating strategies to encourage the payment of debts or of compensation that is owed. We are prepared to let this bill go before a select committee but we will certainly be keen to hear all of the arguments and all of the evidence that will come from those who are potentially most affected by this legislation. Thank you.