Xu-Nan Lawrence; Pugh MaureenDr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to take my first call on this bill the Public Finance (Fines Collection Costs—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill in the committee stage.I appreciate what this bill is trying to do in order to recuperate some of the costs generated by the court and by local authorities. Based on what we see here in terms of the cost recovery impact statement it is projected here that revenue through court fines is budgeted at $111 million a year by the Ministry of Justice and the revenue from the filing fees—these are two separate fees we're looking at. One is the fines recovered or the fines imposed and the other one is the filing fee. Now I would like to know from the Minister what sort of modelling he has done when it comes to the collection of the fee itself.Now the reason I mention this—and this is a little bit outdated; I can only imagine it has increased—is that the previous report said that Kiwis and also in this case tourists—I would like to know how this bill would affect tourists. But Kiwis and tourists have evaded $156 million in unpaid fines over the past decade and this is from 2009 to 2019. Across Aotearoa district and regional councils have referred at that stage in 2019 $471 million of fines to the Ministry of Justice since 2008 and 33 percent of those fines were never recovered.So based on the recovery impact statement and the estimated additional revenue from the proposed changes I would like to ask the Minister: does this first of all factor in too the amount of fines that were never recovered in the first place? Auckland of course dwarfs other councils. In this report $66.5 million of fines were left unpaid since 2008-09—so within a decade. So that's a really important question. The second branch of that question is what I mentioned before: a lot of the time these fines are incurred by tourists who will come to Aotearoa and when they leave—and this goes to that—has that also been considered as part of the estimated additional revenue that has been proposed? So those are the first two questions.When we are looking at this bill it also talks about collection by not only local authorities but also other organisations and I would like to know from the Minister what conversations have been had with other organisations who are also currently collecting some of these fees and whether they have agreed—if they are either a State-owned enterprise or if they are indeed other agencies or private enterprises etc.—whether any other organisations have OK'd the increase from 10 percent to 14 percent of the fee that is going to be retained.So those are my initial questions. There are other questions on specific areas as well. But thank you very much Madam Chair for giving me the opportunity. But the question here is—Hon Members: Madam Chair!Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Sorry I still do have a minute and 26 seconds. Just to recap the first question is around whether—Arena Williams: It could have gone to select committee.Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: It could have gone to select committee. The first question is around whether the estimated amount of revenue that is proposed here has factored in too the amount that is going to be lost from fines left unpaid both by locals but also by tourists. And also the second question is around whether other organisations agreed to this.One of the things that I would also like to point out which the Minister just mentioned before—I appreciate and understand that you're trying to be fiscally responsible and trying to recuperate some of these costs—but may I also point people to the Vote Courts document that says for support of the District Court there is also an $8.5 million increase in the response to harm as well as a $3 million increase to District Court funding and a tougher approach to sentencing.So when we are looking at something like this if you're trying to balance the costs of the court and the estimate you're using they're not actually recuperating it because you have now just gone and spent it on all of these other things. I am also kind of interested to know from the Minister what his thoughts are on some of these rebalancing of the costs.CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Before I take another call I'd just like to remind members that this is a clause-by-clause consideration. It is not part by part as you were probably expecting. So clause 1 is a more fulsome debate. I refer to Speaker's 127/1.