Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — In Committee 
Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:21941] 
Courts and Criminal Matters Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 14 June. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Last week whilst the Committee was in urgency on this bill New Zealand First made a mistake in its voting in certain places. I seek leave to alter the New Zealand First vote from 12 against to 12 in favour in respect of the party votes on the amendments in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall to Part 2 and Part 4 of this bill. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Does that alter the outcome of the votes? 
PETER BROWN 
: No. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. The results of those votes will be so altered. The outcomes of all the votes are unchanged and that is that the amendments are not agreed to. Copies of the altered votes are available at the Table for members to inspect if they wish. We are now considering Part 9. 
Part 9 Tax Administration Act 1994 ( 
continued 
)  
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 I start by saying that Michael Cullen must be highly embarrassed to have this bill still before the Committee as it formed part of his urgency motion. It is symptomatic of a Government that is on the way out that this Government had to throw in the towel and could not get the legislation in its urgency motion passed. 
Pansy Wong 
: Bye bye. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Bye bye as my colleague Pansy Wong contributes. Part 9 deals with the Tax Administration Act 1994. I want to reflect on clause 35 and on subclauses (1) and (2) in particular. Clause 35 “Disclosure of certain information in relation to fines defaulters” states: “(1) Section 85A(4) of the principal Act is amended by repealing paragraph (c) and substituting the following paragraphs: ‘(c) the telephone number of the fines defaulter;’ ”. I think we can all agree with that. But the subclause goes downhill from there when it goes on to state: “ ‘(d) the name of the employer of the fines defaulter; and (e) the address of the employer of the fines defaulter; and (f) the telephone number of the employer of the fines defaulter.’ ” 
That suggests to me that there is a problem which is this: why has all the responsibility for fines collection been loaded on to the shoulders of the employer? Employers do not mind— 
Pansy Wong 
: Labour hates employers. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Labour hates employers— 
Simon Power 
: Hates risk-takers. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: —and hates risk-takers. Whatever it may be employers do not mind making their contribution and doing their bit but the message here is that fines defaulters are not being asked to take sufficient responsibility for themselves. The bill has some improvement to the law in it. The National Party accepts that there are some improvements but we are concerned about the concept of a lack of responsibility— 
Pansy Wong 
: A lack of personal responsibility. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: —yes a lack of personal responsibility on the part of fines defaulters. 
Subclause (2) of clause 35 states: “Section 85A(6) of the principal Act is amended by repealing the definition of fines defaulter information and substituting the following definition: ‘fines defaulter information—(a) means information that identifies a fines defaulter; and (b) includes—(i) the name address and telephone number of the fines defaulter;’ ”. That is great but then it goes on to state: “‘(ii) the name address and telephone number of the employer of the fines defaulter.’” Why on earth would one want to have that second component? Maybe the Minister in the chair the Hon Rick Barker can explain that to me but I do not see why that is necessary. 
What is missing though is the IRD number of fines defaulters. That is the real reason that fines defaulters are not found in sufficient numbers. If the Minister would only allow that requirement to be inserted into the bill we would not need to have all that other nonsense. What happens when bailiffs go around to serve— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: You’d know. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: I think I may have to take another call just to defend my position on that. The member for Waimakariri has made a scurrilous attack on me by saying that I would know what bailiffs do. Well I can say that I do not know in terms of my own personal situation what bailiffs do. Now that the member has made that remark though I feel that it is only reasonable that I am in a position to defend myself. The point I was going to make is that when a bailiff goes around to serve a warrant for arrest on a fines defaulter the bailiff finds all too often that the person is no longer at the address that was given. But if one had an IRD number one would in most cases be able to find those people. 
The message that is being sent is that we are not terribly serious about our fines regime. Let us look at what is in play here. We see that $650 million of fines have been incurred of which $350 million are overdue and we are about to pass legislation that will collect $1.5 million. The situation is worse than that. To collect that $1.5 million will cost $1.7 million a year. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall to clause 35(1) be agreed to: 
to insert in paragraph (d) of section 85A(4) after the word “employer” the words “or any former employers”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 48 
New Zealand National 26; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 9. 
Noes 70 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The amendments in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall to clause 35(1) to insert words in paragraphs (e) and (f) are out of order because they are contrary to the previous decision. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall to clause 35(1) be agreed to: 
to add to section 85A(4) the following new paragraph: 
(g)or any other information held which may assist in the location of the fines defaulter. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall to clause 35(2) be agreed to: 
to add to paragraph (b) of section 85A(6) the following new subparagraph: 
(iii)the name address and telephone number of any former employers of the fines defaulter. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 370 in the name of the Hon Rick Barker to clause 35 be agreed to. 
Amendment agreed to and Part 9 as amended agreed to. 
Clauses 1 and 2 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 The National Party as the Government will know is keen to facilitate the passage of the bill and we are pleased that a number of amendments put forward by the Hon Tony Ryall were accepted by the Minister and have made this bill stronger in two respects. The Minister acknowledges that fact and I thank him for being one of the few Ministers in my time in the House who has sat in the Committee chair and genuinely looked at amendments being proposed by the Opposition. The Minister has although not always to the liking of the Leader of the House engaged in the debate with members and managed to get off his seat and debate some of the issues and to be fair to the Minister I note that he was convinced on two points I think. Those are now incorporated into the bill and will be forever known as the Ryall amendments. 
I say in conclusion that there are aspects of this bill that the National Party has tried to amend on the way through the Committee stage; two of them were successful many were not. Tony Ryall put a lot of effort into making sure that those issues were addressed. I see latterly that New Zealand First has agreed to support those amendments and the National Party thanks New Zealand First. On that basis we look forward to the third reading debate although we do note that under urgency the Government was unable to move this matter through the Committee stage. We would like to indicate our cooperation in expediting the Committee stage this afternoon. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 In speaking to clause 1 I guess now that after a speech like that we could aptly rename this bill as the forerunner to the “Grand Coalition National-Labour Coalition Government Bill”. I have to point out that the honourable member—and Simon Power is an honourable member; a good hard-working member from what I hear up in the Rangitaiki—is wrong. The Minister presented an appalling bill to the select committee. [ 
Interruption 
] The original presentation of the bill was appalling. It took a lot of work in the select committee. In fact most of the ideas surrounding the use of the Inland Revenue Department and the Department of Work and Income were all New Zealand First’s suggestions at the select committee table. 
We acknowledge the hard work of the staff who went back and convinced the Minister that he could get a lot more traction than he thought he could by amending this bill. But sadly as we have gone through the part by part exercise exactly what New Zealand First predicted has happened. All the substantive amendments that would have improved this bill were knocked back by the Government. The Government consistently refused New Zealand First’s motion to grant leave to have the bill sent back to the select committee so some steel and some spine could be shoved into it. It is appalling. 
This bill should be titled the “Oh We Missed a Great Opportunity Bill” because we have not put into this bill the ability for the courts to access the Inland Revenue Department information that would so easily wrap up all these little ratbags who deliberately hide from their bills. The consequence of that? Well I will use Labour’s own words. Without this sort of revenue coming in we forgo a lot of cataract operations hip operations and opportunities to improve road safety. The $650 million sitting on the back-burner not being recovered is nothing to be sneered at. It is a lot of money. 
By allowing that sort of debt to build up we are undermining the very work that this Government puts police officers out there on the road to do and that is an issue: infringement notices. I ask the Minister what point there is in targeting an extra 30 percent of infringement notices in 1 year—this is from the statement of intent last year for the police—if one has no intention of actively going out and getting the money from the fines that have been issued. One is actually directly undermining the work of the police. To then come into this Chamber and tell people that the Government is standing up to support the police is a load of—to quote the words of an up and coming leader—“baloney”. It is baloney. It is rubbish. 
New Zealand First intends putting this bill back to the floor to give it some teeth to give it some spine when we are in Government. My only message to the Labour Party is that it is nice to see that some of the arrogance has gone and people now realise that they probably will not be in Government. But if one is expecting an opportunity to be in Government one had better get ready to put some of the issues that we tried to discuss at select committee in respect of the Privacy Act off to one side and deal with the issues of Inland Revenue Department information and Department of Work and Income information and making that available to the courts. 
We tried desperately to get amendments to the bill. We tried desperately to get this bill back to the select committee so we could toughen it up and strengthen it. We know that the advisers are telling the Minister that a lot more could be done and the Minister himself in one of his speeches acknowledged that more can be done. Indeed he went further to say that he sees the need to readdress some of these issues. 
I will come back to what I said. New Zealand First thinks this bill could have been titled the “Oh We Missed a Golden Opportunity Bill” because the Government seriously has. It has not read the mood of the public in respect of these issues at all well; but then that is nothing new. We are seeing that daily are we not? 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
:  
I certainly wish to endorse some of the comments from Mr Mark. I cannot resist a small comment before I pass to the substance. Yes arrogance does seem to have been thrashed out of the other side. Those members are a lot more humble. But the mantle of arrogance seems to have moved. It has not got lost in the Chamber; it has just shifted across to the kingmaker but never mind. We will see how it goes in 2 or 3 months’ time. But in looking at this bill which increases the collectibility of fines I certainly endorse the comments about missed opportunities that Mr Mark made. 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted.