Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading 
Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:668;Page:15348] 
Courts and Criminal Matters Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 I move  
That the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill be now read a second time 
. 
This omnibus bill amends the District Courts Act 1947 the Land Transport Act 1998 the Sentencing Act 2002 the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 and consequentially amends 16 other Acts. The Law and Order Committee has examined the bill and recommends that it be passed with amendments. I would like to thank the members of the committee for returning this bill to the House in a very timely manner. 
This bill presents a comprehensive set of legislative improvements for the recovery of unpaid fines reparations and civil debt. It addresses a number of issues including a general concern about the levels of overdue fines the dissatisfaction of victims when offenders do not pay their reparation and the difficulties of creditors and debtors using the courts’ civil debt enforcement processes. 
At 31 October 2010 $711 million of fines and reparations remained unpaid. That is $67 million less than I reported during the first reading of this bill in May 2010. The reduction is due to a combination of factors—increased payments and increased remittals the efforts of the collections unit of the Ministry of Justice acting on behalf of the District Court and the Government’s policy changes in 2009 in response to illegal street racing. 
Nevertheless for monetary penalties to be a credible sanction further improvements are necessary. The new initiatives contained in this bill are aimed at encouraging people to contact the court to resolve their fines and reparations in a sustainable manner. The three major initiatives are: driver licence stop orders credit reporting and super priority. 
The first new initiative is the introduction of driver licence stop orders contained in Part 2 which amends the Land Transport Act 1998. Traffic offences make up approximately 93 percent of all infringement penalties imposed each year and 99 percent of all overdue infringement penalties filed at court for enforcement. A driver licence stop order will enable the court to suspend any driver licence held by an individual with overdue traffic fines. The suspension will remain in place until suitable payment arrangements are made. The Law and Order Committee recommends an amendment to the service provisions to include electronic service which will also allow for future developments in technology. 
The second new enforcement measure is credit reporting contained in Part 3 which amends the Summary Proceedings Act 1957. Credit reporting will enable information on overdue fines and reparations to be released to the private sector credit-reporting system. This will provide incentives for defendants to pay overdue fines and reparations so that their credit worthiness is not affected. Credit reporting will also enable the information provided by the credit-reporting industry to the Ministry of Justice—for example updated address information—to be used to collect fines. The Law and Order Committee recommends changes to clause 69 to better align the provisions relating to the release of information with current credit industry practices. After considering a report by the Regulations Review Committee the Law and Order Committee also recommends amendments to strengthen the existing privacy provisions to clarify that the credit-reporting function is subject to the Privacy Act 1993. 
The third major initiative super priority is also contained in Part 3. This tool will ensure that the court has priority over a secured party for the sale of proceeds of seized goods where the amount of overdue fines was or could have been disclosed by a formal credit report by the ministry. The Law and Order Committee has recommended an amendment to clause 70 to reduce the risk of secured parties relying on out-of-date credit reports. A further amendment removes the requirement for secured parties to present the credit report from the ministry within 3 working days. This change will align the legislative requirements with the current practices of the credit industry. 
These three new initiatives are intended to encourage people with outstanding fines to enter into manageable repayment arrangements with the objective of ensuring that fines remain an effective sanction for breaches of the law. 
Reparation is an important aspect of sentencing. Reparation lessens the financial impact of offending on the victim. In addition when it relates to an offer to make amends by the offender it can also provide an opportunity for the offender to demonstrate a degree of remorse or at least acceptance of responsibility. This bill confirms the priority for the collection of reparations and strengthens the consequences of not paying. Offenders can receive significant sentencing discounts for reparation especially when the reparation is for a significant amount and relates to an offer to make amends. If however the reparation is later deemed to be uncollectable the offender cannot be resentenced for the original offence. This bill removes the current restriction on resentencing an offender who cannot pay reparation. 
Last year the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill amended the Sentencing Act 2002 and the Summary Proceedings Act 1957. This current bill will align the applicable property seizure provisions with the vehicle seizure provisions. The Law and Order Committee recommended a change to the definition of leases in order to recognise that leased property does not belong to the fines defaulter. 
Part 1 of the bill amends the District Courts Act 1947 to improve the civil enforcement process. Civil debt enforcement can be complex cumbersome and costly for the parties involved. This bill will enable a court registrar to examine a judgment debtor on behalf of the judgment creditor and to make attachment orders which are key enforcement tools more easily accessible. The changes to the civil enforcement system will improve the experience of users of the service and will also free up resources needed to support the courts’ enforcement processes. 
The development of the reforms in this bill commenced in 2004 with the review of the infringement system which was undertaken by the Ministry of Justice and the Law Commission. I acknowledge the work undertaken by my predecessor the former Minister for Courts the Hon Rick Barker. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Whatever happened to him? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: I do not know—he sits in the Speaker’s Chair. 
When I became the Minister for Courts in November 2008 I was pleased to continue his work. It is important work. Initial legislative reforms were made through the Government’s response to the problem of illegal street racing in 2009. This bill extends and expands those reforms. 
I thank all those members of the public who made submissions on the bill. They included a number of participants in the credit industry who were able to provide insights into current practices. I appreciate the examination of the bill by the Law and Order Committee and acknowledge the contribution of the Regulations Review Committee. I also thank those Government departments that have assisted the Ministry of Justice both in providing advice to the Law and Order Committee in this case the Ministry of Transport the New Zealand Transport Agency and the New Zealand Police and in developing the bill especially the Office of the Privacy Commissioner the Department of Corrections and the Ministry of Economic Development. The bill has also benefited considerably from the skills of the Parliamentary Counsel Office. 
Looking forward the new initiatives contained in the bill are designed to encourage individuals to proactively resolve their fines rather than punish them for incurring the fines in the first place. The new initiatives progressed through the bill are aimed at encouraging people to make sustainable and affordable arrangements with the court in order to resolve their fines and reparations. The changes to the civil system will provide better outcomes to judgment creditors and judgment debtors alike. The civil system will be transformed into a more efficient and responsive system for all involved. I intend to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper in the Committee stage to enhance this bill. I commend this bill to the House. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 The Labour Opposition supports the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill as it comes back to the House from the Law and Order Committee for its second reading. I begin by commending the Minister for Courts for making the appropriate gesture of referring to the fact that this bill largely consists of measures that were carried over from work that was under way prior to the change of Government at the end of 2008. Although of course I will not bring the Speaker into the debate it is appropriate to acknowledge your role Mr Assistant Speaker Barker as the responsible Minister in the previous Government. You were in charge of the measures that were brought forward for approval in Cabinet so that the bill was ready to be progressed when it was introduced by the current Minister. 
Obviously the first reason for this side of the House supporting the bill is that it had its genesis in the days of the previous Government. The previous Government thought that the driver licence stop orders proposal—from memory back in July 2008—had real merit. There is real evidence from overseas particularly from the Australian states that those orders have had an effect. They have reduced the scofflaw factor for want of a more elegant way to put it so it is appropriate to trial them here as this bill would do. 
When one looks at the figures it is obvious that there is a need for some action in this area. Between July 2008 and June 2009 according to statistics from the Ministry of Justice the courts wiped $95.1 million out of the total $806 million owing by offenders in unpaid fines. More than 10 percent of properly levied penalties are not being collected by the State. Worse than that there is an increasing trend as far as those penalties are concerned. Clearly there is some need for a greater power than that which exists in the current law. 
It is appropriate I think to address the problem of overdue fines for another reason and that is the dissatisfaction of the victims of crime. Often offenders owing sums by court order will in respect of those sums effectively be reimbursing victims through reparation orders. It is very frustrating for creditors—and debtors actually—using the court’s civil debt enforcement process which is what they have to fall back on in the absence of any better remedy. 
I repeat the Minister’s acknowledgment of you Mr Assistant Speaker Barker. I also acknowledge the fact that the Minister made officials available to brief the Opposition when this bill was proposed as an omnibus amendment bill. I think it was a useful practice to follow. It certainly made it easier for the Labour Party to understand the Government’s proposal when it brought this legislation forward to consent to its introduction and to support it at that stage. 
I think it is appropriate though to record that there are a couple of missing proposals. I would have thought that the select committee might want to bring these proposals back on board; no doubt we will hear a long and learned discourse from Mrs Goudie about why that was not able to be done on this occasion. Perhaps those provisions will resurface in the Supplementary Order Paper the Minister foreshadowed but was unwilling or unable to give the House any detail about when she gave her second reading speech. 
One of the most significant reforms that Labour wanted to put in place in this area was to have a single agency responsible for fines rather than the 80-plus agencies— 
Sandra Goudie 
: More bureaucrats. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: There was a little snort of derision over there from the member for Coromandel but why would Parliament not— 
Sandra Goudie 
: I didn’t snort. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: It was a snort but we will not go into that further. The party that trumpets rational Government structure has passed up an opportunity to do some rationalisation on this basis. Why would one not take the opportunity to reduce those 80-plus issuing authorities to one acting on behalf of all the others so that it is responsible for the issuing and the collection of fines? That was a sensible proposal from the last Government. It would have cut red tape and it would have been a good thing for this Parliament to put in place. Unfortunately we have a lost opportunity here even with the select committee report. 
Notwithstanding that lost opportunity as I said before we generally support this measure. I have mentioned the increasing unpaid fines problem. There is another reason why the legislation is important; again it comes from the careful research we have had from the Ministry of Justice. It shows that when people cross a certain threshold in terms of the amount of money they owe—and for young people that threshold can be as low as $2000—they get to a point where they think there is no point in trying to repay the money. A person is in the hole for $2000 so why bother trying to make any effort to make repayments beyond that figure? It is a bit like the John Maynard Keynes anecdote—if someone owes the bank $100 they have a problem but if they owe the bank $1 million the bank has the problem. The State was getting into that position with this level of unpaid fines—over 10 percent. The problem particularly with younger offenders was that they were coming to the point where they felt that even for fines of $2000 it was not worth putting in place a repayment plan. That was such a big figure for a lot of younger people. It was beyond their ken in terms of trying to make repayment arrangement systems. 
This bill goes some way to addressing that issue but it is not entirely satisfactory in that area. The fines register established by this bill is a good measure. Lending companies and the wider community will be made aware of people who owe money. This will be another means by which there is pressure from the community to ensure that people pay the fines that they owe the Crown. That is a good thing all around. 
The other point I will make just before moving on to my final point concerning the Regulations Review Committee is to compare the process that the Minister adopted in this case with the process that has just been adopted by the Minister of Justice in respect of his latest package of criminal reforms. Those reforms were announced yesterday at about 3 o’clock in a series of releases. It has been a question since then of trying to look at the detail and respond to it. The package is sold as the biggest and most significant reform to criminal procedure in 50 years yet when the Opposition has been asked for its response it has had to make that response on the basis of analysis on the hoof. It would have been much better for Simon Power to adopt the approach that even though Ms Goudie thinks all this consultation business is overblown actually results in good law if it is done properly. Hopefully this bill will be proof of that. The Minister made officials available to brief the Opposition and the Opposition was available to intelligently offer its support and to participate constructively in the select committee under her chairpersonship so that we are back in the House able to support the second reading. 
The final point I make is to credit the select committee for taking on board a lot of the advice it received from the Regulations Review Committee over particular provisions of the bill. In their original form those provisions would have been offensive constitutionally. Some change has been proposed to those provisions. I certainly commend those changes to the House. I wish they had gone further. I wish that all the Regulations Review Committee’s advice had been adopted but some change at least is proposed and that is a good thing. With those words I commend the bill on its second reading to the House. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I commend the excellent Minister for Courts the Hon Georgina te Heuheu for bringing the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill to the House. I also acknowledge the excellent work done by Rick Barker as Minister for Courts in the previous Government. I can say that it has been a pleasure as chair of the Law and Order Committee to go through this process in a very collegial way—one of the very few occasions of that I might add—and I acknowledge the work on all sides. I was also very impressed with the officials—in particular our tall slim young man with glasses. I thought he did an excellent job. In fact I commend all the officials for the great work that they did. I was very very impressed. It really is a pleasure to work with people who know what they are talking about. 
This bill went through its processes quite well and some very sensible suggestions were put forward for change. It is a very worthwhile bill. It is something that people have wanted to see changed in some way so that we were not wiping all those thousands of dollars of fines. I applaud the incentivisation of fine payments and the proactive nature of this bill. I think most of the other aspects of the bill have been covered. I can see this bill bringing about a very very positive outcome in the future where we will see people being more proactive and responsible for the fines they have incurred. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 Along with my colleague Charles Chauvel I would like to speak in support at the second reading of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill but along with my colleague I speak with a little bit of sadness that the bill as we often find when it comes to justice matters in this House simply does not go far enough. But looking on the positive side the bill enhances the court’s powers and processes for the collection of fines other monetary penalties and civil debt. The three main policy proposals are about credit reporting super-priority and the driver licence stop order initiative. There are also many technical amendments. I understand that 20 bills in total are amended. 
This is another bill—[ 
Interruption 
] Sorry what was that? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: 20 Acts. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Thank you very much Mr Mallard. This bill was developed while Labour was in Government. I want to acknowledge you in this House Mr Assistant Speaker Barker; the work that you did was second to none. If I am going on too much please shut me down but I feel that you put a tremendous amount of time and energy into this work. Certainly although not all of it has been picked up much of it has. It is really sad that National has been very slow—really tardy in fact—in bringing this bill to the House. It seems quite sad when we look at many other bits of legislation that have come to the House that have been absolutely offensive to democracy to workers in New Zealand and to all the things that we hold dear that this bill has languished on the Order Paper after all the hard work that you did Mr Assistant Speaker. I know that so often in this House we are told to not bring the Chair into the debate but on this occasion it is time for the whole House to acknowledge you. There are times when we can acknowledge people who do go the full nine yards. As I have said before it is really sad that all of that work was put in and we have too little too late from the Government. But we are not churlish on this side of the House as you know Mr Assistant Speaker—not churlish at all. We will support this bill because it goes a little way to achieving what Labour wanted to achieve. 
The Government would say that this bill is the most comprehensive set of legislative measures designed to strengthen the recovery of unpaid moneys in 12 years and that it is critical to the justice system’s credibility that these penalties are viewed as a sanction. The Government claims that the bill demonstrates its determination to address the high level of unpaid moneys. I would say that everyone in this House is concerned about unpaid moneys for misdemeanours that have happened throughout the justice system. But what we do know is that if we have unpaid moneys and the process is not efficient then we do not get the full bang for our buck. I would say that notwithstanding the fact that Labour members are supporting the bill we will not get it with this bill either; it goes some of the way but as we always say it does not go far enough. It does not go far enough to resolve the problems. 
We support it because it results from the work that—if I can refer to the Assistant Speaker yet again—we in Labour did while in Government. We approved the driver licence stop order proposal in July 2008. Overseas these orders have increased the success rate of collecting fines especially in Australia. Figures released earlier this year show that between July 2008 and June 2009 courts wiped $95.1 million in fines. That is getting close to what this Government gave to private schools in New Zealand. 
Jonathan Young 
: It’s a lot of money. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: As the member said it is a lot of money. If we can move towards finding a remedy for the total $806 million of unpaid fines finding a way of getting those moneys paid then everyone in this House would acknowledge that remedy. There are general concerns about the amount of overdue fines. Concern is felt by victims when offenders do not comply with negotiated outcomes—with reparation orders. Frustration is felt by creditors and debtors who use the court civil debt enforcement process. As I have said the bill has taken very long to come before the House. If it had been brought together earlier instead of when the Government is in such a dreadful state in terms of providing social services and health services in this country the moneys collected would have gone a long way towards helping provide them. The Government should have got off its butt and done something constructive. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Would this apply to Pansy? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Exactly. If the Government had acted more prudently more effectively and more efficiently which I know is difficult for it to do then we would have had a better health system and maybe we would not have had the education cuts that have been made in this country. 
Ministry of Justice research shows that when young people cross a certain threshold of debt usually around $2000 they become unable and unwilling to even try to pay off their fines. My colleague Charles Chauvel referred to John Maynard Keynes’ statement: “If you owe the bank $100 then you have a problem. If you owe the bank a million dollars it has the problem.” Well John Key knows all about that but we are talking about the Government coffers and we are talking about what provides social services health services and education to people in New Zealand. This Government has sat twiddled its thumbs and brought in silly silly legislation such as the 90-day sack-at-will bill but it could have enacted more constructive legislation such as this bill which would have helped. It would not have created jobs in this country and it would not have helped remedy the things that this Government has not done in the recession but it would have gone a small way to resolve some of the problems with funding services and support which are now being decimated under this Government. 
I come back to the bill Mr Assistant Speaker. I know that you want me to because in large part the bill is due to your work. Let us look at the provision to waive minor infringements. Some territorial authorities have a policy to waive infringements such as an expired warrant of fitness or an out-of-date registration of a month or less when the fault is remedied in a timely manner. That is common sense we would have said. But that practice is not uniform across all authorities. Where it does apply the general public are largely unaware of it. So the general public are very dissatisfied with this system. They are very dissatisfied in terms of victims receiving reparation and remedies for what they have suffered. As we have said all members of the House recognise that Mr Assistant Speaker was responsible for this legislation and worked hard to make it happen. It is really sad that this lazy Government wasted so much time before making it happen. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Courts and Criminal Matters Bill tries to confront a real problem and that is the thousands of unpaid fines and all sorts of administrative difficulties involved in running around chasing after people to try to get some money out of them. But there is an intrinsic problem and I think this bill goes in the wrong direction. That is why the Green Party opposed the bill on the first reading and will oppose it on this reading as well. 
The bill is not particularly productive because the people it chases after are in the main the very poorest people in our society. They might get a little fine for a parking infringement a speeding fine or some small criminal offence but they are the people who are down; often they are unemployed between jobs or in large families. It is often somewhat difficult for them to get money together to pay a fine. They tend to avoid it and put it off then it gets bigger and more and more problems develop. There are two ways to deal with that problem. One is to get alongside the person affected and try to work out a repayment system—to work out a way that is not too much of a heavy burden on him or her at any one point in time. The other way is to just slam more penalties on top of that person in various ways. 
A lot of the people who will be affected by this bill are young Maori—and maybe Hone Harawira will speak after me. That is where the concentration of unpaid fines often happens to be. The bill will only make young Maori who are more likely to be unemployed and more likely to be poor even poorer and in more difficulties socially in all kinds of ways under the pressure of what is proposed in this bill. 
This bill proposes various things like driver licence stop orders. Let us take the example of a young person with fines owing who is finding it very difficult to pay them and who has finally got a job. If that person jumps into their car to go to work to get money to pay the fine but all of a sudden is hit with a driver licence stop order that person cannot get to work. They will lose their job and get further and further in debt. So stop orders are not necessarily the answer. They are associated with amendments to the Sentencing Act 2002 to make reparation and vehicle confiscation orders more efficient. Somebody who is in this difficult position might not only have their licence taken off them; their vehicle which is probably the main asset they own in life might be confiscated. That really puts them back to square one or behind square one. To make matters worse this bill authorises unaffordable and unenforceable reparation orders to be substituted by home detention or prison sentences. Again let us take the young person who is struggling. They have not been able to afford their fines or for various reasons are a bit mixed up. Now not only do they lose their licence or lose their car; they might get chucked in jail or on home detention. That just is not the answer. It may be the answer in some cases and the Green Party is certainly not denying that but the whole approach is a punitive approach that does not really put us any further forward. 
There is talk often about an underclass in our society. This bill will help to enlarge the underclass—the people who are really in difficulty. When they are subject to all these additional penalties they are more likely to change houses change names and try to get away from the authorities. That creates even more problems for them their families their friends and their workmates. It does not really work. 
Another element of the bill is to provide information on a person’s fines to credit authorities. Well that does not necessarily help. Sure it helps if someone applies for a loan because the credit authorities can find out that the person has a big fine and might be more likely to default on their loan. But it does not help the person to get out of the bind they are in. We should be starting at the other end with more social workers more people working with schools. We should work with all the sorts of organisations who are in contact with these people—community organisations whanau organisations iwi organisations all of the organisations that can work alongside those people to get them to repay their debts. 
To my way of thinking the punitive approach does not work. It develops collective anger amongst people who are down at the bottom a psychology of their being on one side and the people on the other side the richer people being out to get them. They think it is fair enough if they dodge the law and dodge the repayments because that is the only way that they will get by in life. 
The Green Party in summary sees all of these measures as counter-productive—that is the word for it; they are counter-productive. If we add them all up we will not necessarily get more money for Treasury out of them; we will get more social problems more people in prison more people unemployed more people who feel alienated from the system more people who feel that they are part of an underclass and also more racial divisions in our society in the sense that Maori are more likely to be affected than non-Maori. Thank you. 
RAYMOND HUO (Labour) 
: 
 As at 31 December 2008 over half a million people and organisations owed penalties totalling $790.2 million. Over 80 percent of those penalties were unpaid infringements that had been filed for enactment by the police local authorities and other Government agencies. The amount outstanding is increasing each year. Around 57 percent of the people with penalties owe less than $500. Many of those people can afford to pay the penalties but choose not to do so until an enforcement action is taken against them. Figures released early this year showed that between July 2008 and June 2009 the courts wiped $95.1 million of the total $806 million in unpaid fines. Therefore the amount of outstanding fines is increasing each year and the amount of unpaid fines that the courts have to wipe is also increasing. 
The Courts and Criminal Matters Bill seeks to address concerns about the amount of overdue fines due to the dissatisfaction of victims when offenders do not comply with reparation orders and to the frustration of creditors and debtors using the courts’ civil debt enforcement process. Labour supports this bill and I acknowledge the great contribution made by the Hon Rick Barker who is sitting in the Speaker’s chair. In fact the bill as acknowledged by my colleagues earlier resulted from work done by him while Minister for Courts in the Labour Government. 
This bill is an omnibus bill. It amends the District Courts Act 1947 the Land Transport Act 1998 the Sentencing Act 2002 and the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 and consequentially amends 16 other Acts. The principal changes introduce three new sets of incentives to encourage people with overdue fines to enter into and maintain acceptable payment arrangements. The three sets of incentives are credit reporting super priority and driver licence stop orders. The credit-reporting initiative proposes the release of the overdue penalty balance of eligible people to the private sector credit industry via credit reports. The District Court will obtain a higher priority over secured property of a credit provider if the loan was advanced when the overdue penalties could have been released under the credit-reporting proposal and when that property was subsequently seized by the court some or all of these discoverable penalties were still overdue. People were lending money to people to pay for cars and the car lenders were always assured of getting their money back. The law stops car dealers from hiding behind the law. When the money is lent the lender can check a register. It gives them grounds to refuse to finance people who have fines. 
The bill as introduced provides that if an enforcement officer serves a person with a driver licence stop order the person must immediately surrender his or her driver’s licence to the enforcement officer. 
The Law and Order Committee received 15 submissions from individuals organisations and other parties. More than half of the submissions expressed support for parts of the bill. Some submissions supported the intent of the bill but would like to see the court go further in supporting the resolution of debts and encouraging financial literacy. Some of the general submissions expressed concern about its fairness and the impact on poor and vulnerable people of the current and proposed fines and civil debt enforcement mechanisms. Some of the issues raised at the Law and Order Committee are worth noting. The Privacy Commissioner is particularly concerned about the release of Government-held personal information to private sector credit reporters and the shift in the use of personal information that this signifies. The commissioner recommends that the relevant clause clause 69 be removed from the bill. 
Licence suspension is another issue that we spent a considerable amount of time deliberating on. Our current collection measures focus largely on seizing goods that can be sold to resolve fines and reparation. Internationally licence suspension is widely used as a fixed-term penalty for traffic offences and as a variable-length fine compliance measure. Queensland Transport reports a 75 percent success rate in collecting fines after threatening or imposing licence suspension. There are four further differences between Australia and New Zealand. In Australia first of all there is a statutory obligation to promptly update address information on the driver’s-licence register; secondly third-party body insurance is compulsory; and thirdly there is deemed service by post for all driver’s-licence suspensions. I think New Zealand can learn a great deal from this experience. Fourthly there is an onus on people who owe fines to find out if their licence has been suspended rather than the state authorities having to prove service. By comparison in New Zealand there is no statutory obligation to ensure that address information on the driver’s-licence register is always up to date. The accident compensation scheme precludes third-party compulsory body insurance. 
Attachment orders were another issue the Law and Order Committee looked at closely. Attachment orders are used to allow deductions to be made from wages and benefits to pay debts. At present attachment orders can be imposed only after an examination hearing to assess the judgment debtor’s ability to pay the debt; both parties are required to attend the hearing which can be inconvenient and incur delays and further costs. Some ideas were floated at the select committee as to the way service can be improved or using alternative methods be deemed to have occurred. Service by post is certainly one effective way for us to look at but what about some new methods such as emails or messages via cellphone or Facebook? 
Given the large and growing amount of outstanding penalties the effectiveness of monetary penalties as a sanction for offending is being eroded. The threat of credit reporting together with other measures proposed in the bill will provide people with a stronger incentive to voluntarily resolve them. There is another problem with the existing regime. Currently there are 80-plus issuing authorities and this undoubtedly impedes the collection of fines. Labour proposed to create a single agency to have responsibility for fines. It is regrettable that this provision is missing from this bill. 
I look forward to the bill’s third reading. Thank you. 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to rise to speak on the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. Do the crime and do the time: that is the received wisdom and given that the State has the miscreant in custody at the time that sentencing is passed that is what happens. Our Department of Corrections does a wonderful job and many are the prisoners who receive drug and alcohol counselling or instruction in literacy and numeracy during the course of their sentence. For lesser crimes of course imprisonment is not an appropriate sentence and then do the crime and pay the fine is an axiom that is unfortunately often honoured more in the breach than in reality. A staggering $778 million of reparations fines other monetary penalties and court costs remain unpaid. Over 80 percent of that extraordinary mountain of money around $640 million is fines for traffic-related matters. 
The National-led Government believes this situation is untenable and we are setting out to do something about it. As John Mortimer observed: “No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense and relatively clean finger nails.” I am pleased to report that during the consideration of this bill the Law and Order Committee as far as I was able to assess displayed consummate common sense cooperation bordering on collegiality a precious commodity in that committee and fastidious personal presentation. It is therefore a good tranche of law. 
This bill continues National’s commitment to working towards accountability. The bill will ensure court-ordered payments and reparations to victims are paid sooner thus continuing National’s focus on a more victim-based justice system. I commend this bill to the House. 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 I stand in support of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. I would like to make three points. 
Hone Harawira 
: Good points. 
STUART NASH 
: They are very good points. First I say this bill is long overdue. The Hon Rick Barker who was the Minister for Courts in the previous Labour Government had a bill very much like this already drafted on the Order Paper and ready to go. If Labour was still in Government this matter would have been well and truly done and dusted about 2 years ago. 
The second point I make is that Labour supports this bill because Labour has always supported bills that promote common sense and fiscal integrity and that get money back. This is a common-sense bill. Why? Because it is a Labour bill based on Labour principles brought forward by the Hon Rick Barker. 
The third point I make is that this is an absolutely necessary bill. Cam Calder waxed lyrical on the bill. One of his quotes was not from Shakespeare or Plato but from another philosopher. He also said the Law and Order Committee acted in a very cordial manner when it considered this bill. Of course it did because there is no contention about this bill whatsoever. It is a common-sense bill. We all agree with it; I think all of New Zealand agrees with it. So it will be passed tonight with unanimity and that is great. 
There are a couple of figures that I would like to give to the people of New Zealand because they are a bit shocking. We have heard a few figures tonight from Cam Calder and a couple of my colleagues but I say the figures released earlier this year show that between July 2008 and June 2009 the courts wiped $95.1 million out of a total of $806 million in unpaid fines. That is amazing—$806 million in unpaid fines. We have to ask what is going on. How many night classes would that pay for? How many early childhood education centres would that pay for? It is a hell of a lot. How many people in Napier would benefit from $800 million coming into their economy? There will be a hell of a lot more than that when Labour is back in power I can tell members that. 
This bill seeks to address the concern about the amount of overdue fines and the dissatisfaction of victims and offenders. I can well imagine that if I was a victim of crime and the court had imposed a fine or reparation to be paid to me from the offender but it was not paid that would just rub salt into the wound. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: It’s not fair. 
STUART NASH 
: That is right. This bill will address that fundamental principle of fairness. Fairness is a fundamental principle. When my children are playing and they are not getting on the thing they say is “Dad that’s not fair.” That is what certainly the Labour Party stands for. We have highlighted that our concern is about fairness. Sometimes it is about fairness to the people of New Zealand although this Government has missed the point there. This bill is about fairness to the victims of crime. This bill helps to address that situation; of that there is no doubt. That is why I am supportive of the bill. 
But one of the points I make is that I wonder why this bill has taken so long to come before the House. Why is that? This measure was practically finalised before the previous Labour Government left office. As I mentioned the Hon Rick Barker had drafted such a bill. It was ready to go; we gave it to the incoming National Government which says it is tough on crime. Simon Power has stood here in the Chamber and delivered speeches about National being tough on crime yet it took 2 years to produce this bill. How tough is that? I ask that question but I have no answer to it because there is no good answer. 
This bill also omits some of the proposals developed by Labour. For instance we wanted to create a single agency responsible for fines. Did anyone here know that there are now about 80 agencies responsible for the collection of fines? That is astounding. Addressing that would have helped with compliance issues and efficiency; it would have streamlined the whole process. I ask the Minister whether that problem is the subject of one of the Supplementary Order Papers that he will table on this bill—an amendment to streamline the whole process. All we hear from the Government is talk about streamlining processes. Labour put in an idea to streamline this process and it was thrown out. I cannot understand the reason for that. 
The Ministry of Justice’s research shows that when young people cross a certain threshold in terms of money owed—it is about $2000—they become unable or unwilling to pay even that fine. That is a lot of money for a young person and it is also a lot of money for many many New Zealanders who are facing increased costs due to GST rises etc. Given the large and growing amount of outstanding penalties the effectiveness of monetary penalties as a sanction for offending is being eroded and that comes back to the whole point about $800 million being owed in outstanding fines. 
I have a concern about this matter and Keith Locke talked about it earlier. This bill proposes that when people are not paying their fines lending companies and the wider community will get that information so it becomes a sort of “naming and shaming” thing. Today I was at a conference at Victoria University that talked about inequality. Keith Locke was dead right when he said a bill like this may in fact lead to increased inequality amongst New Zealanders in our communities. I will fight incredibly hard against that as long as I am in Parliament because inequality is like a rot that eats the heart out of our community. This legislation may well increase inequality and we must fight that at every turn. We are finding here that people get to a point where they cannot pay their fines—we have been shown that that is happening. Labour proposed to put young people with large amounts of fines into a case management system within which they had to acknowledge that they had a debt and had done wrong then work out a system to pay their fines. That was not taken up. Instead of managing the process of paying fines this bill proposes to name and shame defaulters. I for one have a real problem with that proposal and as mentioned with increasing the level of inequality. 
A couple of my colleagues have mentioned John Maynard Keynes which I found quite interesting. It was quite a good quote but I very much doubt whether John Maynard Keynes ever had outstanding fines. One thing he said about equality was that if a Government gives tax cuts to people at the top that will not stimulate the economy but that if it gives tax cuts to those at the bottom that will drive an economy out of recession. That is what he said. This Government has not learnt that lesson. As a consequence this economy will suffer and I feel greatly sorry for the people of New Zealand. In this country 650 people have a declared income of $1 million or more a year and they have just received $1000 a week in the hand in tax cuts—$1000 a week. I can imagine that if those people had fines they could pay them off straight away. People on the median wage in Napier received a tax cut of less than $5 a week and that money has been eaten up and eroded by increases in the cost of living increased GST and increased ACC levies. Those people will not be able to pay their fines. That is what I am talking about with regard to inequality. Not only does it drive wealth down but people get named and shamed. They become more and more disenfranchised under the whole political process and we all lose from that. 
I would like to make one point here and it is something I was completely unaware of until I read this bill. I suspect that the vast majority of New Zealanders are unaware of this point: the police and many territorial authorities actually have a policy of waiving infringements on expired warrants of fitness or out-of-date registrations that are still within 1 month of their expiry when the fault is remedied in a timely manner. I did not know that. I put my car in to get a service went away to Parliament came back picked it up and parked it to go to visit constituents—which I spend my days doing—and then what happened? I came out and there was a ticket on my window—a $200 ticket for the warrant of fitness being a week overdue. Thank you very much Napier City Council! I went off and paid that fine but I urge any New Zealanders who receive tickets on their windscreens for unpaid registrations or out-of-date warrants of fitness if they are within a month of their expiry to write a letter to the local council or to the Ministry of Transport—or to whomever—and ask for the fine to be waived because they are remedying the situation. People will get off those fines. 
I would just like to reiterate my three points. Labour members support this bill because we support any measure that— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but his time has expired. 
JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) 
: 
 I found the previous speech from Stuart Nash to be very interesting especially as the member opposite talked about the super-priority aspect of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. It actually gives the courts as it says priority over other security holders regarding a debt if a person owes a fine to the court. That enables the situation to develop whereby if a person goes to a finance company and seeks to raise a loan to purchase perhaps a vehicle and the finance company discovers there is a super priority against that person because of unpaid fines the finance company is most unlikely to advance those funds knowing that the courts will have first claim. Mr Nash talked about the “naming and shaming” aspect of that provision but I guess he did not understand that the Hon Rick Barker has said he authored that idea. Is that not interesting? I would have hoped that those members talked among themselves about ideas like that. The Hon Rick Barker thought that was a brilliant idea. I give all credit to the Hon Rick Barker who played a significant part in preparing this bill over a number of years. 
Many people whom I have talked to feel that that provision has some merit because it will bring accountability. It will bring accountability to people who purchase vehicles who have high amounts of indebtedness against them and who incur incredibly high numbers of fines but who do not pay those fines. When it was put in my local newspaper that $95 million had been written off the amount of debt owed by people in respect of fines people contacted me saying they were outraged that that amount of fines had been written off. People generally feel that that is unfair. They also feel that when people who have fines do not pay them the defaulters are scoffing at or showing contempt towards our legal system. People feel that there is an undermining of our justice system when people do not pay fines. 
This bill will bring greater power to enforce payment. It will bring in a more modernised automated system which will enable communication to happen more readily between those who owe fines and the courts. It will enable far greater efficiency and ensure far greater compliance on the part of people who have incurred fines—for whatever reason that may be—in terms of their paying those amounts. As people have said the amount that is owed could do some good to our economy—indeed that is true. We have an alarming problem and this bill will go a long way towards ensuring that we will see increased credibility in the justice system and monetary penalties being viewed as a credible sanction. 
I was incredibly shocked by Mr Locke’s presentation of his views regarding this bill. I do not believe that a person’s not having a high income is an excuse not to pay a fine. The person can choose not to cause the infringement in the first place. We need to have a greater sense of responsibility in our country. I know that some people say they cannot afford to get their cars warranted. If that is the case they cannot afford to drive a car. They should not be driving an unwarranted car because that car is not deemed to be safe. It is irresponsible to other road users for someone to drive an unwarranted car. It is a travesty and an outrage that people say in this House that that issue does not matter. 
Metiria Turei 
: You have no idea what people’s lives are like. 
JONATHAN YOUNG 
: Excuse me; you have no idea what I have ideas about. What you are saying is just your own opinions and your perspective. You have no idea madam. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I know what that member is going to say. The member is bringing me into the debate. Members cannot say “you” as that includes the presiding officer. 
JONATHAN YOUNG 
: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. 
This bill will address the issues regarding the payment of fines through the implementation of an automated credit-reporting system which will create a low-cost incentive for people to proactively contact the courts in order to resolve their fines. We need to have a system in our society that addresses issues of non-compliance. I know that the New Zealand Police has an internal policy called “Compliance”. In the Law and Order Committee we heard about that policy and applauded it because it enables people who have an infringement to do something about that infringement within a certain period of time and to spend what would normally be paid on a fine on bringing their vehicles up to the compliance standard. As a select committee we thought that was a very good policy to have. We also noted that local authorities have the same ability but that there is inconsistency throughout the country with regard to implementing that. However it is good to know that that common sense exists. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 110 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 41; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 8 
Green Party 8. 
Bill read a second time.