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:21672] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 You must be clairvoyant Madam Speaker—or be looking at the election poll results that are coming through now. Thank you for that compliment. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on this bill. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Say that again. 
RON MARK 
: I said that Madam Speaker must be clairvoyant or must have just been reading the polls. I appreciate the compliment although I am not an “honourable” yet. 
What can I say? Out of 10 points being really generous on this Friday I would give the Government— 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Give us a C pass. 
RON MARK 
: I would give a National Certificate of Educational Achievement pass—whatever that is worth these days—to Minister Swain but I would say: “Nice try.” As they used to say “nice try” meant: tried hard meant well but failed and probably the army description of what we have here is: “This soldier tried hard meant well but failed.” 
Once again Mr Barker is proving to this House that if he is the best man the Government can find in its caucus for this job then God help Martin Gallagher’s mum and dad! We over here would say that Martin Gallagher is far more competent and capable than that pathetic Minister Mr Barker. Members should remember that this is the Minister who when New Zealand First asked how many violent criminals were on home detention stood in this House and said there were no violent offenders on home detention. But what did New Zealand First table? In answer to a written question we tabled his own department’s statement that rapists child-beaters thugs murderers andwife-beaters—any piece of scum that could be found on the bottom of a shoe—were on home detention. This is the same man who brought this bill to the Law and Order Committee to “get tough on fines”. 
Mr Barker is the man who runs around the country boasting about his “confiscated car club” and “name shame” campaigns. The money recovered through the procedures in this bill will not pay for even the advertising in the “name shame” campaign. It will not pay for the advertising in the “confiscated car club” campaign. He is running up a deficit already and God forbid what we would find if we tallied up how many hours Parliament—the select committee and the House—has spent on this bill. Opposition MPs have been trying their level best to assist him. He has accepted some advice but the guts of the advice he has been offered has been rejected. 
I remind the House that on 14 May 2003 New Zealand First first started asking questions about outstanding fines. On 14 May 2003 we lodged written questions asking what the level of outstanding fines was and what brackets we were talking about. We got the most amazing answer—something like $450 million was owed in outstanding fines with some young punks out there owing up to $90000. This Government has been trying to promote itself in the eyes of the public as being fiscally prudent frugal and a good manager of the economy. What Government in its right mind would allow some boy-racer punk to run up $90000 worth of fines and then—worse still—would allow the court which has not been able to collect those fines to write off the lot in return for 400 hours’ community service? 
One of those young punks was getting paid $140 an hour for not turning up to community service and for not doing the work he was supposed to do because he did not pay the fines that had been imposed on him by the courts which the courts could not recover—so everybody gave up put him back in the courts again and gave him community service. That is ridiculous—and they call this the smart Government! 
This Government is full of academics professors and all sorts of people who like to teach people and to tell them how to live their lives. It is the original “nancy State” Government. But what does it do with boy racers who flout the law—who undermine the very integrity of the judicial system and the law enforcement process by gaily clocking up heaps of fines then thumbing their noses at the police and the courts and walking away from it all? The level of interdiction in this bill would only target 117 people and recover $1.5 million—less than a quarter of 1 per cent of the sum of outstanding fines. That is pathetically inadequate. 
What did New Zealand First say? New Zealand First said that the Government must get tough. Anyone with an outstanding fine should not be going on holiday to Queensland or Bondi or spending Christmas in Fiji until the fine is cleared. How are victims of bashing burglary or car conversion expected to feel when they see their offenders getting on board planes to go to Bondi? It is ridiculous. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Well don’t ring 111. 
RON MARK 
: If they ring 111 they will only get a cab. But they will not get a cab to Bondi—they will be told that. 
The ridiculous thing about this bill is that we had a prime window of opportunity to go out and grab defaulters by the throat. But the real rub is that this Government is responsible for boosting the level of unpaid fines because it runs a quota ticketing system aimed not at boy racers but at nana and granddad. It is aimed at recovering fines clocked up by people like an elderly pensioner who was driving too fast to get to church on Sunday because she thought she would be late down High Street in Rangiora where the highway patrol was sitting looking for the big-time speeders. Those police were not in Queen Street at 2 o’clock in the morning when the hoons were burning out their tyres at the intersection but they were there to catch nana going to church. They gave her a fine but because nana is on a pension she cannot afford to pay it. So where is the outstanding fine? It is sitting against nana’s name. 
Instead of targeting the hoons—the recidivist offenders who clock up $60000 or $90000 worth of fines—by locking them up by grabbing them at the airport and by sharing all the information held by the Inland Revenue Department and Work and Income within the Ministry of Social Development so that the courts can find the little beggars the Government latches on to nana because it knows her address. She is a law-abiding citizen. Her name is on the electoral roll. They can find her at the snap of a finger. But the people who cause this mountain of debt are those who deliberately go out to undermine the judicial system and the integrity of our law enforcement system by hiding themselves away. 
That issue was the one issue that came through very loud and clear from all the submissions. The biggest problem the courts have the reason they cannot collect these fines is that they cannot find the offenders. But I tell members that Baycorp can. Baycorp has far better resources and far greater capability to find those people who now owe some $600 million worth of outstanding fines. With $600 million we could buy another 105 LAV IIIs. We could pay half the Kyoto Protocol carbon tax bill with that. We could do goodness knows how many hip or cataract operations with that. 
But no this Government says we cannot give the courts the information held by the Inland Revenue Department or Work and Income. At the airport we cannot stop people who are going on holiday to Hawaii and collect the $10000 they owe—or the $5000 or the $1000. It is ridiculous absurd and nonsensical. 
By its very actions in failing to accept New Zealand First’s recommendations this Government is undermining its own ability to enforce the law. It is undermining the integrity of the police who issue the infringement notices the integrity of the prosecutors the integrity of the courts and the integrity of the collections officers who are trying to get the money. It is wasting everybody’s bloody time. 
It is time this Government went if it does not have the gumption the sense the brains or the intelligence to recognise one simple fact: to collect fines the courts need information. The information resides with the Inland Revenue Department Work and Income New Zealand and with the banking industry of this country. If the Government cannot recognise that Baycorp can collect those fines while the Government itself cannot then I give up—and no doubt so will the rest of the country as soon as the election is called.