Pillay Lynne: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading 
Pillay Lynne: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:668;Page:15352] 
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.