Coddington Deborah: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Coddington Deborah: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:626;Page:21732] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 When the Hon Bill English was speaking before he put his finger on it when he said that this legislation was nothing more than the Government sticking its finger in the dyke. As I said we are going to support the bill because it does not make things any worse. But we could do this legislation properly instead of rushing it through in urgency. The Government should go back and see why crime is out of control why so many millions of dollars are owed in fines why $900 million are owed in liable parent contributions and why according to the Government—if we are to believe it—$22 million are owed in reparation. I find the latter figure very hard to believe. As someone said if that money was going into the Government coffers it would work much harder to get it. I cannot see why if liable parents owe $900 million criminals owe $22 million—it is totally illogical to believe that. I would say that at least triple that is owed in reparation. 
It is obvious from all the changes in Part 8 of the bill that the Government now has an enormous problem with regard to its automatic fines system. I am not at all surprised that it has problems with that. Someone else talked about a constituent who had tried to pay a fine for an adult child who had left the country and that parent could not do so because one has to have a PPN number and all sorts of other information which totally bars one from paying off some of those fines. 
I had a constituent come to me recently. She and her husband had split up and as part of the matrimonial property settlement the husband had taken a car. Both cars had been in the wife’s name but he had taken one and she had taken the other. The husband because he was quite a vindictive sort of fellow decided not to reregister the car. He could park it anywhere he liked—on loading zones and all that sort of thing—because he did not get the fines notices. They went to his ex-wife who was being driven mad by all the fines that kept coming through even though she did not have the car. She applied to the court which told her to fill out a section 57B form I think it was. All that did was go back to the issuing authority. She did not get a reminder notice and then she got the fines again. She then rang the land transport licensing authority and said she did not own the car any more but that it was actually with her ex-husband and she told the authority what he was doing. The authority said that it could not force anyone to register a car but it could take the car out of her name and note on the file that it was no longer in her name. 
A few more months passed and a few more fines came in and the Ministry of Justice rang her as it does. It is quite good at ringing people these days to remind them that their fines are overdue. She said that she did not owe the fines that she was not using the car and that it was not hers and she asked the ministry to please go and repossess the car. I am talking about this case Mr Chairman because it comes under clause 30B “Warrant to seize property”. That is absolutely no good at all. My constituent told the land transport licensing authority that the car was no longer in her name. The Ministry of Justice could not seize the car because although the fines were in her name the car was not. So my constituent will probably go to the airport and be arrested or be told that she will get arrested and she is one of the innocent people. The thing is that she will not be arrested because she is actually an honourable citizen and she will pay the fines. She realises that she is trapped in a situation where the dispute is a civil dispute not a criminal dispute and so she will pay the fines. 
So all the fines that are so outstanding and that we are spending $1.7 million on in the first year in order to try to collect at best estimate $1.5 million worth will not be a drop in the ocean in terms of the huge problem we have. As somebody else has already said today the way to fix the problem is to deal with it fast. We should not have such a delay in the justice system. The delays between a person’s arrest and his or her first court appearance are far too long. The delays from the first court appearance to the final outcome are far too long.