Ardern Jacinda: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — First Reading 
Ardern Jacinda: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:663;Page:10993] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to follow the member who just spoke Sandra Goudie. I think one of the more significant omissions that she made in her address was not acknowledging the work of the Assistant Speaker the Hon Rick Barker as the drafter of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill which Labour will obviously be supporting. I acknowledge that it is good to be here discussing a sensible law and order policy. It was a Labour bill courtesy of Rick Barker. 
I have been disappointed with the debate in this House of late on law and order and justice matters. Probably the most recent bill that comes to mind is the “three strikes” legislation. I have to acknowledge my disappointment in the position of the Minister of Justice Simon Power on that legislation. Although members like Sandra Goudie may be all for things like “three strikes” I think that members such as the Minister of Justice may acknowledge that it is a retrograde backward step. All of the international experts are clamouring to come to New Zealand and help us before we go down that— 
Jonathan Young 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I wonder whether we could just focus on the correct bill. Thank you. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I will respond to the member by saying that National’s previous speaker according to my calculation with the clock here spent 2 minutes discussing the membership of the Law and Order Committee to the merriment of the National benches. I could have taken a point of order because that discussion was well outside the scope of the bill. So I am allowing a little bit of latitude; there is a bit of give and take here. Having taken the point of order I will not give the member the ruling but the point has been made to the member speaking. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: I note I have 1 minute and 30 seconds left then to dwell on other matters and I will save that for a little later on in my speech. I think that the point has been made. 
I come back to the bill. It is obviously an omnibus bill. It amends 20 bills in total so I acknowledge that it was a significant piece of work for the Ministry of Justice. Ultimately this bill focuses on the recovery of unpaid fines. There are two elements within that recovery. I think the efficiency with which those fines collections take place should be primary in our discussion; some parts of Labour’s original bill have not been picked up in that regard. I might touch on them briefly. Also there are elements here where the Ministry of Justice—rightly I think—has pointed out that we always have to take into account the difficult balance between inserting realism into our fines collection system whilst not allowing offenders to abdicate their ultimate responsibility as part of their punishment as awarded by the court. There is always a very difficult balancing act. In all of that mix we have to make sure we maintain a credible fines system both in terms of the awarding of those fines and in terms of their collection. 
I touch just briefly on Labour’s position. Obviously we support the bill but I express some disappointment at the lack of speed at which the bill which was essentially ready in 2008 has been brought before this House and as I mentioned briefly at the omissions in the bill. One in particular that I will touch on is the overarching agency that was originally proposed to have responsibility for fines. At the moment we have multiple points of fines collection and multiple agencies involved in that role. We sought to address that point which for some reason has not been included in this bill. I hope if there is not some discussion about that in the select committee that perhaps in the Committee stage the Minister for Courts might like to address that point further. 
The Government though in the absence of addressing that point has said that this is the most comprehensive set of legislative measures for collecting unpaid moneys in 12 years. The Hon David Parker touched on the other significant actions that Labour took when we were in Government. The Government now claims that this bill demonstrates its determination to address the high level of unpaid moneys but again I find the timing of it quite interesting. Some of the statistics we already know are that between July 2008 and June 2009 the courts wiped $95.1 million of the total $806 million in unpaid fines. I would have thought perhaps that at the same time the Government was looking at making that decision it might have spent some time making sure it was progressing this legislation so that it had a dual track on fines collection. Also given the large and growing amount of outstanding penalties I think perhaps there is a wider debate to be had over the role of monetary penalties as a sanction for offending and whether it is being eroded as the level of unpaid monetary fines continues to accrue. That is a significant debate I think and one probably best had at the select committee. 
I think as well it is a worthwhile point that the regulatory impact statement states: “As at 31 May 2008 Credit Reporting would have affected over 270000 people who owed more than $400 million in overdue penalties.” I think we are seeing a concentration of individuals much in the same way that we see a concentration of individuals committing a large amount of the crime in New Zealand particularly in the youth justice sector. A small amount of individuals are responsible for a large number of overdue fines and penalties. Perhaps that is why the number of unpaid fines remitted to community work has more than tripled over the last 5 years. 
I will pick up on that matter a little later on but it points to the question of whether when the court is handing down a fine it is taking fully into account some of the provisions of for instance the Sentencing Act which requires that the ability to pay is taken into account. I again highlight that it should not be used as a tool to abdicate from an individual’s responsibility to make amends through our sentencing regime but if individuals have been awarded fines when it is blatantly obvious at that point that their ability to pay is limited that is the point at which it would be best to hand down sentences under which they would be obliged to fulfil their debt to society rather than having the fines fall upon them stagnate go through unpaid and eventually translate into community work. That is why I think that that front-end process is very very important. 
I think it would be useful if at some point the Minister for Courts could perhaps share with us why there was an extension of time. If this bill was ready in 2008 why have we had a delay? Did some redrafting take place or was some extra information required? It does not seem immediately obvious to me. 
Colin King 
: Busy hard-working Government. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: If indeed it is because the Government has been busy implementing legislation like “three strikes” then the only assumption I can make is that its priorities are all wrong. 
I will touch on some of the main provisions of the bill. I think my colleague David Parker did a very good job of pulling out some of the issues that the select committee may like to spend a greater amount of time on. We have obviously had attachment orders which have allowed deductions to be made from wages and benefits to pay debts. The Justice and Electoral Committee touched on that matter briefly when we were looking at the Government’s proposal to impose a blanket $50 tax I guess on individual offenders. I just point out to the Law and Order Committee members who I understand will be considering this bill that it may be useful to look at the impact of deductions if for instance they are coming from small businesses. It is a cost on them that we have not considered that is perhaps worth looking at. 
In relation to the credit-reporting initiative—which again David Parker pointed out was useful—and the super priority by which the District Court can obtain high priority over the secured property of a credit provider if the loan was advanced when the overdue penalties could have been released under the credit-reporting proposal I want to throw in there an unintended consequence or a related matter that the Government may wish to consider. If we are dealing with individuals who find themselves in an economic situation in which they are not paying their fines despite being pursued and we are putting an order of priority on their repayments we may find situations whereby some of those debtors look to other channels in order to pay off their debts. That may lead to their seeking out for instance unsavoury loan sharks. 
If the Government wanted to be truly comprehensive and to make sure there were no unintended consequences of what are otherwise good measures perhaps its members would consider supporting Carol Beaumont’s member’s bill the Credit Reforms (Responsible Lending) Bill which cracks down on loan sharks which often have uncapped interest rates and ultimately impact severely on some of our low-income citizens in New Zealand including members of the Pacific Island community. I would say that that bill stands on its own merits in fact and in many ways we do not need another bill prompting us to make that reform. But if this is the avenue in which I have to raise it I extend that challenge to all members: please explain to me why we should not support her bill.