Beaumont Carol: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — In Committee 
Beaumont Carol: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:673;Page:19775] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to speak on the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. It was dealt with by the Law and Order Committee prior to my membership of that committee but I know it has general support and certainly Labour supports this bill. As my colleague Jacinda Ardern has mentioned development of this bill was commenced in fact under Labour. Credit goes to Rick Barker I think and I am pleased to see it acknowledged in the commentary that the work was begun under the previous Government. I think that is a good thing to note. 
We are of course speaking on Part 1. Part 1 covers the amendments to the District Courts Act 1947. The bill is an omnibus bill so it covers a number of different Acts and this part solely addresses the District Courts Act. The matters in this part relate to attachment orders which allow for deductions to be made from wages and benefits in order to pay debts. The issue of debt is a significant problem in the current climate. It is not just about a whole lot of individuals who keep racking up fines and do not pay them. There are some people like that I am sure but also there are many people who are struggling very seriously to make ends met and who are incurring debt. Monetary fines as a punishment can in fact be very difficult requirements for some people to meet. One of the particular things about this bill is that it tries to look at alternative ways that people can make amends or meet the requirements of any punishment other than by paying fines. 
This part is about attachment orders which is about paying fines. The bill aims to streamline in this regard as it does in others the enforcement process by enabling judgment creditors to file a financial statement or ask the court to assess the debtor’s financial means in the debtor’s absence. That provision avoids the delays the cost and the inconvenience of bringing all the parties together to do that. 
One of the things I was interested in—and I thought others on the Law and Order Committee at the time this bill was considered might be able to help me with this—was Supplementary Order Paper 202 which deals with attachment orders and proposes the carrying over of the existing law that it is an offence for an employer to dismiss an employee or alter the position of an employee to the employee’s prejudice because amongst other things an attachment order in respect of the employee has been served on the employer. That sounds sensible to me. If a person is complying and doing what they are required to do they should not face the possible loss of their job especially in times of very very high unemployment such as we are facing now. 
As I understand it the new provision removes the existing onus on the employer to prove that the employer’s action was not taken as result of the employee’s debt or the attachment order. In other words it weakens that protection. I wondered why it does that. I thought that perhaps members of the Law and Order Committee could elucidate that matter and explain why the provision has changed and why the onus on the employer has been removed so that employers do not have to prove that their actions in dismissing somebody were not taken as a result of the employee’s debt or the attachment order. 
The new provision consequentially removes the time limit for the protection provided to employees which is currently 6 months. Again I ask those members who were on the select committee to explain the reasoning behind removing that time limit for protection. Those are a couple of questions about attachment orders that I would very much like to know the answers to. Perhaps the Minister in the chair the Minister for Social Development and Employment might be able to help us out on that matter. 
The Supplementary Order Paper also talks about imprisonment for the non-payment of fines. As I understand it it carries forward the provision that the period of imprisonment imposed in respect of the non-payment of any fine or where the sale of any property under the process does not produce sufficient proceeds to pay the fine shall be such a period as in the opinion of the court or District Court judge fixing the period will satisfy the justice of the case. However the period of imprisonment cannot exceed in the case of an offence that was punishable by imprisonment the maximum term of imprisonment to which the defendant was liable on the conviction or a period of 1 year whichever is the lesser and in any other case a period of 3 months. It goes on to talk about that. 
Another area in Part 1 that I thought was interesting—again Supplementary Order Paper 202 relates to this part—was the proposal to amend the provision of the bill as introduced allowing a judgment creditor to apply to the District Court for the judgment debtor to be sentenced to community work as a sanction for non-compliance with the payment orders made by the court. I am assuming this is in a situation where somebody is really unable to pay the debt. The legislation provides another way for the person to actually meet their debt to society if you like so that we do not have a whole lot of people with substantial levels of debt in fines that they will never be able to pay off. It would provide an alternative: community work or other penalty is referred to here. 
There is also a provision in Part 1 for property and goods to be sold by the bailiff. Again Supplementary Order Paper 202 proposes that it be made clear that the purchaser of goods sold by a bailiff charged with the enforcement of a warrant to seize property acquires good title to those goods free of all ownership interests and other proprietary interests held in them before the sale. This particular part of Supplementary Order Paper 202 amends clauses 28 and 29 amending respectively sections 90 and 91 of the Act. 
In closing I would be very interested indeed to hear a little more about this issue of employees subject to an attachment order why there has been a change to the existing law so that the onus of proof has changed and why the time limit for protection has been changed.