Ardern Shane: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:626;Page:21721] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I thought I would for a moment remind the Committee that we are talking about Part 6 of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill and touch on a couple of the issues raised in that part particularly around the Privacy Act. Before I do that I also remind the Committee that the amount of outstanding fines is apparently according to all the information I have been given somewhere around $650 million. We should bear in mind Dr Michael Cullen’s keenness through the taxation laws and suchlike—and we debated one of those laws in the Chamber a couple of days ago—to close every loophole in terms of the taxation system. We have pages and pages of regulation and ways to catch the overseas crooks who get away with New Zealand’s hard-earned tax. So we would expect that when it comes to the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill and particularly to the discussion around the Privacy Act the Misuse of Drugs Act and that kind of legislation the Minister would apply the same kind of standard that he applies in the taxation legislation. But what do we have instead? What we have today is 25000 people with outstanding fines of over $5000. The Minister the roaring Dr Michael Cullen who is keen to make sure that every loophole is closed has stumped up with what one can only describe as a wet bus ticket. 
What sort of signal does that send to society? Hard-working individuals who run small businesses and battle away day and night good community mums and dads and “Joe Hard-worker” from New Lynn—and I see that the member for New Lynn is here—will be clobbered by the Government which will get its hands so deeply into their pockets that they will potentially find life pretty difficult. But when it comes to crims who run up endless speeding tickets or other kinds of fines and do not bother to pay them the Government will make some minor adjustments to the Customs and Excise Act the Privacy Act and other such Acts so that it can collar them if they front up at the airport—and the estimate is that about 117 of these people per year may do that—and they may have to pay their fines. But the Government will make sure that they are not collared if the fine is less than $5000. If people owe less than $5000 the Government will not bother about them—they can walk straight through. 
The Minister now has an opportunity to amend the Privacy Act to allow information to flow freely between departments in order to help to catch those who would use the various clauses loopholes and suchlike in various bits of legislation to escape the obligation to pay their fines—fines that have been set by the Parliament of New Zealand which is the representative of all in New Zealand. I ask the Minister to take a call and explain why he does not take the opportunity to make some amendments during the Committee stage to ensure that those crooks are caught and made to pay their fines. 
I tell the Minister again—because I do not think the message got through last time—that in the constituency clinics I have attended recently people have told me what has happened when they have tried to pay a fine on behalf of their son brother auntie mother or whoever the relative is. They have fronted up to whichever of the various agencies they think will be interested—the courts for example—and have been told that the agency cannot give them the information they require because the Privacy Act stops it from doing so. They have been told that they need to track down the person who owes the money and get that person to turn up with photo ID and verify that he or she is who he or she claims to be. If all of that can be tidied up and the person who owes the money signs a paper then the agency will accept that someone else can pay the fine. 
Can the Minister not see the irony and the double standard in what is going on there? Can he not understand that law-abiding decent New Zealand citizens whom we want to encourage to get on and do well—to help the Government under its notion of how to collect tax—are being penalised while those who break the law flout the law and thumb their noses at the Minister are allowed to walk away scot-free? How is it that I can see that and the Minister cannot? What am I missing? Which aspect of this issue am I not picking up?