Chauvel Charles: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:668;Page:15350] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 The Labour Opposition supports the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill as it comes back to the House from the Law and Order Committee for its second reading. I begin by commending the Minister for Courts for making the appropriate gesture of referring to the fact that this bill largely consists of measures that were carried over from work that was under way prior to the change of Government at the end of 2008. Although of course I will not bring the Speaker into the debate it is appropriate to acknowledge your role Mr Assistant Speaker Barker as the responsible Minister in the previous Government. You were in charge of the measures that were brought forward for approval in Cabinet so that the bill was ready to be progressed when it was introduced by the current Minister. 
Obviously the first reason for this side of the House supporting the bill is that it had its genesis in the days of the previous Government. The previous Government thought that the driver licence stop orders proposal—from memory back in July 2008—had real merit. There is real evidence from overseas particularly from the Australian states that those orders have had an effect. They have reduced the scofflaw factor for want of a more elegant way to put it so it is appropriate to trial them here as this bill would do. 
When one looks at the figures it is obvious that there is a need for some action in this area. Between July 2008 and June 2009 according to statistics from the Ministry of Justice the courts wiped $95.1 million out of the total $806 million owing by offenders in unpaid fines. More than 10 percent of properly levied penalties are not being collected by the State. Worse than that there is an increasing trend as far as those penalties are concerned. Clearly there is some need for a greater power than that which exists in the current law. 
It is appropriate I think to address the problem of overdue fines for another reason and that is the dissatisfaction of the victims of crime. Often offenders owing sums by court order will in respect of those sums effectively be reimbursing victims through reparation orders. It is very frustrating for creditors—and debtors actually—using the court’s civil debt enforcement process which is what they have to fall back on in the absence of any better remedy. 
I repeat the Minister’s acknowledgment of you Mr Assistant Speaker Barker. I also acknowledge the fact that the Minister made officials available to brief the Opposition when this bill was proposed as an omnibus amendment bill. I think it was a useful practice to follow. It certainly made it easier for the Labour Party to understand the Government’s proposal when it brought this legislation forward to consent to its introduction and to support it at that stage. 
I think it is appropriate though to record that there are a couple of missing proposals. I would have thought that the select committee might want to bring these proposals back on board; no doubt we will hear a long and learned discourse from Mrs Goudie about why that was not able to be done on this occasion. Perhaps those provisions will resurface in the Supplementary Order Paper the Minister foreshadowed but was unwilling or unable to give the House any detail about when she gave her second reading speech. 
One of the most significant reforms that Labour wanted to put in place in this area was to have a single agency responsible for fines rather than the 80-plus agencies— 
Sandra Goudie 
: More bureaucrats. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: There was a little snort of derision over there from the member for Coromandel but why would Parliament not— 
Sandra Goudie 
: I didn’t snort. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: It was a snort but we will not go into that further. The party that trumpets rational Government structure has passed up an opportunity to do some rationalisation on this basis. Why would one not take the opportunity to reduce those 80-plus issuing authorities to one acting on behalf of all the others so that it is responsible for the issuing and the collection of fines? That was a sensible proposal from the last Government. It would have cut red tape and it would have been a good thing for this Parliament to put in place. Unfortunately we have a lost opportunity here even with the select committee report. 
Notwithstanding that lost opportunity as I said before we generally support this measure. I have mentioned the increasing unpaid fines problem. There is another reason why the legislation is important; again it comes from the careful research we have had from the Ministry of Justice. It shows that when people cross a certain threshold in terms of the amount of money they owe—and for young people that threshold can be as low as $2000—they get to a point where they think there is no point in trying to repay the money. A person is in the hole for $2000 so why bother trying to make any effort to make repayments beyond that figure? It is a bit like the John Maynard Keynes anecdote—if someone owes the bank $100 they have a problem but if they owe the bank $1 million the bank has the problem. The State was getting into that position with this level of unpaid fines—over 10 percent. The problem particularly with younger offenders was that they were coming to the point where they felt that even for fines of $2000 it was not worth putting in place a repayment plan. That was such a big figure for a lot of younger people. It was beyond their ken in terms of trying to make repayment arrangement systems. 
This bill goes some way to addressing that issue but it is not entirely satisfactory in that area. The fines register established by this bill is a good measure. Lending companies and the wider community will be made aware of people who owe money. This will be another means by which there is pressure from the community to ensure that people pay the fines that they owe the Crown. That is a good thing all around. 
The other point I will make just before moving on to my final point concerning the Regulations Review Committee is to compare the process that the Minister adopted in this case with the process that has just been adopted by the Minister of Justice in respect of his latest package of criminal reforms. Those reforms were announced yesterday at about 3 o’clock in a series of releases. It has been a question since then of trying to look at the detail and respond to it. The package is sold as the biggest and most significant reform to criminal procedure in 50 years yet when the Opposition has been asked for its response it has had to make that response on the basis of analysis on the hoof. It would have been much better for Simon Power to adopt the approach that even though Ms Goudie thinks all this consultation business is overblown actually results in good law if it is done properly. Hopefully this bill will be proof of that. The Minister made officials available to brief the Opposition and the Opposition was available to intelligently offer its support and to participate constructively in the select committee under her chairpersonship so that we are back in the House able to support the second reading. 
The final point I make is to credit the select committee for taking on board a lot of the advice it received from the Regulations Review Committee over particular provisions of the bill. In their original form those provisions would have been offensive constitutionally. Some change has been proposed to those provisions. I certainly commend those changes to the House. I wish they had gone further. I wish that all the Regulations Review Committee’s advice had been adopted but some change at least is proposed and that is a good thing. With those words I commend the bill on its second reading to the House.