Parker David: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — First Reading 
Parker David: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:663;Page:10990] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 The Labour Party will support the referral of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill to a select committee. I thank the Minister for Courts the Hon Georgina te Heuheu for her acknowledgment of the efforts of the previous Minister the Hon Rick Barker in this area. I think that perhaps the most successful innovation in respect of fines collection in recent years has been the change made to the law while he was the Minister to allow information to be processed at the border from people who were trying to travel overseas. Those people were not allowed to board their aircraft if they had unpaid fines in New Zealand under the New Zealand fines system. That has been a very successful measure which has improved the collection of fines. 
I agree with the Minister that it is important that we have a system that holds people to account for penalties that have been imposed upon them; otherwise the system stops working if people can effectively avoid the sanctions imposed upon them for breaches of the law. If I were to be a little critical it would be that the policy behind the major change here which is the introduction of driver licence stop orders was agreed on back in the middle of 2008. We are 2 years on from then before now seeing the introduction of this legislation despite the fact that the policy was agreed to by both the previous Government and this Government and that seems to be a bit slow. 
I think that driver licence stop orders will be the most effective part of the changes made in this bill. There is a process that is followed and that is fair. Liable persons are sent a warning notice giving them 14 days to resolve the issue between them and the fines authorities before their licence is suspended. People can make an arrangement with the collection agency for the proper payment of their fine over time. It does not have to be paid in one lump sum; they just have to have an arrangement in place. If they do not do that the people who are in default will lose their licence. They will lose their right to drive. 
People who are in default will also lose a limited licence. I am not convinced about that provision; I think that is something that the select committee should look at. I am not sure whether it is in society’s interest that we should cause people to lose their job as a consequence of this legislation. I think they should lose their licence for non-work purposes. But I am not convinced that it is always in their interests— 
Sandra Goudie 
: If they have a job they will be able to pay their fines. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: We hear another erudite contribution from Sandra Goudie. That would be unusual I know. I am not sure about depriving people of their livelihood because that is the means by which they would pay a fine and meet their other obligations to society to look after their families or to pay family support if they have children. If people need a limited licence in order to drive for the purposes of their employment it might be going a step too far to deprive them of that limited licence and therefore of their livelihood. 
Sandra Goudie 
: I did not say that. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Sandra Goudie said that she did not say that and I do not want to misrepresent her. I just acknowledge— 
Sandra Goudie 
: If they have a job they will be able to pay the fines. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: A job can often require someone to drive and that is the only reason that someone has a limited licence I remind Mrs Goudie. I am sorry that she did not know that and I see some of the members of her party smiling at the fact that she thinks people get a limited licence in order to go down to the pub every night. They get a limited licence only if they need it for their employment. It is a bit of a shame that the member does not know that. Given that she chairs one of the select committees that deal with law and order matters I would have thought that she knew that already. In any event I think that the select committee should look at that issue. I am not sure whether the balance is quite right. It may be but it needs to be looked at carefully. 
I want to talk about a couple of other measures. An order of priority has been created in respect of the priority that fines have against assets that are secured—for example under a hire purchase contract. It is a really good provision that the information that the justice sector has about unpaid fines will now be made available to credit agencies. That is a really good step. Credit agencies will want to know that because it will be reflected in their opinion as to the reliability of a person who is being lent money. So that provision is good for credit agencies and it is also good for fines enforcement. In respect of the creation of an automatic super-priority for fines we again have to be a wee bit careful. I see the attraction of it but I can envisage a situation where we might have a solo parent living on a pretty modest income who needs to enter into a hire purchase contract for a washing machine. I would want to make sure that that could still happen. 
I think it is very fair that there has to be an arrangement for the payment of fines. However I am not sure whether it is right that the fines should have to be paid in full because that might be beyond the means of the person and have consequences that are a little too Draconian. At the select committee we will be checking to see that the legislation enables the advancers of hire purchase contracts—in the example I gave of the washing machine—to be able to do that safely in reliance upon their security so long as there is a fines payment arrangement in place rather than the whole of the fine having to be paid. 
Another issue that needs to be checked is in respect of driver licence stop orders. My understanding is that those orders apply only to traffic offences. From my reading of the bill that appears to include all traffic offences specified in regulations made under the Transport Act which I presume includes the parking fines imposed by councils. We should check on that because I know that it is a matter of concern to councils that they do not have the ability to enforce the collection of those fines. They have to do that through the Ministry of Justice. I would hope that council fines are also captured through this process because the current system is a source of frustration for them. As in the case of central government we should have proper collection processes for those small amounts of money which none the less ought to be paid—or generally they are small amounts of money. 
Another idea that I have heard mentioned by the Hon Rick Barker and that I have also had reflected to me by councils—including the chief executive of the Dunedin City Council—is their concern that there should be some sort of trigger in the system when fines accrue past a certain level. We know from the statistics that when fines accrue to quite high levels say $2000 thereafter the likelihood that those fines will be paid diminishes significantly. It becomes such a burden for people that they almost think they cannot pay their fines off so they will just give up. If that is the case there should be a trigger in the system that flags a person who already has fines of over $2000 if that person comes before the courts again. There should be a measure that causes such cases to be pulled out and looked at again to assess whether the amounts are realistic or whether the cases will sit there for ever as debts theoretically owed to the Crown that will never be paid. Such debts clog up the system hang over people and show up as an asset of the Crown which is in reality a loser. In those sorts of situations it may be better to get such people back before the courts and resentence them to community service or another penalty in lieu of that which has been already conferred. It disappoints me a little that that issue is not addressed in this bill. 
The other area that is improved in this legislation is the collection of civil debts. I agree with the Minister that some of the processes around obtaining attachment orders can be arcane. An attachment order is an order by the court that an amount is owed by a debtor where the creditor has proved to the court that he or she is owed money and therefore has a judgment against the person. To enforce that judgment one can go to the court and seek an attachment order on someone’s wages and that order then requires the employer to pay a certain amount each week in reduction of the judgment debt. Those attachment order processes are at the moment quite complex. They can be simplified. The Minister has already clarified to the House how they can be simplified including not necessarily requiring people to appear in person in order to make an attachment order but to be able to do it on papers: statements that ought to be provided by people as to their means and their income. So I welcome that as an improvement in the law as well. 
Overall this bill looks as though it is good legislation. It will help with the collection of overdue fines and the collection of civil debts. Subject to the comments that I have made about certain issues that I think the select committee will need to look at I am pleased to support the bill.