Garrett David: Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Garrett David: Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 October 2009. Volume:658;Page:7339. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 It will be no surprise to members that I rise to support the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill despite the reservations that I have made known. But before I continue my speech I would like to pay tribute to both the previous speaker Lynne Pillay and the previous Labour Government she represented because it is indeed the case that Labour’s actions in 2002—specifically the Victims’ Rights Act—were a major departure from the common law and very very welcome ones. It actually shocks people who are not lawyers to have explained to them that until quite recently the victim was in fact utterly irrelevant. According to the lofty towers in law schools the crime had been committed against the State and the victim just happened to be the person who was there. It is quite correct that that Labour Government made some very welcome changes in that regard so I think that credit is well due there. 
As I have said in earlier speeches on this bill I think it can be summed up as a great idea but with some major flaws. One of the major flaws is of course the costs and the practicalities of collecting the levy. Mr Cosgrove said for about the fourth time that what could be achieved here is a diversion of money from taxation or more specifically—as he was playing to his audience—a diversion of funds that go to private schools to go to victims instead. Well that misses the point that this is an attempt in a sense at user-pays is it not? It is “offender-pays”. It is a levy on offenders for the wrong they have done. It is a cost to the offender and not if you like a cost to the rest of the taxpayers but that point has been missed. 
I believe that $50 is an entirely appropriate amount for the levy. It is the equivalent of three packets of cigarettes or a couple of slabs of beer to use analogies that will be quite clear to the criminal fraternity. Every villain or his mate has 50 bucks in his pocket or his mum or girlfriend can be prevailed upon to bring 50 bucks down to the court. 
It is also entirely missing the point to say that the levy is the same regardless of the crime. Another of the Labour members referred to a triple axe-murderer. Well fortunately and to my knowledge of crime in New Zealand which is not inconsiderable I do not think we have had one of those. But a member speaking in the recent series of speeches referred to the levy being the same for murder as for assaults and the member said that that was wrong. Again that is missing the point. Recognising the difference in the nature and gravity of crimes is a function of the sentence. The levy is not a sentence. It is if you like simply a price that a person pays for being a criminal. 
The major problem as members opposite have quite rightly pointed out concerns collection. As a new member in something of a flash in the head during the Committee stage I came up with an idea that I believe would have solved the problem beautifully. The idea was that offenders would be held in custody after conviction—say after being sentenced to do 100 hours’ community service—until someone came up with the 50 bucks. It is much like the way in which persons who are granted bail are now held in custody while their bail bond is written up and that may take half an hour or half a day depending on how busy the police are and what sort of a prat the offenders have made of themselves. But if we were to introduce an amendment whereby a convicted person was sentenced to a community service let us say and was remanded down below until someone came up with 50 bucks I believe that compliance would be damn-near 100 percent. We could install a separate Eftpos machine down there a cash tin and a receipt book and compliance costs would be virtually nil. It would take just a bit of extra police time. But in my inexperience I did not realise that such an idea—brilliant though I immodestly claim it to be—had to go the rounds of all the parties and needed much more time. I approached all the parties in the House except the Greens. 
Hon Member 
: Well why not? 
DAVID GARRETT 
: I did not bother to approach the Greens because in my view I am sad to say they are criminal sympathisers. They have opposed every single law and order bill that has been introduced in this Parliament. Mr Locke when speaking on the previous two bills we have debated—the car-crushing bill to use the vernacular and the boy-racer bill to again use the vernacular—opposed them. He said in justification that it was wrong to increase the numbers in prison. Well imprisonment is not a penalty for either of those bills. The fact is that the Greens oppose anything that calls criminals to account. On a personal level I see that Ms Bradford is in the House. I think that I have a very cordial relationship with her and I am sad to be saying this about her party while she is here representing it but I believe that that is the case. Every other party I spoke to thought that it was a good idea but that it was too late in the piece. 
Despite our misgivings about the collection aspect we support the bill. I endorse what Ms Pillay said and I hope that she is not offended by that. Anything that helps victims has to be good. Anything that helps victims has to be an advantage even if the collection method is not so efficient. I will confirm again what I said earlier: if the dire predictions of inefficiency made by members opposite prove to be correct then this party will support an amendment to remedy that problem and to have the levy collected more efficiently. As I have suggested I would be interested to hear other members’ views if this comes to pass. But I cannot see how it would be less than a no-brainer to do as I have suggested which is to install an Eftpos machine down in the cells and to have a cash tin and a receipt book there. I believe that compliance would be close to 100 percent and collection costs would be virtually nil. With that small caveat the ACT Party is happy to support this bill.