Wall Louisa: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wall Louisa: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 07 July 2011. Volume:673;Page:19915. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
LOUISA WALL (Labour) 
:  
Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Nga mihi ki a koutou katoa. Kei te tautoko au i te Wiki o te Reo Maori. Nga mihi ki a koe whaea Georgina te Heuheu. 
[ 
Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Greetings to you all. I endorse Maori Language Week. Greetings to you aunt Georgina te Heuheu. 
] 
I want to acknowledge the Minister for Courts who is not in the House— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member and I realise she has not been a member for very long but it is not appropriate to indicate the absence of a member from the House. We are all absent from the House at times. 
LOUISA WALL 
: I want to pay my respects to the Minister who is responsible for the legislation. This is the first contribution I have made to this debate and it is certainly a pleasure to do so. In doing so I would like to acknowledge my colleague the Hon Rick Barker for his obvious contribution to the development of this legislation to the point where we are at today. This legislation presents the most comprehensive set of legislative improvements in 12 years for the recovery of unpaid fines reparation and civil debt. It addresses a number of issues including a general concern about the levels of overdue fines. I was really interested. I have been in the House for only 3 months and I note that I am in the infancy of my political career— 
Hon Maryan Street 
: The beginning of a long career. 
LOUISA WALL 
: Thank you. When the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill was first read on 19 May 2010 the fines total was $778 million. On 16 November 2010 when we had the second reading the fines total was $711 million. I am not sure why but it is trending down regardless of the passage of this legislation. There seemed to be a bit of a difference between what Minister Power said the current outstanding total is which is $666.5 million and what I think Jonathan Young said it was at $672 million. It is very interesting that the fines are trending down. Obviously the people responsible for collecting fines are doing a tremendous job. 
I want to focus on one of the major policy initiatives in this legislation which is to introduce driver licence stop orders. I highlight that this was approved and was ready to go in July 2008 but through an amendment to the Land Transport Act 1998 contained in Part 2 of the original bill there will be an enforcement measure that will allow the driver’s licence of a fines defaulter to be suspended when the defaulter fails to maintain payment of outstanding traffic fines. The licence will remain suspended until the defaulter pays the overdue fines or enters into an arrangement to pay the moneys owed. Traffic offences make up approximately 99 percent of all infringements filed in the court each year for collection. The driver licence stop order has proved to be a very effective sanction in Australian and Canadian jurisdictions and I note from previous korero on this legislation that an estimated 50 percent of fines defaulters pay or enter into a payment deferral arrangement with another 25 percent doing so when their licences have been suspended. So this measure will create an effective simple but powerful incentive for people to resolve their fines. 
In reviewing what has been said about this legislation previously I will pick up on points that Dr Kennedy Graham made. I note that he is no longer with us but he contributed earlier. There are indications that young people have difficulty in paying their fines presumably in part because of their lower incomes. I found it really interesting to learn from June 2008 statistics that over half a million individuals—about 16 percent of all Kiwis over 15 years of age—owe fines. That is one in six people. That is a particular concern because this legislation will affect our young people. I note that the Hon Rick Barker addressed this issue but this legislation makes no attempt to do so. 
We propose to bring young people with large amounts of fines within a case management system. That would ensure there is some face-to-face engagement as opposed to liable persons being sent just a warning notice giving them 14 days to resolve the issue with the fines authority before their licence is suspended. I think this is hugely relevant. Holding people accountable is a great principle that we all should have. We need it for society to function. But making young people take responsibility forcing this sort of responsibility on them I think will have some consequences that may affect their ability particularly within the employment sphere. 
Within the whare that I live in which I share with my partner we have two young people. We have a young person who is studying at university and we have a young person who is working. That young person who is working needs his vehicle to get to work. I think for both of them there may be a time when they incur a fine. Obviously we all like to think that our young people will not break the law and incur fines but they do. The reality is that they do and the statistics prove that they do. There could be some unforeseen consequences. We already know if we look at statistics for Maori that 35 percent of young Maori are what we call “NEET”: not engaged in employment education or training. But I am sure that many of them still drive vehicles. We have to say that it is very difficult for them to gain employment. For those who have employment the consequences of losing their vehicle could be quite extreme and have a profound impact on their ability to participate in society. 
So from our perspective a case management approach is appropriate. Our young people need guidance and they need to be supported. If we look at the recently released report of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Adviser Sir Peter Gluckman we see there are a number of competing factors and societal norms that make it really difficult for our young people to take responsibility. They need society they need parents they need communities and they need people who are there to help and support them to be responsible. I have a particular concern that our proposed case management approach was deemed to be inappropriate and to not have merit or warrant inclusion in the legislation. As I said before in an ideal world our young people would not get fined but the reality is that they do. It will be interesting to track the impact of this legislation specifically on our young people. 
I will highlight the two other major policy proposals in this legislation. One is credit reporting. Through this system private sector lending companies and others will be able to find out whether someone has overdue penalties. This will encourage people to pay fines and will make them accountable for the money they owe. It also means that the Ministry of Justice can use information stored by credit-reporting agencies to collect fines. This system will affect people who can afford to pay fines but choose not to because they have not previously faced any serious consequences for not paying. 
Finally I will highlight the third major initiative: the super-priority contained in Part 3 of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. The super-priority will ensure that the court has priority over a secured party for the sale of proceeds of seized goods where the amount of overdue fines was or could have been disclosed by the formal credit-report by the ministry. I am now a permanent member of the Law and Order Committee. I was not on the Law and Order Committee when it considered this bill but I take this opportunity to acknowledge the process. I acknowledge the chair and the members of that select committee. I have recently sat through some of the processes that select committees have to go through to ensure that New Zealanders have a say. Based on some of the korero that my colleague Raymond Huo talked about earlier there was great interest in this legislation. I congratulate all those people who were involved in bringing the legislation to where it is today. I look forward to contributions from other members. Thank you.