Ryall Tony: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Ryall Tony: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:626;Page:21718] 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 Part 6 which I think should take a reasonable amount of time to debate because I would hate to have to write a whole lot of extra amendments in order to get some points made is in respect of the Privacy Act 1993. Currently section 103 of the Privacy Act prohibits these agencies from taking adverse action against any individual on the basis of a result produced under a data-matching programme unless that agency has given the individual written notice of the adverse effect that may be taking place. So what is being proposed in this bill is that we pass a law that allows the authorities to use that information immediately. It means that people who will be stopped at the airport can be arrested and dealt with. Remember that that will be only 117 people a year. 
When it was introduced this so-called get-tough bill from the Government provided that only 35 fines defaulters a year would be stopped at the airport. Following some pressure from the Opposition the Government has dropped the threshold which means that 117 of our country’s worst fines defaulters are stopped when they get to the airport and they will be expected to pay back $1.5 million. It is not a lot and it does not go very far. What is being proposed here is to give the power to the individual bailiff or police officer to arrest somebody using a warrant to arrest that has been granted. The only way a fines defaulter can be stopped at the airport under Labour will be if there is a warrant out for that person’s arrest. Forget the 25000 people who owe fines over $5000. 
Peter Brown 
: How many? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: There are 25000 people who owe fines over $5000. Only 500 of them have an arrest warrant. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: The others might be paying them off. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I doubt it. Of those people 500 have an arrest warrant and they are the people whom this legislation apparently will target. Of those 500 people a maximum of 117 are expected to be caught. What is being provided in this part is power for people to deal with them. What will happen is that a serious fines defaulter who has an arrest warrant out and at least a $5000 fine will turn up at the airport and check in. Little silent alerts will run through the system. That person will go through immigration and he or she will be pulled aside. 
What will the police officer and the bailiff do? Will they say: “You owe $5000. You owe reparation. You’re not going on that flight to London until you pay your fines.”? Is that what will happen? The provision in this bill should be what worries people. They can go and confirm that the fine is being paid or that an arrangement to pay has been made. If fines defaulters can say that and if they can show that they have or will make an arrangement for their fines then off they go to London. If they can just say to the bailiff that they will make a deal where they pay it back at $20 a week off they can go to London. 
How ridiculous is this? Under our Labour liberal justice system a woman who defrauded to the extent of $120000 is being allowed to pay off that debt at $20 a week. It will take her 107 years to pay off her debt. That is the sort of nonsense we are seeing under this Government. 
I tell members that I do not expect that 117 people will be turned away because what they will do under this Government’s liberal system is to say that they will pay back their debt at $20 a week and the authorities will let them go off on the plane when the whole purpose of the legislation is that if they can afford an airfare they can afford to pay back some if not all of their fines. If they can afford an airfare they should be paying their fine or the restitution they have been ordered to pay to their victims. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: A Freedom Air ticket could be a lot less than your fine. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: A Freedom Air ticket could be a lot less than a fine but I would rather see that ticket price of $189 with conditions paid to the victim of a crime or paid to the Crown in punishment than see it going to the airline. That is the point here. This stuff needs to be tighter. Why are we not making changes to the Privacy Act so that parents can go and pay their kids’ fines?