Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) Link to this
I move, That the Crimes Amendment Bill, the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill, the District Courts Amendment Bill (No 2), the Immigration Amendment Bill, the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill, the Privacy Amendment Bill, the Sentencing Amendment Bill, the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill, and the Tax Administration Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This very interesting legislation makes a number of significant improvements in the law relating to the enforcement of fines, reparations, and civil debts. It will increase the effectiveness and the efficiency of fines enforcement, and it begins a process of applying information technology to the filing of court documents. I will have more to say about that in a moment. However, I will first take the opportunity to reply to some of the points that were raised during the earlier debates and clarify some possible points of misunderstanding.
Much of the comment on the legislation has focused on the interception of fines defaulters as they depart from New Zealand. As fines defaulters are intercepted, on their way either out of or into the country, they will be expected to pay their outstanding fines or reparation in full. It is possible that they will be allowed to enter into time payment arrangements. That will be at the discretion of the District Court registrars. It is highly unlikely that a registrar would enter into a time payment arrangement with a defaulter who has been intercepted on his or her way out of the country. In addition to stopping the worst defaulters on their way out of or into the country, this legislation will enable us to keep tabs on less serious fines defaulters. Defaulters who owe more than $1,000 or who have a warrant out for their arrest will trigger silent alerts as they pass through New Zealand international airports. Once a silent alert has been triggered, updated contact information will be provided by the Ministry of Justice in order to initiate enforcement action.
It has been suggested that the outstanding fines balance would be reduced if the Ministry of Justice had access to information held by the Ministry of Social Development and the Inland Revenue Department. It has also been suggested that the Government should contract private debt collection agencies to enforce the payment of fines. I point out that the Ministry of Justice undertakes regular electronic data matches with the Ministry of Social Development and the Inland Revenue Department. In addition, the Ministry of Justice also contracts with Baycorp to provide contact information on fines defaulters. The ministry is currently examining ways to improve the range and effectiveness of its track and trace activities.
I listened to a number of speakers express their disappointment that the legislation does not go further in increasing the scope for data matching, or the powers to deal with fines defaulters. However, I point out that this legislation was never designed to be a vehicle for substantial reform of the fines collection process. Reform of the fines collection process is the purpose of a current review of the infringement system. That review will include extensive consultation with all interested parties, and is expected to lead to a more comprehensive set of proposals on how infringements are used and how they are enforced.
Along with the fines enforcement at airports initiative, the legislature authorises the electronic filing of unpaid infringements in the court. That is a necessary precursor to improving the information provided by prosecuting authorities when they file infringements for enforcement in the courts. Better information means better chances of collection—it is just as simple as that.
The infringement review will also focus on enabling the Ministry of Justice to identify problem defaulters at an early stage, before they accumulate high amounts of outstanding fines. At present, a number of those people come to court only after their fines have reached a level that is beyond any realistic assessment of their capacity to pay. Identifying those people earlier means that we can find other ways to address their behaviour before the stage is reached where the only realistic option is to consider remitting the fines. Those are only some of the substantial changes in the law relating to fines enforcement that I expect will result from the completion of the review of the infringement system.
Before concluding, I wish to say that this legislation has been in the House for some time. The main reason for that is that the Opposition parties, for some unfathomable reason, have decided to filibuster on this legislation. However, I am really pleased it is here at this stage. I would also like to compliment Martin Gallagher, the chair of the Law and Order Committee, which oversaw this legislation, on his outstanding work, patience, and diligence. He never lost hope that this legislation would be passed through the House. I commend this legislation to the House.
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) Link to this
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on this legislation so that I can reply to some of the things the Minister for Courts has just said. The first myth I want to burst is the fact that this legislation has been in the House since May 2003, and the Minister congratulates us on filibustering for that long. We are a fantastic team and we accept his congratulations with the good intentions with which they were delivered.
We will get to that. The legislation aims to improve the effectiveness of the Ministry of Justice’s fines and civil enforcement activities, and the National Party thinks that that is a very worthy initiative. It is a step in the right direction. Accordingly, we do support it, but I have to say to the House that I foreshadow those comments with some significant reservations and cautions about lost opportunities, which I will come to shortly.
The original bill contained various amendments to the nine different statutes impacting on these activities—hence, we are now debating nine bills, as per the Order Paper—to extend the scope of information that the department can seek through information-matching programmes with other departments. Again, the Minister in his call alluded to this, and I want to come back to that in more detail.
In particular, the legislation creates an arrangement allowing the collections unit of the Ministry of Justice to compare its database of fine defaulters with the New Zealand Customs Service database of people travelling out of the country. This sounds good, as far as it goes, but, in actual fact, this legislation will be remembered more for its lost opportunities than for enhancing the effectiveness of fines and civil enforcement activities.
Despite the constructive advice from Opposition members throughout the Committee stage, the Government simply would not take that advice on board. It ignored it, and now we are left with legislation that is philosophically sound, but in practice is not ideal, and in some aspects is fundamentally flawed. Let us get down to the detail and find out why.
After listening to the Minister, the casual observer and the casual listener would have been forgiven for thinking that people who are fines defaulters and who are attempting to leave this country by plane would be stopped at the airport unless they had paid their fines. The Minister said that to the House. He might have actually said that to his caucus, because Labour members seem to have been taken in by that. He might actually be saying it to the man on the street, but it simply is not correct.
Under this legislation, defaulters will be stopped only if, first, there is a warrant out for their arrest, and, second, they owe $5,000 or more in fines. The Government’s own advisers advised the Government that approximately 500 Kiwis fit that category, and of that number they estimate that only about 117 will be stopped. To put that another way, one defaulter will be stopped every 3 days. It could have been worse. The Government originally wanted to set that threshold at $10,000, which would have reduced that number to 35 people. But, because of the pressure exerted by the Opposition parties, that threshold was reduced to $5,000—and the Minister has the cheek to stand up and try to take the credit for that. It gets worse. There are nearly 483,000 people who owe—and members should listen to this number—$671.7 million in fines. Those figures are accurate as at the end of December 2005. Of that number, $367 million is overdue, and no arrangement has been entered into to repay that money.
National’s view is that if people can afford to travel overseas, they can afford to pay their fines. We also believe that we should forget about the arrest warrant threshold. If people owe fines, then we expect them to be paid before they get on a plane and go on their OE. We expect that, as a fundamental privilege of living in this country, people will meet those obligations. We do not mean entering into mealy-mouthed pay arrangements; we actually mean paying the bill. The only flaw I can see in that strategy is that some of these lowlifes who would otherwise have been going to Australia to live will end up staying in this country, and that will probably lower the IQ of both countries.
The Government hides behind the argument that if we do this, lots of travellers will be held up at the airport, so we should not do it. It conveniently ignores the development of the Advance Passenger Processing system for outgoing flights, which enables early warning signals to be given to airline staff to stop or delay people from getting on those planes, and to make sure that their bags are not loaded. So the argument that people will be delayed is a fallacy. The technology exists now to make sure that will not happen.
The technology also exists to nail fines defaulters in larger numbers. The moment they attempt to buy a ticket, a cross-reference to the Ministry of Justice would tell the ticket issuer that they have an outstanding fine, and at that point they could be told that if they try to get on the plane, they will be stopped, and that they must pay their fines. We could get even tougher than that. We could actually tell those people that if they do not pay, they will not go anywhere, or we could take the money for their fares and remit it to the Ministry of Justice to offset the money that they owe fellow Kiwis. If we were really serious about it, that is what we could do. The Chinese have a saying: “If you execute one you educate a thousand.” I am not advocating that, but what I am saying is that if we start to train people and change behaviour, the word gets around very quickly.
Shane JonesEven Mr Jones’ crowd would get it through their thick skulls that if they owe fines, then they have to pay them.
As the prospective purchaser of that ticket has just given all his or her details to the ticket issuer, everyone knows where the defaulter lives, and the next person who bangs on his or her door should be the bailiff, with a hand out, saying: “Oi, you owe some money.”
Using the Government’s own figures, it is estimated that the full benefit of the fines enforcement measures in this legislation would add up to a total $1.5 million. That is right, I ask the Minister, is it not—$1.5 million? Did he tell the House how much it would cost to recoup that money? He was silent on that fact, actually. It will cost $1.68 million to recoup $1.5 million in the first year, and the Minister stands up and tries to convince this House that that is value for money.
I told the House that there is $671.7 million in outstanding fines; $1.5 million represents 0.02 percent of the $671.7 million. Yet this Government would have us believe that it is serious about fines defaulters. Yeah, right!
I have one last issue I want to canvass. Why will the Government not allow more extensive information-sharing between Government departments in order to catch fines defaulters? The Minister tried to argue that the technology is not yet developed enough to do that. Well, that is simply not true. The Government refuses point-blank to allow cross-referencing to the Inland Revenue Department and Work and Income. I can only conclude that the reason it does not want to do that—
The Minister has had a chance. He should shut up and listen. The only reason the Government does not want to do that is it probably would be attacking its own voting base. That is how cynical that crowd is. The Government has the technology, it could enforce it and collect a lot more money, but it refuses to.
National supports the legislation because it is a step in the right direction, but I lament it as an opportunity lost. It could have been far, far better.
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Standing Order 106(1) states: “A member who has spoken to a question may speak again to explain some material part of a member’s speech which has been misquoted, misunderstood or misrepresented in the same debate.” The previous speaker said that this Government had done nothing about the Ministry of Justice giving the Inland Revenue Department and the Ministry of Social Development access to its information. In my speech, I made it clear that the Ministry of Justice does exactly that. [ Interruption]
LINDSAY TISCH (Senior Whip—National) Link to this
As my colleague Brian Connell has just said, that is a debating point.
If you look at Standing Order 106(1), you will see that it is the member who has spoken to a question who may speak again. So the Minister is actually inviting Brian Connell to speak again—because that is what Standing Order 106(1) states.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER Link to this
No. I think we will end it there. I needed to hear Mr Barker out before I knew what he was talking about.
RON MARK (NZ First) Link to this
I rise to indicate to the House that New Zealand First will be supporting the passage of this legislation, but I have to say that New Zealand First has also expressed to the Minister personally that this is only the start. The fact is that in 2002 it was New Zealand First that first exposed to this nation, through written and oral questions, the unacceptably high level of outstanding fines and payments that existed. The first thing that occurred to us in New Zealand First when we looked at this problem and started investigating further—long before the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill appeared at the Law and Order Committee, on which I was sitting—was that for the $550 million we exposed as being outstanding at that point in time—
—$550 million outstanding—we could have had free health-care for children under 12—not under 6, but under 12. That was based on the premise that funding free health-care for children under 6 was costing $254 million, so $500 million-odd would have allowed us to fund free health-care for children under 12. That cannot be ignored.
The mere thought that a bunch of law-breaking New Zealanders refuse to pay their fines, refuse to front up and accept responsibility, and refuse to put money across the counter—money that could easily have been targeted to assist the vulnerable, the children of our nation—is totally unacceptable. So we were adamant that, given the opportunity, we would shut down some loops that allowed those people to escape their responsibilities.
The presentation of the original bill before the Law and Order Committee, on which I sat, gave us that perfect opportunity. What a wonderful piece of legislation it was—sort of. It did look at such things as interdicting people who did not have the money to pay their $1,000 fine but certainly had the money to go to Fiji for 2 weeks. Those people do not have the money to pay for their $5,000 worth of outstanding fines but they certainly have the money to pay for the BMW they were driving when they accrued those fines. They did not have the money, the care, or the time to consider that they should pay the reparation owed to victims, yet they were gaily jollying around the world, globetrotting and enjoying their lifestyles. New Zealand First says that is not acceptable.
Although we applauded the Government’s attempt to look at that situation, we could not accept the limitations to the interdiction process, which said that there has to be an outstanding warrant to arrest, and that the level of fines has to be $10,000. Ten thousand dollars! Who in the heck in this country among law-abiding citizens would allow themselves to accrue $10,000 worth of fines? It is clear there is a criminal fraternity that rack up that amount of fines, but even worse is the fact that we found out there are people out there in the criminal fraternity who do not have $10,000 worth of fines—that is a joke—but who have up to $90,000 and $100,000 worth of fines, and we now know of one person who resides in Australia and has over a million dollars worth of fines and reparation outstanding. That person sits in Australia right now, happily enjoying a quality of life that he has no entitlement to.
He is totally above the law. We are saying that this legislation does not go far enough, and if we go to page 7 of the report on the original bill, the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill, and look under the heading “Targeting New Zealand fines defaulters in Australia”, we see that that fact is stated clearly: “The bill does not provide for a reciprocal information-sharing policy with Australia.”
If we read on, we find out that the bill does not provide for extradition. Why not? Mr Connell, the member for Rakaia, is not wrong. I grilled the officials who came before us at the select committee. I have subsequently, in private discussions, said to the Minister that the fact that we are not sharing information, not allowing the Inland Revenue Department to front up with information at the requests of the court, and not giving courts statutory powers to go into the files of the Inland Revenue Department and Work and Income to find these people, is absolute nonsense. It is nonsense, because time and time again we heard from officials that the reason the courts cannot collect this money, this $500 million or $600 million that is outstanding, is that they cannot find the people. What a load of poppycock! Of course they could find them. If the Inland Revenue Department can find them, then why can the courts not find them? If Work and Income is paying them a benefit, why can it not tell the courts which bank accounts it is paying the money into?
Then we find out a more ridiculous situation, which is that these people, having been found and dragged before the courts with the threat that they will be locked up if they do not turn up, then sit down and negotiate how much they will pay. They tell their bleeding-heart story to the court’s officials and negotiate to pay $20 a month, $20 a week, $100 a month, or whatever. They present information on their income to the courts, and the courts have to accept that at face value. I am sorry, but that is not good enough, because I know that some of these people can have one, two, or three employers. If they are shonky enough, they can also be registered for and be collecting the benefit. It is not good enough that the courts cannot go straight into their Work and Income file or their Inland Revenue file and say: “You’re telling me you can afford to pay only $100 a month. Well, let me tell you that I know you have two jobs. I know you are also quietly and illegally collecting a benefit that you should not be getting. My estimations are, firstly, that you should be charged for that fraudulent offence, and, secondly, that you can afford to pay $200 a month—end of story.” The courts should be able to tell the offender: “Sign up and pay this amount of money or we will see you locked up.” That is what should be happening.
Members may ask why I am so passionate about this issue, and why New Zealand First is so passionate about having another bill back before the House before 2008. We will be talking to the Minister until he listens and until his officials get the work done to bring this issue back to the fore and tighten it up further. Why? Because to not enforce the payment of fines is to totally undermine the justice system of this country, to totally undermine law and order, and to totally undermine the work of the men and women in blue who are protecting us in the streets day and night from these very thieves and robbers. If we continue to do that, then we might as well not have the police. We might as well not have judges. We might as well just let these crims take over and run riot in this country, and let this land revert back to the law of the jungle and the law of the gun. I do not want to see that. I want to see criminals who are fined meet their obligations. The only way we can do that is by strengthening this legislation even further. I pledge to ensure we do that.
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) Link to this
I agree with Mr Ron Mark and also with the comments made by Mr Brian Connell, who, like me, and together with Mr Mark, was a member of the Opposition team on the Law and Order Committee in the previous Parliament.
For those listening at home and for those in the House, it is important to put this legislation into some context. It enables the Ministry of Justice to improve the collection of fines from fines defaulters in New Zealand. What we know is that the amount of outstanding fines in this nation has now exceeded $600 million for the first time ever. Large amounts of fines are owed. We also know that the courts are similarly wiping huge amounts of fines. If only the pain and anguish of those who are offended against could be so easily wiped.
But the Government made big store of the fact that this legislation will give it the power to stop fines defaulters at international airports. When it made that announcement, of course there was a big front-page story in the New Zealand Herald. Mr “Get Tough” Goff was going to have fines defaulters stopped at the airport as they tried to leave the country. Everyone thought that that was pretty tough. It is tough to say that if a fines defaulter is going to leave the country, he or she will be stopped at the airport and his or her bags will be taken off the plane unless the fine is paid. I thought it was pretty tough.
Then we came to the select committee. Doing our job, as Opposition members do, we asked how many people would be stopped at the airport under this tough new legislation. Do members know what the answer was?
Thirty-five. Of the tens of thousands of people who owed fines in New Zealand, Mr “Get Tough” Goff said 35 people would be stopped at the airport. Well, that is hardly worth an article on the front page of the paper, is it? So after some quite intense pressure from the Opposition parties on the select committee, the Government caved in and dropped the threshold at which fines defaulters could be intercepted at the airport to $5,000. We thought that figure was not very good, but—wait for it—I ask members how many people will be stopped at the airport under this Government’s “get tough on fines defaulters” law.
It is 117—zip. Only 117 people will be stopped at international airports in any one year, to be prevented from travelling overseas. That is it—117 people will be stopped. That is one fines defaulter every 3 days.
Is the Government serious about trying to whittle away the $600 million debt mountain that is owed by fines defaulters? It is hardly worth coming to this House to pass a law—
Mr Mark says the Government actually catches more than 117 pensioners coming back. Well, that tells us about the Government’s priorities. Do members know how much money the Government has estimated it will collect by stopping 117 people? It is $1.2 million. We have spent $1.2 million of public money with the amount of time and effort Parliament has expended to put in place this legislation. The sad part about this is that it is absolutely consistent with the approach the Government takes in all law and order policy. Whatever the headline is, the substance never matches the rhetoric.
National will support the passing of this legislation, but when we are the Government we will change it so that more fines defaulters are stopped at the airport. We know we will have the support of Mr Ron Mark in making those changes when we are in Government. Let us have some legislation that actually has some teeth, and that is designed to get some action for those many thousands of New Zealanders who are owed reparation by criminals, and for the Crown, which is owed $600 million - plus by fines defaulters in this country.
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) Link to this
It gives me great delight to speak as the chair of the Law and Order Committee, and to acknowledge a previous speaker, Ron Mark, who is currently the deputy chair. I want to take an opportunity in this third reading speech to acknowledge all the members of the select committee that considered the original bill.
I want to sound a positive note tonight, because I think this legislation is a very, very good step in the right direction. Negativity is easy, but I acknowledge that my good colleague Ron Mark has issued a very clear challenge to the House, and I believe that, as a committee, in terms of our scrutinising function over the courts, we will be monitoring the success of this legislation. We are certainly hoping to see some significant gains.
I want to be generous of spirit. I acknowledge the contribution of the previous speaker, the Hon Tony Ryall. I acknowledge the very good contribution of that outspoken member from Canterbury, Brian Connell. He is a good, outspoken member, and a real National Party MP, because he says it as he sees it, and that is good. If Brian Connell sometimes gives Don Brash a hard time, that is too bad, because Brian Connell is outspoken and that is nice to see. He made a good contribution and we miss him from the committee.
I also take the opportunity to acknowledge the former deputy chair, Marc Alexander, in terms of his contribution. Of course, he is no longer with us, but he made a very good, constructive contribution. Georgina Beyer, Ann Hartley, and Mahara Okeroa were the Government members, and they made a very, very good contribution as well.
For those who are listening tonight, I want to stress what this legislation is about, because after listening to the previous speaker they could be confused. For the benefit of those who are not fully familiar with this wonderful and constructive legislation, let us cut to the chase here. Basically, what was the original Courts and Criminal Matters Bill about? It was an omnibus bill designed to improve the effectiveness of the fines and civil enforcement activities of the Ministry of Justice through interrelated amendments to a number of Acts. The passing of these bills will mean that the courts will be able to access information-matching programmes and send requests for information. This will improve inter-agency partnerships and strengthen our public services, and will ensure that the public are fully aware of their rights and responsibilities, and so increase fairness in the fines system.
I spoke at the Committee stage around the issue of people leaving our airports and the need for greater cooperation between us and State and federal jurisdictions in Australia, and I do not intend to go into that further. I think the Minister for Courts very adequately summarised some of the very positive aspects of this bill.
As the chair of the select committee, I thank all the departmental advisers and the submitters who helped us come up with some very constructive and positive legislation.
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) Link to this
The genesis of this legislation goes back to May 2003, so it has had a very long gestation period. Here we are, at the final stage of the third readings. National supports the legislation, but, as our previous speakers have said, there are certainly not the strengths in the legislation that one would expect. There are no disincentives for those who decide not to pay their fines. Those who want to go overseas can still opt out.
If we look at what happened in the select committee, we see that the original threshold, which was set at $10,000, was going to catch only 35 people at the airport. Under National’s pressure—as Tony Ryall articulated in his address—the threshold was dropped to $5,000, but that is going to catch only 117. Yet there are thousands of people who owe money.
The figures that have been talked about tonight are quite staggering. An interesting statistic that has not come out of this debate, which I want to mention briefly, is that, in the year ended 31 December 2005, $41.5 million in fines were remitted. The initiative to catch the defaulters to try to recoup that money will cost $750,000 annually plus a set-up cost of $938,000. That is a total of $1.69 million. How much will come back? Members should listen to this: these measures will recoup only $1.5 million. A set-up cost of $1.69 million will recoup $1.5 million. It does not take much to work out that that is not good economics.
This legislation is not tough enough. There was an opportunity for the Government to be hard on people who get away with not paying the fines that the courts have laid down. Although National is supporting the legislation, when we are back in Government we will toughen up these provisions, because it is New Zealanders who miss out, and the fines defaulters are having a free ride. With that in mind, we are supporting the legislation, but we do have reservations.
A party vote was called for on the question,
That the Crimes Amendment Bill, the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill, the District Courts Amendment Bill (No 2), the Immigration Amendment Bill, the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill, the Privacy Amendment Bill, the Sentencing Amendment Bill, the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill, and the Tax Administration Amendment Bill be now read a third time.
Ayes 115
- New Zealand Labour 50
- New Zealand National 48
- New Zealand First 7
- Green Party 6
- United Future 3
- Progressive 1
Noes 2
Bills read a third time.