Third Readings

Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) Link to this

I move, That the District Courts Amendment Bill, the Land Transport Amendment Bill, the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 3), the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 2), the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 4), the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Amendment Bill, the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 2), the Disputes Tribunals Amendment Bill (No 2), the Family Courts Amendment Bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill, the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill (No 3), the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 1978 Amendment Bill, the Personal Property Securities Amendment Bill (No 2), the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Amendment Bill, the Privacy Amendment Bill (No 2), the Railways Amendment Bill, the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No 3), the Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 5), the Social Security Amendment Bill (No 4), and the Tax Administration Amendment Bill be now read a third time. These bills have been divided from the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill, and, as such, represent possibly the most comprehensive reform of the enforcement of fines, reparation, and civil debt in over a decade.

As at 30 June 2011, $666.5 million in fines, including reparation, await collection. Although this is $112 million less than when the bill was introduced nearly 15 months ago, further efforts are needed if fines are to remain a credible sanction for breaches of the law. Regular surveys of the public perception of courts find that half of the respondents believe that offenders can avoid paying their reparation or fines. This legislation will modernise the collection of fines, and introduce new enforcement tools, to encourage people to voluntarily pay their fines and reparation.

The policy development was commenced under the previous Minister for Courts, the Hon Rick Barker, in 2007, and the Government acknowledges and recognises that. The present Minister for Courts, the Hon Georgina te Heuheu, has expanded the scope of the legislative reforms, particularly to address inconsistencies across the relevant legislation.

The amendments to the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 establish a single, comprehensive definition of “fine”, which includes all court-imposed sentences and orders of reparation, court-imposed fines, infringement penalties filed at court for enforcement, court costs, and, of course, the offender levy. Cross references to this definition will be inserted into the other principal fines enforcement legislation. The legislation also aligns the provisions relating to the payment of monetary penalties from the sale of proceeds of seized, confiscated, and forfeited property across four Acts: the Summary Proceedings Act, the Sentencing Act 2002, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, and, of course, the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009, to ensure that all monetary penalties can be paid out of these proceeds and that priority is given to the payment of reparation.

The legislation introduces three new enforcement tools to encourage those with overdue fines and reparation to pay or enter into an appropriate payment arrangement. First, the legislation allows the amount of the person’s overdue fines to be released to the credit-reporting industry, and, in turn, authorises the Ministry of Justice to use updated addresses and other information supplied by credit reporters for fines enforcement. Second, the legislation gives the courts, in effect, super-priority over secured creditors for the sale proceeds of seized goods, when a person has unpaid fines and a creditor lends him or her money to buy an asset—for example, a car—that is used as security for the debt. Third, amendments to the Land Transport Act 1998 enable the Ministry of Justice to impose a driver licence stop order, which suspends any driver’s licences of individuals with overdue traffic fines, or, if they do not have a driver’s licence, prevents them from getting one.

The amendments to the Sentencing Act will enable the courts to resentence a person who has not complied with a sentence or order of reparation, by drawing on the full range of alternative sentencing options that were available for the original offence. The legislation also clarifies that payment of reparation has priority over payment of other fines when distributing funds recovered from the sale of seized, forfeited, and confiscated property under the Acts identified earlier, which is consistent with the Government’s response to the Law Commission’s report on compensating crime victims.

Finally, this legislation, importantly, will improve enforcement processes for judgment debtors and creditors. In particular, the amendments to the District Courts Act 1947, the Disputes Tribunals Act 1988, and the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 will make it easier to establish an attachment order to make deductions from a person’s salary, wage, or benefit to resolve an outstanding judgment debt, as determined by a court or a tribunal.

The long course of this legislation means that there are many people I would like to acknowledge for their contribution to this legislation, including officials from a range of departments: the Parliamentary Counsel Office, the Law Commission, local authorities, the judiciary, the Privacy Commissioner, representatives of the credit-reporting industry, the previous Minister for Courts, the Hon Rick Barker, my colleague the Hon Georgina te Heuheu, and all those who made submissions to assist the Law and Order Committee in its consideration. The reforms contained in this bill will enhance the credibility of monetary penalties as alternatives to prison or community-based sentences, and reduce the compliance costs of using the civil debt recovery system. I commend this legislation to the House.

Hon RICK BARKER (Labour) Link to this

Firstly, I acknowledge the compliments paid to me by the Hon Simon Power, and say that they are appreciated. Very seldom do we have across the House acknowledgements of work. I say in that regard that this legislation arising from the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill should be seen in the context of a range of bills to try to modernise and update the administration of justice in this country. When I first became the Minister for Courts I was quite surprised at how antiquated the administration of justice was in New Zealand. It was complex, it was arcane, and things were done that were appropriate 50 to 60 years ago but are no longer appropriate in the modern time. For example, if a person had a debt to the High Court, and they had a debt to a District Court, two people had to serve the notice of debt—one for the High Court and one for the District Court. Well, as far as the person who owed the money was concerned, the debt was to the courts and to the State. But the State had a different perspective on it. This meant that there was a considerable amount of duplication. These circumstances arose, I think, principally because—not wishing to cast aspersions on the efforts of my predecessors—there was an overdue emphasis on looking at justice as policy and public law, rather than the administration of law.

I think that we should have spent a lot more time on looking at the administration of law. Personally, I did not see myself as having a great deal of expertise in public law, but I did see myself as an administrator. So when I looked at the court system, I looked at it as an administrator would, and asked “What needs to be done?”. A great deal has been done, and I want to acknowledge the good work and cooperation of the Hon Simon Power—for example, in respect of depositions, which are not touched on in this legislation but are a very important form of reform. I know there is a substantial amount of other reform going on in addition to this legislation to improve the administration of justice. I think this is an area on which all sides of the House should work cooperatively, and constructively, to make sure that our justice system performs to the highest level it possibly can. There is a great deal of room for more improvements, and I hope to see many more courts and criminal matters bills, and other justice bills, come before this House to improve the administration of justice. We tend to spend time as a Parliament on legislation that has a high public profile and is about offences and offending, and so on. But we spend little time on legislation about the administration of justice; this is one such bill. As I repeat myself, I hope we see many more of them.

The legislation covers a lot of bills, whose names the Hon Simon Power has read out. I was quite surprised when I came into contact with his work about just how many agencies were involved. It is a vast network, and all have to be actively engaged in the way in which New Zealand does its legislative work, which I think is very good. There is a high degree of consultation with the local authorities, and with all the other agencies—police, and so on—to make sure that the legislation works, and works well. There was a clear determination to make sure that it worked well, and it was because our systems were not working.

Very often we had in the courts young people who were confronted with $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, or even $70,000 worth of outstanding fines, and the system seemed to be incapable of dealing with it. It is a little bit like the old saying of Lord Maynard Keynes: “If you owe the bank $100, you’ve got the problem. If you owe the bank $1 million, the bank has got the problem.” So it was with the justice system. If young people owed a small amount, then they had the problem, but when they owed $70,000 the system of justice was in the spotlight, and I think that is a significant problem. I regret to say that this legislation does not do as much as I think it could have in this area. I think that two other interventions could have been made, and I hope they come later. The first is early intervention so that when a young person’s fines get to a certain amount—say, $2,000 or $3,000—they are case-managed. There is no point in our trying to case-manage this when the young person is before the court with $70,000 worth of fines. I think that is an area in which we can get involved.

But the area where we have taken a strong lead is in relation to outstanding fines. I will repeat what I said in the Committee stage. One of the things that drove me on this matter was a letter from a constituent, a person who was known to me, whose mother had been involved in a dreadful accident. At the court hearing it came to his attention that the young man driving the car had approximately $40,000 of outstanding fines and a range of other prior convictions. The letter went on to ask whether the system did not understand or appreciate that this young man was a menace on the road and was likely to cause an accident. The accident that occurred was to his mother, who was in hospital in considerable pain. There can be only one answer to that question: we should have known and we should have taken action. But we did not, and the system needed to change. People needed to be held to account for their fines. The point was that this young person could drive, incur a fine, and not pay it with impunity. Because he could avoid his fines with impunity he saw the justice system as lacking teeth, lacking enforcement, and lacking credibility, and I thought it was time for us to do something.

Three things will happen as a consequence of this information. The first is that a person’s licence will be under threat if they do not pay their fines. The legislation provides for a driver licence stop order, which will say to the young person that if they have not taken responsibility for their fines, their licence will go. The second thing that will happen is that we will deal with a problem brought to my attention by officials that some young people were getting high-speed, expensive cars, driving very badly, incurring huge numbers of fines, and when the car was seized and sold, the finance company got all the money for the car and there was nothing left to pay the fines. The young person whose car had been seized would immediately turn up to a dealer again, finance himself into another car, and carry on driving down the road. The dealer knew the circumstances of this young person’s driving and what was going on, but there was no disincentive for the dealer not to finance the vehicle. Well, there will now be a strong disincentive. If a young person has a substantial amount of money owing in fines and reparation for their bad driving, then if a dealer sells that young person a car and the car is impounded, the dealer will now be told that the fines and the reparation outstanding will be taken out of the proceeds of that vehicle first, and only if there is something left over will the dealer get their money out. This will be a strong disincentive to financing bad drivers back into more vehicles, and I applaud that. There were some concerns about this from a privacy point of view, but I am happy to report that the Privacy Commissioner spoke to the Law and Order Committee and was very happy with the arrangements we had.

The third element is that people were racking up large amounts of fines and this was having no effect on their particular financial position—it did not affect their credit. They would therefore be paying off multiple debts; they would pay off the debts they owed to the private sector and not pay the debts they owed to the Crown. They would not pay the reparation. If they paid off their debts to the Crown and the reparation ahead of the private sector debts, and left the private sector debts, then those debts would impact upon their creditworthiness, but if they paid off their private sector debts and did not pay off the debts to the Crown, then it would appear to all the world that they had a good debt record and they would have a positive credit rating. I thought this was wrong. This legislation changes this so that if a person has a debt to the Crown for fines and reparation, it will be on the public record and it will affect them. When that person goes to get a credit card or finance of any sort the finance company will see that that person has $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, $40,000 or whatever amount outstanding and will know the sort of person they are and their liability. This will put extra pressure on those people to pay.

This is good legislation that contains many things that will improve the processes for collecting debts and for putting attachment orders on people with debts, and it will simplify the system across the board. It will mean that one official from the Ministry of Justice will be able to serve debts from multiple courts and multiple jurisdictions. All of this is good stuff. There is nothing down in this legislation at all. The last point I want to come to is, I think, a very important one: it is the ability to resentence. I think this is very important because many young people have gone before the courts and promised to pay reparation and that has been taken into account when they have been sentenced, but they have not done so and they have laughed at the courts because of that. This change will say to them that if they do not pick up on the promise they made, they will come back to court, they will be held to account, and the book will be thrown at them. This is a very good provision. Thank you.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) Link to this

The legislation will enhance the courts’ powers to collect fines, reparation payments, and civil debt and will strengthen enforcement measures available when people do not arrange or continue to pay outstanding moneys as ordered by the courts. I thank all those involved, including the Law and Order Committee, and commend the legislation to the House.

LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) Link to this

I am very pleased to stand at the third reading and speak in support of this legislation. Indeed, I spoke several times in the Committee stage, because I believe that it is very important legislation.

In starting, as I have previously done, I acknowledge all the work that was done under Labour, with Rick Barker. But also, without wanting to be too negative, I say that it is a pity that it is only now that this legislation has come before the House. It was ready, and could have been introduced in the 90 days of action, when the Government first came into office. That would have been—

Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) Link to this

This has been a long and complex process getting to where we are today, the third readings of the legislation arising out of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. The bill was introduced last year in April, the first reading was in May, the Law and Order Committee reported in October, and the second reading was in November, but the Committee of the whole House did not convene until this week—7 months later. The reason for this was the sheer complexity of the original bill. It was described by the Minister for Courts as the most comprehensive set of legislative improvement in the recovery of unpaid fines, reparation, and civil debt in 12 years. The amount of unpaid debt stands somewhere around $700 million, so there is a strong rationale to improve matters. We acknowledge the intent of the Government to simplify what is a complex matter, as the Minister said a short while ago, to arrive at, for example, a single definition of “fines”, “court costs”, “offenders’ levies”, and other concepts.

The original bill itself would amend four principal Acts: the District Courts Act, the Land Transport Act, the Summary Proceedings Act, and the Sentencing Act, and would make consequential amendments to 16 other statutes. In the Committee of the whole House this week it was agreed to divide the bill into 20 separate bills that cover, in addition to these four, the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, the Customs and Excise Act, the Disputes Tribunals Act, the Family Courts Act, the Personal Property Securities Act, the Misuse of Drugs Act, the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act, the Privacy Act, the Railways Act, the Residential Tenancies Act, the Social Security Act, and the Tax Administration Act. This gives some insight into how hugely complex the changes are, which has been commented on by both Government and Opposition members already, and their ramifications across the statute book.

At the first reading I advanced the Green Party’s concern that the statistics we have to hand in this country on this kind of thing appear to be unsatisfactory. We sought to research the question of whether the fines exacted on convicted defendants fall disproportionately on lower-income groups. Neither the Parliamentary Library nor the Minister of Justice seemed able to ascertain that fundamental fact pertaining to social equity in our judicial system.

There is a paucity of sociological statistics in this country, which has the effect of thwarting social engineering and legislative insight. We suspected, though—yet we acknowledged that there was not conclusive proof available—that the fines were exacted disproportionately on the lower-income group, which is, moreover, correlated with age and ethnicity difference, and Lynne Pillay commented on that just a moment ago.

We were concerned that the bill would authorise home detention or even prison sentences as substitutes for unaffordable and unenforceable reparation orders. This, we believe, was inappropriate and would add strain to the already overstretched prison facilities, and we opposed the proposal of vehicle seizure and confiscation as introducing an unduly harsh penalty regime for unpaid fines.

The Green Party is not represented on the Law and Order Committee, so did not make an input into the report. But in the second reading we commented further, with a view to making constructive input. We advanced an alternative approach for unpaid fines, to get alongside defaulters and to ameliorate the problem through a process of consultation. A repayment system over a period of time could, we suggested, be devised that does not impose an unduly harsh financial burden on people who, in today’s world, are finding things tough. A supportive, rather than punitive, regime for people who are struggling to abide by judicial penalties is, in our view, the politically preferred and societally wiser route. Overall we saw the bill as counter-productive to the stated goal. Rather than getting more money from people, it is likely to give more social problems through greater unemployment, incarceration, alienation, and, possibly, racial tension.

The debate in Committee saw a slew of amendments put forward by the Government itself, designed to streamline some of the flaws it had perceived in the bill as originally drafted. None of this is to criticise the good intent of the Government in drafting the legislation and, for that matter, its efforts to keep Opposition members informed and updated on the increasingly complex critical path it trod with the bill. We have followed the rather bewildering fate of Supplementary Order Papers 201 and 202, and then 243 and 244. We could not agree with these amendments, because ultimately they would, in our view, weaken people’s rights: specifically, the proposed changes that strengthen the regime to allow personal property to be seized when someone might not have been convicted, yet a judge thinks they could be involved in crime, and for the incarceration of people who do not pay fines. Put simply, putting people in jail increases the likelihood that they will commit further crimes.

We do not think this is the best outcome for New Zealand and our communities, so we could not vote for those changes. That being said, I thank the Minister and her officials for their effort in compiling an annotated legislation guidebook, and subsequently its corrigendum, and then the addendum to the corrigendum. They have certainly tried to keep the faith in this procedural respect. But none of this has altered our fundamental judgment about the far-reaching shortcomings in the bill or, to be precise, the thrust of the original bill in the 20 separate pieces of legislation now before us. The omnibus legislation fails the tests laid out in the Green justice policy platform, which clearly states a preference for, and support of, provisions to deduct unpaid restitution and court fines through the Inland Revenue Department or Income Support mechanisms. As I have noted, when offenders receive income support or are of limited means, they should be given a choice to either pay off fines or provide restitution in some other way. We remain of the view that the main provisions of the bill are an affront to national justice, and a danger to the social cohesion of the country. As a result, we remain opposed to the bills, and shall be voting against them at the third reading.

RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. I stand at the third readings of the bills arising out of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill to acknowledge on behalf of the Māori Party our utmost respect for the sponsor of this legislation. If I could be so bold, I might mention that it takes a Māori woman to make sweeping changes that encompass some 20 separate bills, overflowing on to two pages of the Order Paper. This legislation is an absolutely fitting tribute to the skills and leadership of Minister te Heuheu. Georgina te Heuheu is well used to breaking new ground. She was the first Māori woman to gain a law degree, and to be admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court. She is the first Māori woman to chair the Māori Affairs Committee, and only the second Māori woman to be appointed to a New Zealand Cabinet. In the decade prior to entering Parliament in 1997 Minister te Heuheu was a member of the Waitangi Tribunal, a director of the Māori Development Corporation, and a member of the Courts Consultative Committee. I mention the vast experience that the Minister has brought to this legislation as a tribute to one of our most distinguished wahine Māori politicians. Her decision to retire from politics at the end of this term will be a loss to the executive and to the House. I have no doubt that her expertise and knowledge will be eagerly sought after by Tūwharetoa, Tūhoe, Te Arawa, and Ngāti Awa when she returns home.

I want to make one other acknowledgment, and that is to John McEnteer, who has applied himself conscientiously to the task of getting this legislation through the House.

The bill seeks to address a general concern about the amount of overdue fines, the dissatisfaction of victims when offenders do not comply with reparation orders, and the frustration of creditors and debtors using the courts’ civil debt enforcement process. There are longstanding matters of concern, which the Minister herself has dealt with in a comprehensive and efficient manner.

The general concept of criminal matters and penalties is not exactly a matter that our constituency has raised with us as a matter of priority. The Māori Party does, however, support the effective use of taxpayers’ money as it relates to a more efficient court system, including the collection of fines. I want to be quite clear that we distinguish between the action of the State pre-court, the process of sentencing, prosecutions, and charges, and the actual administration of the sentence handed down.

The Māori Party has consistently raised concerns about the administration of the justice system. This nation, to our shame, has a system of justice in which one group of people—indigenous New Zealanders—is disproportionately overrepresented. Māori are four to five times more likely to be apprehended, prosecuted, and convicted for a criminal offence than non-Māori. This legislation does nothing about that, but we are hopeful that the work taking place under the Address the Drivers of Crime strategy will make some desperately needed progress, with the fence at the top of the cliff, rather than the bat at the bottom.

This raft of legislation is all about honouring one’s dues and paying up on debts incurred. This is an approach to enhance the administration of the fines system, rather than letting things slip and eventually sending recalcitrant offenders off to jail. We have had a huge issue in New Zealand of overdue penalties, so anything that can improve upon the administration of the system has to be supported. Finally, I have to say that of course we would rather not be devoting some time in the House to the issue of reparation, of crimes and punishment. It will be a great day when our focus can be on well-being and whānau ora rather than courts and criminal matters.

SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) Link to this

I rise in support of these bills, which were formerly part of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. I am a member of the Law and Order Committee, and I congratulate the officials and the members of the committee, particularly the former Minister for Courts, the Hon Rick Barker, who made a substantial contribution on that committee. Like the previous speaker, Rahui Katene, I also pay homage, I guess, or recognition to the current Minister for Courts, who has shepherded to this stage what has been very challenging legislation.

At the moment, young people, and not so young people, owe the State $672.2 million in outstanding fines. This Government wants to send a very clear message to those people that if they break the law or infringe against the State, there will be repercussions. For that reason, and because such good work has been done by the select committee and the Parliament, this legislation has my full support.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) Link to this

I call the honourable member Raymond Huo. Ni hao ma.

RAYMOND HUO (Labour) Link to this

Kia ora. That is a very nice comment from you. On the third reading of these important bills, I acknowledge the great work done by the Hon Rick Barker. I also thank the Ministers Georgina te Heuheu and Simon Power for continuing the great initiatives. Work on this legislation commenced in 2004, through a review of the infringement system undertaken by the Ministry of Justice and the Law Commission. A joint discussion paper entitled Review of the Infringement System: Options for Reform was issued in November 2004. Initial reforms were made by Cabinet in March 2008, approving guidelines for new infringement schemes developed by the Ministry of Justice.

I outlined that background in order to show that there is a gap between then and now, and I acknowledge Dr Kennedy Graham, who also commented in a similar fashion in his speech. The original bill was practically ready when Labour left Government, and I wonder—and this concern was expressed by my colleague Lynne Pillay earlier—why it has taken so long for this legislation to come before the House. This legislation is far more important and urgent than a number of other pieces of legislation that have been rammed through by the National Government in urgency sessions. This is an urgent matter. Figures released earlier this year showed that between July 2008 and June 2009 the courts wiped $95.1 million of the total $806 million owed in unpaid fines. The amount of outstanding fines is increasing each year, and it is a problem that needs to be addressed. The amendments in this legislation will address concerns about the amount of overdue fines, the dissatisfaction of victims when offenders do not comply with reparation orders, and the frustration of creditors and debtors who use the courts’ civil debt enforcement process.

The original bill was an omnibus bill, and it was divided into 20 bills in the Committee of whole House stage. Bills with substantial amendments include the District Courts Amendment Bill, the Land Transport Amendment Bill, and the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 3). My colleagues have spoken rather substantially on those bills, and I will reiterate only some important points at this stage. The first one is with regard to attachment orders. Attachment orders are used to allow deductions to be made from wages and benefits to pay debts. At present, attachment orders can be imposed only after an examination hearing to assess the judgment debtor’s ability to pay the debt. Both parties are required to attend the hearing, which can be inconvenient and incur delays and costs. This legislation aims to streamline this enforcement process, by enabling judgment creditors to file a financial statement or ask the court to assess the debtor’s financial means in the debtor’s absence. But judgment creditors will still be able to apply for a formal examination hearing, of course, which both parties have to attend. It is believed that this process will avoid delays, costs, and inconvenience for all parties concerned.

At the Law and Order Committee we received 16 submissions from individuals, organisations, and other parties. Some submitters commented that the removal of the requirement for a hearing personally attended by the creditor and the debtor is a favoured change, because of the money and time spent attending those hearings. Other concerns included concern that an individual may be subject to enforcement action without being aware of this, as a result of the removal of this requirement. Some submitters also expressed their concerns about relying on the presumption of service and the weakening of the current service provisions.

I would like to note MoneyShop and its submission. MoneyShop was concerned about the lower priority given to civil debts that are being resolved by an attachment order when Government debts—such as fines, for example—are also being collected by attachment orders. It was concerned that priority should be based on the time of action, as is the case for all civil debts, rather than the priority order being set in legislation. I agreed, however, with the advice given by the officials. Priority for enforcing deductions from wages and benefits is driven by the interaction of various statutes, including the Child Support Act, the District Courts Act, the Summary Proceedings Act, and so on and so forth. It reflects the general principle that public debt takes priority over private debt. Any change to this principle and the interactions between the statutes is beyond the scope of this legislation.

Regarding the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 3), some substantial amendments that are being made include credit reporting, super-priority, and the registrar’s powers if a fine is unpaid or if time-payment arrangements or attachment orders are cancelled. I note the submission from the Privacy Commissioner. The Privacy Commissioner was particularly concerned about the release of Government-held personal information to private sector credit reporters, and the shift in the use of personal information that this signifies. The commissioner recommended that clause 69, which sets out the credit-reporting initiative, be removed from the original bill. I also acknowledge a submission by Veda Advantage regarding new section 92D, inserted by that clause. It submitted that the legislation should allow for online or telephone communications. I further note recommendations from other officials that new section 92D(d)(i) be amended to provide a technology-neutral method of recording agreement in order to allow consent to be expressed in multiple ways—for example, in writing, electronically, or verbally. We are living in a modern world; there is no doubt about that.

However, I have three further concerns. The first one is there are more than 80 issuing authorities and, obviously, that impedes the collection of fines. To remedy the situation, Labour suggested that a single agency be established to take responsibility for fines. My colleagues and I raised this matter in our previous contributions, and in particular in the Committee stage, but it appears that no action whatsoever has been taken, so the proposal has been omitted and that is very regrettable.

Secondly, with regard to the so-called three-strikes offence, I note that Minister te Heuheu intended to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper in the Committee stage that would have allowed offenders convicted of a three-strikes offence, but who were not warned of the consequences of further offending, to be brought back before the court to have the warning issued at a later date. I did not have the opportunity to take a further call in the Committee stage. I would otherwise like to hear from the Minister with regard to the rationale for that and related matters.

Thirdly, and with less trepidation, I note that the regulatory impact statement duly pointed out that the credit-reporting component of this legislation is inconsistent with the Privacy Act 1993 and the Credit Reporting Privacy Code 2004. The legislation overrules the Privacy Act, but provides that the Ministry of Justice will conduct a review after 2 years of the credit-reporting scheme to determine whether the outcomes justify the impact on privacy. With those notes, I commend the legislation to the House.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) Link to this

I am very pleased to stand in support of the third readings of the bills arising from the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill. The public have justifiably reacted against the figures released recently, on 31 March 2011, that state there are at present $672 million worth of unpaid fines. I think the Minister of Justice made a very interesting comment. A recent survey discovered that half of the respondents said that they thought they could get away with not paying their fines. Not only is there great concern for the amount outstanding but also I believe that the general public are terribly concerned about this attitude, which prevails amongst so many.

The purpose of this legislation is to enhance the courts’ power to collect fines, reparation payments, and civil debt, and to strengthen the enforcement measures available when people do not arrange to pay, or do not continue to pay, outstanding moneys as ordered by the courts. This legislation will see reparations paid sooner rather than later. The legislation notes that reparations receive priority over all other fines. Reparations are court-ordered payments to victims. This legislation is designed to strengthen the recovery of these unpaid moneys, and is the most comprehensive set of legislative measures in 12 years.

There was a very interesting process to go through on the Law and Order Committee. I give my regards to the previous Minister for Courts for the work that he did. It is my pleasure to commend this legislation to the House.

LOUISA WALL (Labour) Link to this

Tenā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Ngā mihi ki a koutou katoa. Kei te tautoko au i te Wiki o te Reo Māori. Ngā mihi ki a koe, whaea Georgina te Heuheu.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Greetings to you all. I endorse Māori Language Week. Greetings to you, aunt Georgina te Heuheu.]

I want to acknowledge the Minister for Courts, who is not in the House—

Dr CAM CALDER (National) Link to this

This legislation went through the Law and Order Committee in a spirit of cooperation and collegiality. I commend this legislation to the House.