Ivan Dean, Speeches Index

Tuesday 29 November 2005

MONETARY PENALTIES ENFORCEMENT BILL 2005

Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Mr President, my comments will be short as well. I support the bill and I commend the Government for bringing it forward. About two years ago I wrote to the responsible minister in relation to fine defaulters suggesting that this was a matter that needed urgent attention, and that fine defaulters were causing mayhem by clogging up the courts and not paying their fines. I also said that a much better system was available to us. The minister wrote back and identified that they were very much aware of that and that they took on board some of my suggestions and would bring a bill into this House at the first opportunity. That is now here, Mr President, and it is very good to see.
The situation we have had, and which will continue until this bill gets royal assent, has been quite farcical because we have continued to impose fines on people who the courts know do have the ability to pay those fines, or knew would not pay the fines, for whatever reason. It is infuriating because you would see these people riding around in flashy cars, drinking, smoking and doing all the things that they want to do but refusing point blank to pay their fines, electing to go backwards and forwards to the courts and electing to go to jail of course and not paying their fines and it really was just a nonsensical situation.
Then we had others out there committing more crime to pay off their fines because they were getting themselves into desperate positions, so it is very good to see this system now coming out. This model is not unlike the one I suggested to the minister at the time that I thought was a good model, which was the South Australian one. It puts into place a lot of things that are occurring within that State where they have had extreme success at getting people to pay off their fines and I think the fact that vehicles can be taken and licences removed and all those other things will have a big impact on people and we will find that there will be a turnaround in the number of defaulters we have out there. I will not be surprised if we cannot cut that 50 per cent I think it is of outstanding fine defaulters by about 50 per cent. That will be a tremendous move and position for this State of course because that is money that this State could do with and money that the State is owed at the end of the day. So I commend the Government for bringing this bill forward.

Ms Thorp - I might stop picking on you if you keep this up.

Mr Aird - That's the aim.

Mr DEAN - You are right. I am showing my extreme independence.

Mr Aird - You're saving your non-independence for best.

Mr DEAN - We need to get that out there, but having said that, this is a good bill. It has been well put together and I commend those people in the Government who have been working on it. Accordingly, I will be supporting the bill, Mr President.

MONETARY PENALTIES ENFORCEMENT BILL 2005 (No. 76)
In Committee

Clause 59 -
(Suspension of vehicle registration)
Mr DEAN - We had a couple of issues there and it has just come to me that in certain circumstances where a car cannot be driven on a road, where it is not registered, the driver or the owner of the vehicle has the right to reclaim from the transport department the outstanding moneys that are unused on the registration of that vehicle. In this instance will that apply? The second question is that I notice under clause 59(3) that if a vehicle registration suspended under this section is transferred, the suspension ceases to have an effect. The unfortunate thing that I see will be happening there is that the crooks out there will soon get to know what is going on and we will find these vehicles being transferred into their partner's names, their wives' names, husbands' names or whatever, and they will be avoiding this part of the act.

Mr AIRD - There are a couple of issues here. If the registration is under suspension then it is like a cancellation as such, so there would not be any monetary penalty. Under the cancellation I suppose they could cash in their plates.

Mr Dean - That's what I was getting at - cashing it in.

Mr AIRD - In that event, when you think about all the oncosts associated with that, would it be worth their while? In terms of the transfer there is an equity issue here in terms of social equity. If a husband, for instance, has had the registration in his name and wants to transfer it because his wife needs to go and get the kids to school or to doctors or whatever, then they might deem it appropriate to transfer it, but there is a cost to that in terms of duty costs. They would have to weigh up the costs and benefits so that it might be easier to find the money to start repaying the fine rather than going down this path in terms of incurring further costs. To this end it is going to be an interesting one to observe in practice. If there is a level of abuse of this, then obviously we might have to do something about it. The intention is to try to weigh up trying to cover the fines and trying to find some social equity and be fair to a household. As I say, if that gets out of kilter and we discover it has been abused, then we would have to take some remedial action to try to cover that down. It is very hard to know all the circumstances, the range of fines. It is going to be an interesting judgment that people would make in terms of transfer of the registration to see if it is a reasonable cost, given that there is a duty cost on that, to see if they would take that action.

Ms Forrest - There may be an instance where you have a vehicle jointly registered and you could take the one person off that registration. That would not impose a great cost, I would think.

Mr AIRD - It is still a change of registration.

Ms Forrest - It is, is it, even just removing a name?

Mr AIRD - Yes it is. That happens in any event. If there is a car in joint names and you transfer it to a single, you are transferring an interest over to another party and therefore you are paying stamp duty on it.

Ms Smith - Half that.

Mr AIRD - We cannot cover every situation here. There will be occasions when it is a matter of personal judgment about their own finances. There is a situation here where some people cannot pay fines and some will not and they are the ones you want to keep an eye on in terms of these types of provisions. I am sure in time there will be an ongoing review of how effective these methods are and some will be better than others. If some appear to have been abused then we will have to try to cover those off.
Clause 59 agreed to and bill taken through the remainder of the Committee stage.

Return To Main Page.

Return To Speeches.