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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4670 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing)

The sanctions for noncompliance have been framed taking into account the need to ensure equitable application of the sanctions for non-payment, the need to reduce the number of fine defaulters in custody, and the need to ensure that the fine enforcement system is efficient and effective. There is a duty on the Registrar of the Magistrates Court, who is tasked with enforcing the scheme, to ensure that the fine enforcement procedures maximise the collection of monies due to the Territory. It is my belief that this can be achieved by improving the certainty of enforcement and the awareness of the enforcement procedures within the general community. The proposed system does not seek to rely upon imprisonment as an incentive to pay fines although imprisonment is retained as a last resort. It is intended that, by having an efficiently managed and timely enforcement procedure in place, offenders will pay their fines because they know they will not be able to avoid the enforcement measures as they can at the present.

I propose to improve the process of enforcement and to reduce the incidence of non-payment of fines by the implementation of a new fine default scheme. The scheme encourages payment of fines by offenders through increasing the expectation that defaulters who have the capacity to pay will be made to pay or will be subject to new enforcement measures. The scheme:-

. enables determination at an early stage of the capacity of an offender to pay;

. provides for driving licence suspension as an initial enforcement measure;

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