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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 1 Hansard (30 April) . . Page.. 204 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

fact that the courts, before imposing a fine, must take into account the financial circumstances of an offender, as far as they can be ascertained, to ensure that fines are not imposed on people who cannot afford to pay and who are likely to default and end up in prison. In addition, the court may allow time for payment and may also direct payment by instalments. Despite these provisions, the amounts of court fines currently outstanding as at 6 April 1998 were: For the Magistrates Court, 1,911 defaulters, adding up to $983,173; for the Children's Court, 87 defaulters, adding up to $21,765; and for the Supreme Court, 25 defaulters, adding up to $20,726.

This Bill, in conjunction with the other Bills in this package - the Motor Traffic (Amendment) Bill 1998, the Children's Services (Amendment) Bill (No. 2) 1998, the Remand Centres (Amendment) Bill 1998 and the Crimes (Amendment) Bill 1998 - creates a scheme for enforcing unpaid court imposed fines. The main aim of the scheme is to ensure that the integrity of the fine as an order of the court is maintained through providing an effective sanction for noncompliance. The proposed scheme provides a range of options to avoid, as far as possible, imprisonment and to encourage payment.

The sanctions for noncompliance have been framed taking into account the need to ensure equitable application of the sanctions for nonpayment, 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 moneys 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 present.

I propose to improve the process of enforcement and to reduce the incidence of nonpayment 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; it provides for driving licence suspension as an initial enforcement measure; it provides, in addition, for civil enforcement procedures where there is a capacity to pay; and it enables imprisonment to be imposed as a last resort. The scheme will apply to all fines and levies imposed by ACT courts - that is, the Supreme Court, the Magistrates Court and the Children's Court. It will be administered by the Registrar of the Magistrates Court.

The new scheme for the enforcement of court imposed fines has the following features: The court will make an order which will include a fine and specify a time to pay. A penalty notice will be sent to an offender advising the amount to be paid and possible enforcement action upon default in payment. A default notice to pay will be served on an offender, once the time to pay has expired and the offender is in default, notifying the enforcement action that will be taken if the fine remains unpaid. Where a defaulter is licensed to drive and the fine remains unpaid at the expiration of the period specified

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