Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): I am delighted to join the debate in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Fines Reform and Other Matters) Bill 2022, which will continue our efforts to make Victoria’s infringement system fairer, more efficient and more transparent. Let us be honest: nobody likes fines. That is just a fact. I am sure there is not a member in this house who has not been on the receiving end of a fine for one reason or another. It is never fun, nobody likes it, but fines are there for a reason, and that reason is making our community safer and fairer for everyone. Over the years the fines system in Victoria has undergone a process of significant change because it is critical to get the balance right between reprimanding wrongdoing, incentivising people to follow the rules and acknowledging that sometimes people do face particular hardships and circumstances that should be taken into account. Importantly, built into the foundations of our fines system is the principle that fines should be proportionate and should acknowledge wrongdoing without a person entering the justice system, and that aspect is very important particularly in light of the layers of disadvantage that many Victorians do face.
As the member for Northcote, my office regularly assists locals who have received fines. We help them to follow up through the review process and do what we can to advocate for residents when their claims relate to exceptional or special circumstances. That could be anything from mental health issues to disability or to financial hardship. Oftentimes these residents are elderly and have low levels of English as well. The system is very hard for people like this. In some cases we have been successful, in other cases not, but what is clear is the distress caused to individuals when they receive a fine and they feel that it has not been warranted or when they do not have the capacity to pay their fine. There is no doubt that these people need and deserve an opportunity to have these fines reviewed and potentially withdrawn or a payment plan put in place. It is critical that the process to do so is fair and that it is accessible.
In 2019 our government established the Fines Reform Advisory Board to provide independent advice on how the system was working and critically how it could be improved. The community legal sector, law enforcement and support organisations have played a key role in highlighting areas requiring improvement and advocating for changes. This government has listened, and we are committed to delivering continuous improvement to make the system fairer for everyone. Of the 24 recommendations made by the fines advisory board, we have already fully or partially implemented eight. This work has seen a range of measures funded and implemented to support vulnerable and disadvantaged Victorians experiencing hardship. It includes facilitating payment plans to help reduce the financial impact on people who may not be able to afford that single payment. It also includes the creation of the work and development permit scheme, which allows eligible people to undertake activities or counselling as an alternative means of satisfying their infringement. This could be community work, financial counselling, drug and alcohol treatment, medical or mental health treatment, education or training, or mentoring for young people. It is a very different way of looking at infringements. Not only does it provide an avenue for people experiencing hardship to meet their fine obligations, but it creates a pathway for people to access the support and treatment they need to move forward in a positive way.
We have also implemented a family violence scheme to better support people affected by family violence in the infringement system. This is a circumstance which I encountered very often in my work as an adviser to former Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence Fiona Richardson. Too often a perpetrator racks up debt in the victim’s name. He could be driving her car and racking up speeding and parking fines, for example. In family violence situations she might not be safe naming him as the driver. She might not even be aware of the debt until it is crushingly high. No-one should ever have to accrue debt out of fear of violence, so the system now allows for the withdrawal of fines for people impacted by family violence when it contributed to it being received in the first place. Under the scheme around 91 per cent of applications have been found to be eligible, with more than $3.5 million in fines being withdrawn. I remember back when this was first recommended, and I am proud that this is now making a difference.
In 2021 we also introduced changes which are making it easier to apply for special or exceptional circumstances, and we introduced a new category for people who cannot show a causal link between their condition or circumstances and the offence itself but rather are impacted in a way that diminishes their ability to pay or deal with the fine. This is a change that was specifically called for by community legal services and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, and it has been warmly welcomed since its introduction.
The amendments contained in this bill build on these reforms by implementing a further five recommendations of the fines advisory board report. First and foremost amongst the changes is a further strengthening of the support for people with special or exceptional circumstances by providing additional time for people to provide that supporting evidence. We know that when people originally apply for a review under special or exceptional circumstances, they might not have the evidence or supporting documents they need to prove that they are eligible—and collecting that documentation can take some time. Whether that be seeking medical documents from a specialist, a police report, a statutory declaration or a letter from a support worker, these things all take time, and if you are in a vulnerable situation such as experiencing homelessness or severe financial hardship, it is especially hard. This change ensures people have the time they need and the flexibility of process to access the support and exemptions that they deserve.
We are also making improvements to the time-served scheme, a scheme that allows prisoners to have fines acquitted by serving time concurrently or cumulatively with other sentences. We know that people with debt are more likely to return to prison—50 per cent compared to only 30 per cent of those without. To help reduce recidivism and give people leaving the justice system the best chance of staying out of it, we are extending the time-served scheme to people with unpaid court fines, and we are recognising time served on remand, even when they do not receive a prison sentence, as eligible for that scheme. As noted by the Law Institute of Victoria, the time-served scheme functions to remove the risk of fines resulting in further arrest, imprisonment or financial hardship.
Finally, this bill will also improve the fairness of Victoria’s fines system by providing toll operators with the power to withdraw infringements. Currently toll operators are able to request that Victoria Police issue an infringement notice to drivers under certain circumstances. The changes in this bill will allow toll companies to request that Victoria Police withdraw the fine. This might occur when a fine is already in place and it has been registered with Victoria Police with the individual rapidly accruing debt, but the toll operator discovers that they are experiencing significant financial hardship. The bill will allow them to request that the fine is withdrawn, reflecting the circumstances of that person.
In addition to these three key reforms improving our support for vulnerable Victorians we are also introducing several measures to make the system more transparent, efficient and robust. These include improving transparency by requiring the publication of Attorney-General reports, including information on Fines Victoria’s internal review oversight function. Transparency around internal review processes is particularly important following the 2020 and 2021 Victorian Ombudsman’s reports into internal review processes in some municipal councils. The Ombudsman found that certain councils were wrongfully using private contractors to conduct their supposedly internal reviews and recommended legislative change, so this bill provides additional legal clarity that enforcement agencies, including councils, cannot outsource or engage third parties to perform their internal review function.
In the short time that I have got left before I close, I just want to come back to where I started, and that is that nobody likes fines, but it is incumbent on us to make sure that we have the fairest system possible. I want to acknowledge the many individuals and organisations in my community who are out there every day supporting people through the fines system and advocating for improvements, groups like the Fitzroy Legal Service and the Aboriginal Legal Service and social support organisations like our hardworking neighbourhood houses. The issues addressed in this bill are the issues that these organisations confront on a daily basis for our most vulnerable residents. This bill creates a fairer fines framework for Victoria, and I commend it.
