Ombudsman’s report backs Coalition’s fines reforms

Attorney-General Robert Clark today said that the Ombudsman’s report on warrants enforcement is a damning indictment of eleven years of failure by the previous Labor Government and highlights the importance the Victorian Coalition Government’s fines reform project.

“This report sets out in stark detail yet another problem area left behind by the former Labor Government that the Coalition Government is now having to fix,” Mr Clark said.

“It also shows the importance of the top-to-bottom overhaul of Victoria’s fines collection and warrant enforcement system that the Coalition Government announced in May this year.”

The report shows how the former Labor Government:
•failed to respond effectively to repeated warnings by the Auditor-General, Ombudsman and Victorian Law Reform Commission about inadequacies in the fines collection system (pp.5, 11, 12);
•bungled the implementation of new sanctions introduced in 2006, leaving critical aspects of the Infringements Act virtually unworkable (pp.5, 19-20);
•failed to upgrade the Sheriff’s Office’s IT system, which is now 15 years old and inadequate (pp.6, 16-17); and
•wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on a failed attempt to purchase new fines management software in 2007, because of failure to properly specify what the system was required to do (p.17).

In contrast, the Ombudsman has highlighted the importance and benefits of the Coalition Government’s fines reform initiatives, finding (p.6) that ‘…when the reforms proposed by IMES are implemented together with my recommendations, IMES should be able to hold offenders accountable in the future.’

The Coalition Government’s fines reform initiatives include changes to provide:
•a single integrated system to track and collect infringement fines, court fines, victim compensation orders and civil judgment debts;
•simpler and shorter timelines and notifications for collection and enforcement;
•a focus on the total amount owed by individuals, rather than on the separate debts for each fine or infringement;
•better arrangements to pay debts by instalments;
•earlier intervention when individuals accumulate multiple fines or large debts; and
•better options for people to clear their debts through community service when they can’t pay upfront or by instalments.

These fines reforms are backed by $34.5 million of capital and recurrent funding in this year’s budget to upgrade IT systems and increase enforcement capacity.