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HARD-CORE fine defaulters will be publicly exposed in newspaper advertisements as moves are made to recover more than $111 million in unpaid fines. The radical measure is being planned by the South Australia State Government's Fines Payment Unit to try to claw back the increasing number of outstanding fines. The initiative will involve publishing the names and last known addresses of fine defaulters who cannot be found through traditional methods. Figures obtained by The Advertiser reveal there are 83,669 people – owing $46,775,623 between them for 156,998 unpaid fines and penalties – who cannot be found. Fines Payment Unit manager Stephen Brady yesterday said the measure, to be carried out under Section 67(1) of the Criminal Law Sentencing Act, would be used in an attempt to find the worst offenders. It was likely to be confined to the 1147 defaulters who each owe more than $5000. Of those, 376 people owe $5000-$6000, 253 owe $6000-$7000, and 343 owe $7000-$10,000. There are 175 people who owe more than $10,000. "I think we would start with small batches, perhaps 10 or 20 at first, and that might flush out others," Mr Brady said. "If we did them in alphabetical order, that may well flush out those a bit further down who knew they were coming up. "We may use the latest matters first, because we would have more chance of locating those people. "The older the matter is, the less likelihood of finding them. "If people are aware of these people and their location and we can get that information from them, it would be very effective for us." "It is only the hard-core group that we . . . are aiming at with this initiative." Fines Payment Unit figures show there are now 405,675 outstanding fines and penalties worth $111,278,531 for offences ranging from traffic infringement notices and parking fines through to court-imposed fines for a wide range of offences. In March last year, the figure stood at 374,048 fines and penalties worth $101,450,135. Mr Brady said while the number of outstanding penalties and fines and their value was increasing, the actual recovery rate was "very good". "We recover the majority, about 78 per cent, of all fines applied," he said. "But there is a hard core of court-imposed penalties of which there is only about 55 per cent collected." Improved data matching with agencies including SA police, the Residential Tenancies Tribunal and the Road Transport Department had resulted in more defaulters being found. "As we improve the system and improve the data matching, we will hopefully contact more people and collect more," Mr Brady said. "We have not written anything off like we used to in the old days after it was on the books for seven years, because we are data-matching and improving the information we have. Our system automatically checks the old files when new files come in. For instance, if you have a penalty from 10 years ago that you have not paid and you come back into the system with another fine, it registers." Mr Brady said matching data with federal agencies such as the Australian Taxation Office and Centrelink would improve the recovery rate even further, but this this could not be done. "There are a number of reasons cited, such as privacy concerns, so this does not happen," he said. Initiatives such as joint operations in which motorists are checked after being stopped by police have proved successful at recovering debts. "We have found a number of people who were unlocatable and have collected money through that process," Mr Brady said. Over the past year, the unit has taken action against 11 people who refused to pay fines. In nine cases, cars were seized and sold to cover the fines and property was seized and sold in the other two. "It is a last resort, after we have tried everything else," Mr Brady said. Customer service initiatives such as the introduction of a call centre hotline (1800 659 538), online payments and direct debit from welfare payments had resulted in increased payment levels. From April, people will be able to pay fines through the B-Pay telephone system. Adelaide Advertiser (20-2-2005) Nigel Hunt |
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