Fine mess you've got us into says National

New Zealand courts wiped $40 million in fines last year and eight criminals got off fines of more than $70,000, says National law and order spokesman Tony Ryall.

Figures obtained from Courts Minister Rick Barker also show the total amount being wiped has grown 54 per cent since 1999, when $25.6 million in fines was remitted.

"Labour's message seems to be clear - do the crime but forget the fine," Mr Ryall said.

The figures also showed 830 people had fines over $10,000 wiped last year compared with 23 in 2003 although the majority were for sums less than $1000.

Mr Ryall said it was a fair bet that the writeoffs would just get worse, as the Sentencing Act continued to encourage judges to issue fines instead of prison sentences.

"Sure, it can take some criminals a long time to pay off fines, but the continuing anguish of their victims can't be written off so easily."

Mr Ryall said most of the fines were written off because people went to jail or were given community work instead. A Rotorua man had $43,000 of fines wiped in return for 300 hours' community service and a Westport man had $47,000 wiped in return for 400 hours' community service.

Many of these fines were for traffic offences and that highlighted a further absurdity, Mr Ryall said.

"It is bad enough that police are ordered to spend most of their time ticketing drivers and not concentrating on catching real criminals, but having wasted their time, a huge number of those fines are then written off."

Mr Barker said the decisions to remit fines were taken by judges and it was inappropriate to comment on that.

But he said he was infuriated that Mr Ryall claimed Labour was remitting fines when it was for judges to decide.

The figures should not be surprising given the increased amount of fines being imposed.

Every year the amount of fines being collected also increased, he said. Last year, $42 million more was collected than the year before.

In some cases fines were uncollectable because people had gone overseas. 
 
Fines remitted

1999 $25.6 million

2000 $25.5 million

2001 $29.4 million

2002 $33.2 million

2003 $35 million

2004 $40.5 million