Fine defaulters to have payments deducted from welfare entitlements
EXCLUSIVE: Hardcore fine dodgers would have payments deducted from their welfare entitlements, in a State Government plan to claw back millions in unpaid fines.
- Pensioner paying off $340,000 fine debt $50 a fortnight
- SA traffic fine road rogues revealed
- Cars seized from fine defaulters and sold
HARDCORE fine dodgers would have payments deducted from their welfare entitlements, in a State Government plan to claw back millions in unpaid fines.
Just 9 per cent of fine defaulters owe half of the outstanding total of $350 million.
Most of that total is comprised of unpaid traffic fines.
The State Government is already using a raft of tough measures — including licence suspensions, seizing cars and naming and shaming — which has helped recover $375 million in debt since a special Fines Enforcement and Recovery unit was established in 2014.
But Deputy Premier John Rau said there were more than 7000 fine defaulters who did not respond to the existing money recovering measures and continued to rack up debt and “thumb their nose at the system’’.
This included fine dodgers who did not own property, have a licence, a job or sense of shame.
“These are the people I’m concerned about and we need assistance from the Commonwealth Government because many of them are on Commonwealth benefits and we need to be compiling deductions from those benefits,’’ he said.
“I have raised this issue ... most recently with Social Services Minister Christian Porter about payments under the social security system and I was not discouraged by what he had to say.
“I would like to think there would be an agreement (to making deductions to fine dodgers welfare payments).’’
It comes after the fines unit towed away a Mercedes Benz last Friday after it spent several days stuck on the side of a city street with signs stating it was “clamped due to unpaid fines’’.
It was one of 32 vehicles clamped in the past year by the unit because the owner had not paid outstanding fines.
Six of these cars were subsequently sold to pay the outstanding fines and another six were impounded.
“The more people see that going on ... the more attention they’ll have to paying their fines,’’ Mr Rau said.
A spokeswoman for Mr Porter said the Federal Government was “always looking to improve welfare integrity measures to ensure welfare recipients meet any of their obligations”.
“The minister is working with states and territories to develop options around these issues going forward but any potential plan in this area would require the states and territories agreeing to bear a proportionate share of any administrative costs,” the spokeswoman said.
Mr Rau said the fines unit was a “significant improvement’’ on the previous system, which left the courts to chase up unpaid fines.
“There’s always room to improve and I’m always talking to them about ways to improve their performance,’’ Mr Rau said.
Latest figures show:
MORE than one million unpaid fines have been referred to the fines unit.
ABOUT 37,000 defaulters have had their driver’s licence suspended or banned from renewing their vehicle’s registration.
REGULAR income deductions have been agreed to by more than 80,000 defaulters to pay off their fines.
PRIVATE debt collection agencies are being used to recover money from almost 16,000 debtors.
PRISONERS owe more than $31 million in unpaid fines.
The fines unit can also “place a charge’’ over a debtor’s property, including their home, resulting in the debt being paid if the property is sold. In the past year, the fines unit has placed charges worth more than $5 million over debtors who have large amounts owing.
Its name and shame list identifies more than 70 chronic fine dodgers who the unit has failed to hear from despite making several attempts to contact them.
The biggest debtor listed is Ali Faraj, 34, who owes $153,144 for 12 court-imposed fines and compensation orders for ripping off customers through unlicensed used-car deals and home renovations.