$7m DEBT CHASE
Hobart writes on average 340 parking fines a day Council issued 125,140 infringements last year Nearly 174,000 tickets are still to be paid
HOBART City Council issued an average of 340 parking fines and traffic infringements a day during the past financial year, but still faces a $7.64 million register of unpaid fines.
New statistics show for the 2016-17 financial year, council staff issued 125,140 parking and traffic infringements worth $5.77 million.
Of those infringements — which include parking fines and traffic fines for parking in disability, no parking, no stopping and loading zones — 83 per cent have been paid.
As of June 30, the council is owed just shy of 100,000 unpaid fines while a further 73,983 are outstanding to the Monetary Penalties Enforcement Service — which is used by the council to chase up its long-evading offenders.
Hobart Lord Mayor Sue Hickey said the city’s officers deserved a lot of credit for the way they had gone about tracking down the unpaid fines.
“We keep constant pressure on the unpaid fines,” Ald Hickey said. “The officers have been very good in chasing them down.
“A lot of people do the right thing, but with such a huge amount of infringements there are people who just treat it like a sport avoiding fines.”
The monetary value of the unpaid fines to the council is $2,115,960.69 while $5,527,354.80 is owed to the MPES — with fines referred to the service attracting additional penalties which are substantially more than the original value when it is first referred.
Of the unpaid $2.11 million in fines to the council, 20 per cent of the total is being collected under some sort of repayment plan.
Some of the $7.64 million the council is owed will never be recovered, with the MPES considered toothless when it comes to offenders from interstate.
The result is an added burden for ratepayers because the council pays $47.10 for every fine which the MPES pursues — regardless of whether it is successful or not.
If an infringement is not paid to the council within the designated time frame it is referred to the Tasmanian Collection Service.
If the TCS is not successful it is then lodged with the MPES.
While chasing down nearly half of the 73,983 fines owed to the MPES — 40,569 are fines that were not successfully collected through the Court of Request from 1995 to 2008 — the council has spent $1.56 million of ratepayers’ money.
In March, a finance committee asked for an officer’s report on additional fine recovery options — including asking the State Government to amend laws to allow the city to pursue the matter interstate.
In the 2015-16 financial year, the council issued 124,287 infringements.