People experiencing homelessness can often owe up to $10,000 in unpaid fines, with no hope of paying these debts. Such penalties serve to further entrench poverty and disadvantage.

For this reason, the Homeless Persons’ Legal Service (HPLS) has advocated for significant reforms to the penalty notice system over the past five years.

Changes introduced so far include Work and Development Orders and official cautions.

HPLS now hopes for another round of reform, following discussions earlier this year with the NSW Law Reform Commission (LRC) and submissions to the LRC’s inquiry into the penalty notice system.

HPLS recommendations include:

• establishing a central body to oversee the penalty notice system;
• amending penalty notices to include contact details for obtaining independent legal advice;
• making cautions mandatory if an enforcement officer suspects a person is homeless or has a mental illness, intellectual disability or cognitive impairment;
• overhauling all penalty notice amounts to ensure they reflect the relative seriousness of the of the offence;
• introducing a concession rate for people surviving on Centrelink benefits;
• reducing the amount owed for people on low incomes; and
• creating a ‘special circumstances list’ in the local courts where vulnerable defendants could have all of their outstanding criminal matters and debts finalised in a single hearing.

Read the HPLS submission, Penalty notices: still not such a fine thing for vulnerable people.