Queenstown Mayor Clive Geddes told the Queenstown Times he understood unpaid parking fines left behind by foreign visitors had amounted to about $2 million per year during the past three years.
"This is a huge amount for the council, and thereby the ratepayers, to be missing out on," he said.
The issue was briefly discussed by the council's finance committee earlier this week, when Mr Geddes expressed his concern to the committee and to the council's regulatory company, Lakes Environmental, which administers the parking warden scheme.
When contacted after the meeting, Lakes Environmental chief executive Hamish Dobbie said the actual amount of unpaid fines last year was closer to $500,000, and the $2 million was the total outstanding amount owed to the council for unpaid parking fines to date.
However, Mr Dobbie was quick to agree with Mr Geddes' assessment and described the level of unpaid fines as "very concerning".
Mr Dobbie said Lakes Environmental did chase overseas visitors with outstanding fees, and many chose to pay their fines by credit card, but there was little ability to enforce payment once people had left the country.
At the committee meeting, Cr Gillian McLeod asked why the council could not enter into contractual agreements with local car-rental companies about collecting payment for unpaid fines from their customers.
Mr Geddes responded that car-rental companies had shown "absolutely no co-operation" about collecting fines from their customers, and there was no legal requirement for them to do so.
The idea of wheel-clamping vehicles instead of just issuing a parking fine was suggested by Mr Geddes, but he acknowledged it was not a viable solution.
Yet, he was determined to follow up on the issue.
"This is something that should really be dealt with at a national level by the Government.
"Within the next few days, I intend to contact Local Government New Zealand to ask for nationwide figures for unpaid fines to be presented to the Government."
However, Cr McLeod and Cr John Mann said wheel clamping was "not a good look" and Cr Mann joked that "the very vision of parking wardens wheel-barrowing loads of wheel clamps around might frighten people off parking illegally".
Mr Geddes stressed the council could only use the potential income from parking fees to fund related matters, such as parking facilities or roading, as legislation did not allow the council to use revenue from fines to fund deficits in its other areas of operation.
