But it is not often you will find vast sums of cash hanging around for the taking and no one doing the taking.

New figures have shown the ACT is owed more than $23 million in overdue traffic and parking fines. Some of the infringements are almost three decades old.

At the start of this year there were almost 140,000 overdue fines on the books.

Territory and Municipal Services has said the figure is no cause for alarm, as much of the overdue money was ''bad or doubtful'' and not factored into the territory's accounts.

Why not?

Can we afford to be complacent about $23million in an economic climate which sees the ACT with a current budget deficit of $82.2 million and predictions of seven years in the red? The figures also show 92 per cent of Canberrans and 86 per cent of interstate drivers pay their fines. What about the other 8 and 14 per cent respectively? The percentages of infringements paid were labelled as satisfactory. But to whom? To the people who actually pay their fines? Or to those who get away scot-free?

Shadow attorney-general Vicki Dunne has blasted the Government's handling of fine enforcement as ''reprehensible'' and said it may be time to call in debt collection agencies.

In fact, an interdepartmental committee is considering doing just that and TAMS has also said setting up a national system allowing jurisdictions to collect debts owed in other states and forward them would be ''worth considering''. As it stands, there is no bilateral agreement to recover money from interstate motorists motorists who owe the ACT more than $10 million in infringements.

The department has also said up to $2.5million of the debt might never be repaid.

Even if it cost to pluck a figure from the air $5 million to aggressively recover the debts and $2.5 million were written off, there is a fair chunk of change left over.

It is time for less consideration and more action. Time is money.