Victoria's fine dodgers, who have amassed more than a billion dollars in unpaid fines, should be barred from leaving the country until they pay up.
The Sentencing Advisory Council also recommends that fine dodgers face driver's licence suspension or the Australian Taxation Office be called in to help with fine collections.
Council chairman Professor Arie Freiberg said an overhaul was needed to make it harder to ignore fines, from parking and speeding tickets to court-imposed penalties for offences such as theft or assault.
"Many of them aren't being paid, both court-imposed and infringement notices, and we need to make the system credible and fair," Prof Freiberg told AAP.
"It is a significant hit to the revenues of the state ... the kind of revenue we could use for schools and hospitals and even law enforcement."
Prof Freiberg said total outstanding fines in Victoria were "north of a billion dollars", though the exact figure was unknown given the multiple agencies involved and 3200 offences that attracted fines.
Of the six million infringement notices - mostly speeding and parking fines - issued to Victorians each year, about 40 per cent were not paid within the allotted time.
Warrants were issued for unpaid fines of $421 million in 2010/11, and for $470 million in 2011/12.
"We're recommending that people who have warrants outstanding against them for a significant amount of money that they not be allowed to leave the country until they pay," Prof Freiberg said.
"That has proved to be quite effective in New Zealand in concentrating people's mind to pay."
The report also says fines for concession card holders should be halved to ensure those on low incomes are not unduly punished, and a new central agency was needed to manage collections and better identify "those who shouldn't pay, those who can't pay and those who won't pay".
The council's report was commissioned by the Victorian government and made public on Friday.
Attorney-General Robert Clark said a fines reform bill, which addressed many of the council's recommendations, was already before Victorian parliament.
"Reforms include a single integrated system to track and collect fines, shorter timelines for enforcement, targeting repeat offenders with high levels of unpaid fines and tougher use of sanctions such as suspension or cancellation of vehicle registration," Mr Clark said.
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