Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) : I want to complete my call because when we were last debating this matter I had a series of questions for the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Paula Bennett. These were essentially focused around the primary issue of why the Government, when it is so close to announcing the Whānau Ora programme, which we are awaiting with bated breath, has brought forward this bill. We heard the Deputy Prime Minister talk in the House today about what Whānau Ora is intended to bring about, so why are we bringing down the age of criminal responsibility for offences beyond murder and manslaughter, which are already covered by the existing legislation? It makes no sense to attach youth liability—young person liability—to a child when we are in the midst of changing the way we approach early intervention. That is the issue I am concerned about. We are essentially saying that someone who is too young to be a babysitter is not too young to appear in a Youth Court. That is fundamentally wrong.

In the second reading I asked a question around the names of certain individuals. I asked who Alexander Tokorua Peihopa, Whatarangi Rāwiri, Phillip Kaukasi, Rika Rāpira, and Joe Kaukasi were. Nobody in the House knew the answer to that question. I took a long time to find the answer to the question when I went looking for it. Eventually, I found it. The only consistent report on the case these people relate to read: “Michael Choy was brutally murdered nearly 4 years ago by six thugs, including this country’s youngest killer, Bailey Junior Kurariki.” Bailey Junior Kurariki is the only one we ever hear about in the media. Why is that? It is because he was so young. He was this baby-faced killer. But although Bailey Junior Kurariki did wrong, in terms of the group he was involved with and the phone call he made to entice a pizza deliverer to the house so that an attack could be made, it is not clear whether he knew, when he made that phone call, that the pizza deliverer would end up being killed. No one will ever know the truth of that. The bottom line is that he did not physically kill Michael Choy. Two people were convicted of murder, and four others were convicted of manslaughter.

Why does the Minister want 12 and 13-year-olds put in the position of Bailey Junior Kurariki for offences less serious than murder and manslaughter? How on earth will we ever start talking about rehabilitation of the very young? We are talking about children. Why would we want to make them liable to appear in a Youth Court and expose them to the kind of coverage that Bailey Junior Kurariki was exposed to? Look at the consequence of that coverage on that young man’s life—it is almost irreparable.

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) : I am happy to address some issues around 12 and 13-year-olds but, before I do, I think it is important to get a wider view of this part and what it means. I want to give a better understanding of where we are coming from. We are talking about a whole package of initiatives, Fresh Start, for the Youth Court. It is about giving the Youth Court a box of tools that it can apply to individual young people in order to serve the different needs they have. It is about extending court orders and the follow-up that goes with that, which is the most important and, certainly from our perspective, the most exciting thing about this bill.

This package starts with community youth programmes, and there will be 1,000 more of them. Seven hundred will be administered via the police and 300 will be administered by Child, Youth and Family through other programmes. The police will work directly with providers. They will see what works in their areas. They know these young people, and they will try these programmes before things get to court. We are talking about 1,000 new programmes that will have places for lower-level youth offenders who are yet to come before the courts.

We will also have court-supervised programmes and camps. For example, if it is not the first time a young person has come before a judge, the judge can say that we need to do something different. The young person needs an extended court sentence. At the moment we are seeing a number of young people committing some pretty serious crimes. We are talking arson; repeat burglaries; rape, in some instances; some pretty heinous aggravated robberies—some pretty awful stuff. At the moment—

Hon Lianne Dalziel: It’s about 12 and 13-year-olds, actually.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: The part talks about a lot more than just 12 and 13-year-olds, and I am happy to get to that shortly. At the moment, those young people usually go into a youth justice facility, and it can sometimes take 6 to 8 weeks for them to get to the Youth Court. When they appear before the Youth Court they are given a sentence of 3 months and go back to the youth justice facility, but that means they only serve another 3 or 4 weeks there, so there is no time for rehabilitation; there is no time to be turning that behaviour round.

This bill will, first of all, extend the period of time that youth can be sent to youth justice facilities. The bill will also provide for real mentoring programmes. A judge might believe that a young person needs a parenting order. Many of these young people are actually parents themselves at that stage, or about to become parents, and it is important that we address that issue and break some of that intergenerational stuff.

The bill also provides for drug and alcohol orders. In the second reading we heard some angst from the Opposition about drug and alcohol rehabilitation and what it will actually look like. The department has been working very hard over the last year with providers who work in drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Those providers are very excited about the extra resources and the opportunity they will have to work with young people and make a real, sustained, long-term difference.

Another part of the package that is not talked about much is the innovation fund. We are talking about $1.4 million that will go back into our communities; we are offering a fund that will address some of the issues that can turn that behaviour round. I know that Opposition members are concerned about how these young people get to the place where they commit these crimes, and we are, too. This bill is about getting some of the orders and interventions right.

We have heard the name of one young man bandied around in the Chamber already. We have already heard about Bailey Junior Kurariki. He started offending when he was 7 years old, unfortunately. He was well known to police at 10 and 11 years old. We are talking about early interventions and what we can do. I have just outlined a number of the interventions for Opposition members, yet they criticise me for mentioning them. Let us try to get in early. But by the time we get to some 12 and 13-year-olds, we are talking about some young people who are committing very, very serious crimes. This bill will address 40 of the worst offenders. The police have asked for the bill. They are saying that these are not kids who have gone a bit off the rails. These are young people who are committing very, very serious crimes and leaving a number of victims behind them. They are offences like serious assault, burglary, arson, armed robbery, rape, and attempted murder. We are not talking one-offs. We are talking about determined repeat offenders who are getting more and more aggressive, unfortunately, as they move through the system. These are hardened young offenders whom we simply cannot continue to turn our back on. They have been before the Family Court, and it has not made a difference.

The Youth Court is more experienced at dealing with high-end, serious young offenders. It has more tools and it has greater powers. Our Youth Court is a world-leading specialist jurisdiction designed specifically to deal with young offenders. Quite frankly, it will take a radical approach to turn round those who really are hardened offenders. As I have already stated, the police support this move. I also recognise that the Youth Court can turn round and say there are a number of care and protection issues with this particular young person and send him or her back to the Family Court. That is certainly what we want to see. I certainly have huge faith that the Youth Court judges will do what is right for those young people. I think that is what is most important.

The Youth Court does require accountability, and that is what this small, hardened group of very young offenders needs. We hear much criticism of some of the current system and how we are working with those who need it most. As I have stated, we will be holding them to account for very, very serious offences. It is one part of this bill, and it is certainly one that unfortunately we have had to introduce because of that hard end of young offenders.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) : This part of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill is probably the most significant. We wish to raise a number of points on it. The Minister in the chair, the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Paula Bennett, in her contribution, said that this bill has some more tools to put in the tool box that could be used by officials, judges, police, and so on. I ask whether the Minister would put an eggbeater into a tool box to fix a car. Would the Minister not put into the tool box something that she knew would work on the vehicle she has in front of her? Unfortunately, the Minister’s bill does not address the real issues.

The question I ask the Minister to answer is what evidence she based her changes on. What evidence did she receive before she wrote this bill? We did not hear any compelling evidence put before the Social Services Committee as to why the Minister would make these changes for children and young people in New Zealand. It was quite the contrary. We had some of the best brains and the best experts in New Zealand appearing before the committee saying that the Minister could not back up this bill with evidence to show that it would work. In fact, many of the things she is proposing do not work.

I think it was interesting to read the comments released by Kim Workman today. When National agrees with him, it loves him, but when it does not agree with him, it rubbishes him. I thought the statement he put out today was very, very appropriate, because we are debating this bill tonight. He said: “The Ministry of Social Development Research into the effectiveness of Youth Court Supervision Orders confirms what we have always known—they are not effective at reducing reoffending … Around 80% of the serious young offenders studied reoffended within the follow-up period. Overseas research has confirmed time and again that there are three things that don’t work for young people, and are not cost-effective—boot camps, ‘scared straight’ programmes, and intensive supervision.” He went on to say that when supervision is over, young offenders return to their previous levels of criminal activity. He states: “The deterrent effect of supervision wears off when they are no longer under supervision.” In addition, if there are multiple conditions added to the supervision order, young offenders become defiant and find other ways of avoiding detection.

I thought that was very interesting, and it ties in to the excellent contribution from Lianne Dalziel. Research in New Zealand has found that the older the offender is when placed under supervision, the less likely he or she is to reoffend. That, in turn, challenges the idea that lowering the age of offenders being dealt with by the Youth Court to include 12 to 13-year-olds will somehow change their lives for the better. This bill has not been thought through. It is not about trying to improve the lives of young people and turn their lives around. It is about populist politics. It was about announcing something called “boot camps” before the election. They were going to solve the problem of our young offenders—a very, very small group of young offenders in New Zealand. They say there are about a thousand of those young offenders. In fact, we are talking about a number far less than that. The boot camps would deal with around 80 apprehensions—not 80 offenders but 80 apprehensions. Those were the police figures given to the select committee. One young offender might have been apprehended several times, which means that we could be talking about as few as 30 young offenders. We have a whole piece of legislation based on that small number of people.

I think the Minister has got it wrong. The evidence before the select committee was that boot camps do not work. The members on the committee did not like them being called “boot camps”. The reality was that the concept was not a given the name “boot camps” by the select committee, and it was not given by the submitters to the select committee. That name was given to the programme by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key. He was the person who labelled them “boot camps”, and he was the person who said this was going to be the mainstay of the Government’s approach to young people in New Zealand. We heard at the select committee that they do not work. Making them a little longer than they were before does not make them work. We heard something else, and I ask the Minister to answer this question: why did the Minister need to put military-style or boot camps into this legislation? What was the purpose other than for political point-scoring? We know that the Minister does not need this legislation if the Government wants to run boot camps in New Zealand. The Minister has already got a pilot running at Burnham without the passage of this legislation. The Minister pointed to other programmes that exist in New Zealand and said we want something like this. The Minister does not need legislation for it, so why was it necessary to write it into law, wasting the time of Parliament, and wasting the time of the Social Services Committee with something that was totally unnecessary.

The other point I make is, if the Minister was really interested in an evidence-based approach to trying to fix the problem, why would she not listen to what was told to her about Te Hurihanga? The fact is, she had a residential programme that worked far better than any other we have had in this country. I believe the reason the Government closed it was because it was a Labour programme. There can be no other reason. The members of Parliament who represent the town of Hamilton, where the programme was based, know it works and wanted us to go and see it. Members of Parliament in the past knew it worked and wanted us to go and see it. We knew it worked, and we wanted it to continue. Then we had the ridiculous situation of the Minister of Justice, Simon Power, alongside the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Paula Bennett, loading the entire cost of a new programme, including capital works, on to the children who were in there at that time.

Hon Paula Bennett: That’s not true.

Hon ANNETTE KING: That is absolutely true. The Minister should read the statements of the Minister of Justice. The cost was allocated to every one of those children. I will prove that to the Minister and table what was said by the Minister of Justice. It is as if we opened the new public hospital in Wellington at a cost of $300 million, and said the first hip operation cost $300 million—the entire cost on one of the patients. It was a ridiculous argument then and it is a ridiculous argument now.

If the Minister in the chair really wanted to do something about young offenders, then she would look at what works. She would look at the evidence and at what works not only in New Zealand but also around the world. But the Minister knows best! Sadly, we will not see a big change in our serious youth offending in New Zealand, because the evidence shows that this is not the right approach to take.

I heard Lianne Dalziel’s contribution, and I will add to it. There is something that this Minister, along with the Minister of Education, might have liked to consider doing, rather than talking about it, and that is implement their universal Youth Guarantee, so that every young person under the age of 17 is in a job, in training, or in education. John Key said before the election that 25,000 young people were in the category that needed education, training, or a job. There are now over 40,000 young people in that category—

Hon Ruth Dyson: They’re doing nothing.

Hon ANNETTE KING: —doing nothing, and what did the Minister of Education tell us today? She said that there will be 2,000 places—

Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I think you have been reasonably tolerant, but this is well away from this part of the bill. The member is talking about the Youth Guarantee and the Minister of Education.

Hon ANNETTE KING: Speaking to the point of order, I related this to things that worked. I know that the Minister might not like it, but I was relating it—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Just deal with the issue.

Hon ANNETTE KING: Yes; I was relating it to programmes that worked, and I was relating it to the need for young people to be in education, training, or employment. We are talking about youth offending, and I believe that I am well inside the scope of this bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I think there has always been a case where comparative debate has been used. If the connection is not made, then it is outside the scope of the bill, but in this case I think that it is inside.

Hon ANNETTE KING: I reiterate that just 2,000 positions have been promised by the Minister of Education for over 40,000 young people. They will be doing nothing. As they say, idle hands will mean that there will be young people tempted into all sorts of activities that we do not want to see them tempted into. There are not 25,000 of those young people any more; there are over 40,000. If this Government was serious about turning round the lives of young people who face a hopeless situation, where there is no job and no future for them, it would be doing more than bringing in this pathetic bill.

KATRINA SHANKS (National) : It is my pleasure to take a call tonight and support this bill in its Committee stage. One million New Zealanders gave this Government a mandate to do something about child offending in New Zealand. One million people in New Zealand decided that they had had enough of the child offending that was happening. The previous Labour Government had 9 long years and it could not address the issue properly—9 long years. [Interruption] Those members say to move it forward. They had 9 long years to do something, but they did not have any answers, and they still do not have any answers.

This Government is committed to every child having the opportunity to get back on track. This bill is about tougher sentences. This bill is about more programmes. In fact, this Government has already committed $59 million to this programme. The previous Government was very good at having ideas, but it never backed those ideas with any money. We have put $59 million on the table. There are 1,000 positions in community youth programmes. There are 1,232 positions for mentoring, parenting, drug, and alcohol orders, with funding of $9.4 million; 200 places for court-supervised camps, with funding of $5.4 million; 205 places for greater Youth Court powers, with funding of $9.3 million; 230 places for the innovation fund, with funding of $4.6 million; 50 places for supervision with activity orders, with funding of $15.5 million; and 40 places for military-style activity camps, with funding of $5.3 million. That is $59.1 million. This National Government is committed to these children.

The previous speaker, Annette King, said that there are only 40 children, only 40 bad offenders. If one is a victim of one of those 40 bad offenders, one wants something to happen. This Government is not about to say that those 40 children can just run around rampantly and reoffend, because there are victims on the other side of those 40 offenders whom the member talks about. This Government is making a difference.

The select committee process was interesting, and many submitters came in. One of the key submitters was a young person from Young Labour who said that, in 2007, Labour decided that youth justice was a priority. It took Labour a fair bit of time to realise that, in 2007, we had a problem with youth offenders. We have had this problem for quite some time. Labour members have left their run to make youth offenders a priority a little bit late, but that is what this Government is doing.

At the select committee, Judge Andrew Becroft was critical of how hard and complex the current system is to understand. He said that it needed to be simplified. He said that there is a lack of tools in the tool box, a lack of long-term sentences and orders, and a lack of resources and that there is no quantitative research. [Interruption] He did say that, because this is right out of his paper. He said that something needs to change, and that is absolutely what this bill is about. This is what this Government is committed to doing. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight.

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) : I want to reflect on the comments that were made by the Minister in the chair, the Minister for Social Development and Employment. I acknowledge and I appreciate the faith that she has invested in our Youth Court judges. She spoke about the reason why it was appropriate for children to be dealt with in the Youth Court, and I think she felt that it would be a safe option because of the high quality and the high calibre of those judges. I share that trust in those judges, which is why I listened carefully when they appeared before the Social Services Committee and gave us their view on this fundamental change to our youth criminal justice system. I use the words “fundamental change” because that is the language that they used. They said that this change would fundamentally reorientate the way that we deal with child—I make the distinction of “child”—and youth offenders.

What did they tell us? They told us that with regard to 12 and 13-year-olds they did not feel adequately equipped to deal with those young offenders in the Youth Court. They said that they did not believe they had the appropriate ammunition to deal with child offenders—12 and 13-year-olds. If the Minister genuinely places her trust in those Youth Court judges and believes that they are good at what they do, then I ask why she did not heed their advice from the beginning, and why she is making this fundamental change. That is something that stayed in my mind throughout the select committee process: why were we making this change?

The first question that I thought would be relevant was the size of the problem, and Annette King has already talked about that. We asked at great lengths in the select committee how many children would be affected by this change, and the answer was 80 apprehensions. That does not mean 80 children; that means 80 apprehensions. Some of those who went through Te Hurihanga had up to 30 offences in their name, so we could be talking about a very small pool of children. Some might say that the number does not matter. Well, it did matter to the Government when it said that we should close Te Hurihanga because it was not dealing with enough people. Here we have an example of an entire piece of legislation orientated at a group of young people that is probably of the same size—a group of children, in this case. For me, and, I think, for the members of the select committee from Labour and for the Labour Party generally, the question is that if the Minister cannot give us an evidence base for this fundamental change, and if we cannot even quantify the number of children who would be affected by it, why are we making it? If the Youth Court judges, whom we are giving the powers to, resist them, why are we making this change?

I guess I was charitable in also wanting to ask a different question: was it simply, as the Government claimed, that the Family Court did not have the powers it needed, and that the Youth Court would have more powers? Why not look at this differently? If the Family Court has the power of care and protection, which is a crucial power—and even the Youth Court judges have said that it is crucial—when dealing with all young offenders, but in particular 12 and 13-year-olds, why does the Government not look at giving greater powers to the Family Court? Why did it not look at that option? We asked that question not only of officials, whose response was that it was simply out of scope, but also of the Youth Court judge and the Family Court judge. Both said that it would be an elegant solution. If this was really about dealing appropriately with those child offenders, why did the Government not shift powers to the Family Court?

I fear that it was about moving the goalposts. I fear that it was an acknowledgment on the Government’s part that it does not know how to deal with these child offenders. So it will move the goalposts and start dealing with those offenders as if they are adults at a younger and younger age. That changes absolutely nothing. That is why the Labour Opposition tabled a Supplementary Order Paper today that will remove the clauses in relation to 12 and 13-year-olds. We will be voting strongly against this element of the bill because of what it stands for, because it is a fundamental change, because it has not been justified, and, finally, because it will not work. In New Zealand we have a tiered system in our criminal justice system when dealing with young people, and I fear it is becoming murky. We have already talked about the fact that that could make the outcome for these young children worse.

I want to move on to another area of Part 1, and that is the additional orders we are looking at in this bill. New section 259A in clause 8 is headed: “Family group conference must consider attendance at parenting education, mentoring, and alcohol or drug rehabilitation programmes”. This is something that has been widely trumpeted by the Government as an important way of dealing with young offenders. I would like to believe that perhaps it has a chance to make a difference, but I have some grave concerns.

Some of those concerns were highlighted in the report released this week by the Ministry of Social Development, which stated that court orders have a very low success rate. I think we can see some of the reasons why, when, in comparison, intensive residential activity programmes have a better success rate. They are longer term, they use greater interventions, and they deal with the family, as well, and the social circumstances from which that young offender came. Court orders are quite the opposite. Court orders can often be quite short term. Court orders can, for instance, be short, sharp shocks. Those relating to drug and alcohol programmes can have quite loose arrangements around them. In fact, I spoke to some young people who had undergone court orders that were specific to drug and alcohol issues. They told me that they simply sobered up for the short time they had to be in attendance, and that did nothing.

The programmes that did work were longer-term residential-based drug and alcohol programmes like those provided by Odyssey House. The Social Services Committee heard that Odyssey House has a 12 to 18-month waiting list. It does not currently have the funding to deal with any of these potential court orders, and I question how many would be residential, anyway. I ask the Minister to take the next opportunity to stand and tell us what additional funding the Government will commit to drug and alcohol programmes. I know of a few that have already closed under this Government’s watch, yet we are going to be extending the amount that they will be used.

Chester Borrows: What?

JACINDA ARDERN: Drug and alcohol programmes in Dunedin have closed on this Government’s watch.

On the submissions, I am happy to recall for the benefit of the Committee that the submission from Dr Sue Bagshaw stated that already there are not nearly enough placements in youth alcohol and drug programmes. The submission from the Alcohol Drug Association New Zealand stated that it recognised that staffing was a primary consideration, and that recruitment of staff was a serious challenge facing youth services in New Zealand. We have to make sure that we are prepared for these orders, over and above the question of whether they will work. Judge Andrew Becroft has already told us that 80 percent of young people coming before his court are manifesting some kind of drug and alcohol issue, but we are dealing only with those who have committed a crime. There is a whole debate about what we should be doing to intervene in the lives of these young people before they get to the court.

In relation to the mentoring programmes, I would like the Minister to share with us, if she could, the outcomes of the mentoring hui that she had. I know that some of the concerns raised at that hui were around whether mentoring would work if there was an element of compulsion. It is something I have heard from those who have worked in the field: whether we will lose the success of mentoring programmes if compulsion is a core element; whether volunteers will be adequately trained to deal with the quite weighty issues faced by the young people who will be going through these mentoring programmes; and how long the mentoring programmes will be for. Some of the people in this field I have spoken with have said that 12 months is the bare minimum, and that some of the most successful interventions they have made have involved mentoring relationships that have lasted up to 6 years. Can we genuinely expect that from these mentoring orders? I have serious doubts about that.

I also have concerns about an omission that was pointed out by Judge Andrew Becroft when he came before the select committee. He said that nowhere in this legislation has there been adequate discussion about the mental health issues that a lot of these young people are presenting with. We already know about the issues of dysfunctional families, family violence, poverty, social deprivation, lack of engagement in education and lack of employment, and the contribution they make. But mental health is an issue that the Youth Court judges are coming up against time and time again, and they pointed out to us that there are not adequate programmes to refer these young people to.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) : It is good to take a little bit of a stocktake in respect of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill as to where members on both sides of the Committee sit, in relation to not only the things they disagree with but also the things on which they agree.

The last Government produced a Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill. National agreed with a number of things within that bill and it did not agree with some other things, and the same applies vice versa in respect of this bill. We know that members on both sides of the Committee agree that supervision with activity and supervision with residence orders are not long enough to do any good. We find that people who are ordered to attend supervision with residence courses end up doing several of them back-to-back. They are released too soon, for the same reasons that the Minister for Social Development and Employment outlined: they take 8 weeks or so to get to court and by that time, given the time they have already served, they have only 3 weeks to go and they are out before there is any real intervention. While they are on remand, the staff involved in looking after those facilities are able to insist on compliance in only so many things. So in actual fact, what is intended to be, say, a 3-month course ends up being 3 weeks in relation to what can actually be done. Both Labour and National agree that these courses should be extended out. Labour’s bill said so and our bill says so, so there is no real scrap there.

The next thing is the argument about what works and what does not work. We know that what does not work is locking people up and doing nothing with them for a period of time. In the extension of supervision with activity, under Labour’s bill and National’s bill the deal was that we would do more with the kids while we had them, to make those things worthwhile. Labour agreed with that and National agrees with that. When the Principal Youth Court Judge, Andrew Becroft, came before the Social Services Committee he agreed that the courses out in the community that were working—for instance, supervision with activity—and were very good were those that had some what we call wraparound things: they addressed drugs and alcohol, they addressed violence, they addressed literacy and numeracy while they could, and they addressed family relationships. They intervened with family relationships and made sure that they brought family into the programmes.

A prime example of that wraparound approach is a programme in my electorate, START Taranaki. When the Hon Ruth Dyson was the Minister for Social Development and Employment, she agreed with that programme. She extended its funding and enabled it to go on to produce far better results. We know from actual measures that 65 percent of the young people who attended that course never offended again. They were checked up on and we knew whether they were offending again. These young people were monitored and had mentors placed with them, and they were there because they were ordered to be there. Yes, they had to consent. However, both Labour and National agreed in both bills that the consent provision for community-based sentences should be removed as a right from young people. Members on both sides of the Committee agree that young people should be compelled to attend these courses—it was in Labour’s bill and in our bill. So let us not squabble over that matter, because it is actually common ground.

Going back to START Taranaki, we found that 65 percent of the young people who attended and completed the course—that is, virtually everybody, according to the numbers that were produced—never offended again; 15 percent of those who left the course within a month committed a dumb crime at a lesser level than the one they had gone there for, and after that never offended again; and 20 percent went on to have a pretty horrific record of offending. But an 80 percent relative success rate out of all those attending is bloody good. What should we do? Members on both sides of the Committee agree that we should replicate that programme around the country. So whether there is supervision with residence or supervision with activity, both sides in this debate agree that we should extend those programmes and that we should make sure that those programmes are more than just having kids either walk around the bush and then do menial tasks or sit in a cell; we should do something with those young people while we can.

We also agree that there should be an extended period of supervision after these courses finish. The argument we are having now is about what level of close monitoring or intensive monitoring there should be.

Another huge area of argument is about what we do with 12 and 13-year-olds. Initially we had a response from the Principal Youth Court Judge, who said we are not talking about a whole truckload of 12 and 13-year-olds; we are talking about a relatively small group of 12 and 13-year-olds who need to be dealt with because they are offending at a far more sophisticated level. By that we mean that it is not a huge escalation in numbers; it is a huge escalation in the seriousness of violent offences committed. And we are seeing a change in the trend across gender: we are seeing young girls offending far more violently than they have in the past, and we have to do something about it.

National’s response to that was to put those offending in front of the Youth Court, because that court can give a wider range of orders and offer a wider range of resolutions. The Principal Youth Court Judge said that we were wrong, and what we really needed to do was move the powers of the Family Court into the Youth Court, because the Youth Court resolutions were too short. But we found that we could not do that within the scope of this legislation. The other thing he said when we looked at moving those powers was that it would be quite good if the Family Court could exercise some of the provisions that are available only within the Youth Court jurisdiction. There was not a hell of a lot of disagreement across the parties in respect of that change either, but when we wanted to do it, what did we find? The members who were sitting on the select committee will know that we found that we were not able to do it under this legislation. So the Minister for Social Development and Employment has asked to look at what we can do with Family Court jurisdiction further down the track.

The big point Andrew Becroft made was that the real detraction from putting 12 and 13-year-olds before the Family Court was the slow and cumbersome way that the Family Court worked, and he asked us to fix it. He asked us to make it more streamlined. We said OK and asked him about having the opportunity to bring 12 and 13-year-olds to the Youth Court, where the Youth Court judge would act as a person on a drafting gate to decide whether the level of offending of the 12 and 13-year-olds should be dealt with back in the Family Court or should be moved to the Youth Court. He said that that was a way of streamlining the system, and that it would add confidence to those practitioners using it. He agreed with that process.

The other big thing that we have had huge debate about across the parties is what the Government calls Fresh Start camps and others prefer to call boot camps.

Hon Annette King: The Prime Minister.

CHESTER BORROWS: Let us have a wee listen for a minute. We said then that we know what works. We want to take supervision with activity, combine it with supervision with residence, and take account of the security needs of the high-end offenders who will be part of that programme. But we want to include in Fresh Start, which members on the other side of the Chamber call boot camps—

Hon Annette King: The Prime Minister.

CHESTER BORROWS: I concede that the Prime Minister on one occasion referred to them as boot camps. I will concede that just to get those members to shut up for a minute and listen to the argument.

The point is that we amalgamate supervision with activity with supervision with residence. A whole lot of other stuff in there bears absolutely no resemblance at all to corrective training, which is what boot camps were way back in those members’ day and in my day—back in the 1980s. That is what boot camps were. We have described Fresh Start camps, and I am sure members are enlightened to the fact that they bear no resemblance at all to boot camps. Even Principal Youth Court Judge Becroft agreed that the Fresh Start programme that we have outlined bears no resemblance to corrective training and no resemblance to what he called boot camps when he condemned them.

I thank members for listening. I look forward to further calls on this debate.

LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) : I will actually take issue with Chester Borrows, who is the chair of my—

Hon Member: He should still be the Minister.

LYNNE PILLAY: He should be the Minister of Social Development and Employment; I take the member’s point. Chester Borrows is a very reasonable chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee, but on this occasion I would say that he is being less than honest.

The reality is that the Government thought the introduction of boot camps was a very popular message to put out there. The Prime Minister, when he was the Leader of the Opposition, spoke about boot camps constantly. It was all part of National’s agenda. It was all part of the rhetoric that we heard before the last election—that the whole country was crime-ridden and everything was a mess. People were told that if they elected a National Government, then it would get tough on crime, and, my goodness, its toughness on crime would get rid of all the problems that we had with the escalating crime rate in New Zealand. None of that was true but, unfortunately—and I say that quite sincerely—a number of New Zealanders believed National. A number of New Zealanders believed that. We are in a small country and every incident that we have, no matter how abhorrent, gets reported. Every New Zealander is aware of it and that is a good thing; it is a painful thing, but it is a good thing.

What is not a good thing and what is a shameful thing is the way that National members exploited it. They used it to wind New Zealanders up. I saw a pamphlet from the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Social Development and Employment, stating: “Blood on the streets. Sick of it? We are too. We are going to fix it. Come to a public meeting.” Well, those members have not fixed it. Guess what! There is still blood on the streets. But I am proud that the Opposition has more integrity than to utilise violence and violent acts against people and to capitalise on their grief and anxiety in the way that members opposite did. They did that to such a great extent. I say to Chester Borrows that I am really sorry because I get on pretty well with him. I ask him whether that would be a fair statement.

Chester Borrows: That’d be fair enough.

LYNNE PILLAY: That would be a fair statement. But I tell this Committee that if John Key said “boot camps” once, then he said it a hundred times, as did Paula Bennett.

Chester Borrows can try to cover for his boss. We never have to do that on this side, but I know that those guys have to do it a lot. I know that they have a leader who constantly changes his mind, as he is now doing—before the Minister in the chair tells me that I am getting off the topic—with GST and all of these things. He said today: “Hey, no one is perfect. We all make mistakes.”

Members opposite utilised grief and anxiety in order to wind up people to support a model that is proven to be a failure. It is a complete failure. National members said that they had the one true answer. They said that they were the National Party, they were two decades behind, and they talked about boot camps. It is just like what they are doing with education and what they are doing in terms of—

Hon Steve Chadwick: Health.

LYNNE PILLAY: —health. But it is also what they are doing in terms of their latest bright idea in education, where people will be whirling all around the cities to find the best place for their child to be educated. It is an absolute nonsense.

This model was put up and members on this side of the Chamber—I say to Chester that I am really sorry about this—found it absolutely abhorrent and offensive. Now, when the rubber has hit the road, National has had to explain to reputable organisations, to judges, and to everyone else who is learned in this area. These people have so much more grassroots experience. They came to the Social Services Committee and said that the National Government had made a big mistake. They said that the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill was a crock of the proverbial.

What did the National Government say? John Key says: “Hey, we got it wrong. Sometimes we all get it wrong.” Did he say that on this occasion? No. Did National members say that? No, but instead they said: “Let us reinvent the story. We are here to help. We are here to be all things to all people, so we will talk about these youth camps as though they are not what they really are. They are there to help young people.” Well, we know that is not the case.

But what saddens me is that National will ram this model through, and what will we see in 2 or 3 years’ time? When we go overseas people say to us that New Zealand is visionary. They say that they really admire our victims’ rights and a lot of our progressive stuff. With this model, we will be an embarrassment. It is not only that—it is not about egos, apparently; it is never about egos in this country—but what will be even worse is the loss of opportunity for young people to right themselves.

What Labour members said, and what the experts were telling us, was that we should put the money and resources into the programmes that are working. What did National say? Those members said that they will go the boot camp way and go with military-style training. That will be their answer to all things, despite the fact that we know that it is a failed model in the UK. The UK has abandoned it. The United States, we know, is not at the forefront on progressive things, but even it accepts that it is not the way to go. In the interests of appearing to do the right thing, this Government has window dressed, just like it did in the—what was it—100 days of action?

H V Ross Robertson: What action?

LYNNE PILLAY: Exactly! That was all part of National’s thing.

I will talk about my amendment, which adds what is, sadly, missing. We have been able to utilise previous Labour bills that looked at the rights of victims more. Despite our opposition to the bill, I would urge Government members to give very careful thought and their support to my amendment if they are committed to caring about victims, which they say they are. We will not go into the pitfalls and the criticisms there, but my amendment certainly ensures that victims are part of the process and that their views are taken into account. These were the standard clauses in Labour’s bill that are missing in this bill. This will not be a good bill. The Government is not in a good situation with this bill, but at least my amendment will go some way towards victims being able to participate and have a say in the process when they have been victims of a young person’s crime. This Government says that it cares about victims, so I would urge its members—

H V Ross Robertson: Says one thing; does another.

LYNNE PILLAY: Well, exactly. We need only look at the accident compensation debacle to know that that just simply is not true. We only need to see that the Government would not pick up the previous Government’s bills that gave far more support to victims of crime and domestic assault and that gave much more protection. Many bills that were more in-depth have been ignored by this Government, and instead we see this rubbish wasting the time of this House.

Tim Macindoe: You support a lot of it.

LYNNE PILLAY: In your dreams! What we are trying to do is to improve a bill that is about rubbish. In a couple of years’ time, when Labour members are back in Government, we will take no satisfaction whatsoever from saying to National: “See, that was a failure. We told you so, and it is going to go.” Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Labour vehemently opposes this bill.

HEKIA PARATA (National) : Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. I am delighted to stand and take a short call on this bill. Indeed, it has been very difficult to sit here and listen to the errant nonsense being spouted from members on that side of the Chamber. In fact, I would like to invite that member to join us on this planet, and in this country in particular, where at the end of 2008 over 1 million people joined us and said they were concerned about those issues. In fact, they were concerned about a whole range of issues, and they were tired of the rhetoric that had been dished up to them for the previous 9 years. They actually wanted people who were prepared to grapple with the hard issues, tackle the difficult things, and do all the things that we actually said we would do.

Labour members sit on that side of the Chamber and ask vaguely what the 100 days were. I tell members on that side that those were the 100 days that followed the election of a National Government, by an overwhelming majority of people in this country who want to see action taken. The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill is yet another example of the action we are taking. National is not an either/or Government. We completely recognise that education, strong families, powerful communities—

Hon Annette King: Shh!

HEKIA PARATA: No, I beg the member’s pardon, but I feel totally vehement about this, so I am prepared to keep putting my views across. Perhaps if members opposite just listened, they would hear that National members are not about and/or. We are absolutely committed to strong education. We are committed to the one in five students who were the legacy of the previous administration who are being failed in the education system, and out of which I imagine that the 1,000 most serious youth offenders, which this bill is directed at, are generated.

Although we are taking action on national standards, we also recognise that the population of New Zealand is concerned about this particular serious recidivist young group. We have put before this Committee a menu of options—not a one-size-fits-all plan—all of them well researched, all of them well-thought-through, and they will work. They are well supported, because our purpose is not only so that New Zealanders feel safe in their homes but so that those young people get the chance and the opportunity to turn their lives round. They require much more targeted support than has generally been available. That is why we are expanding the Youth Court’s ability to provide those particular tools in order that those young people get the attention that they deserve and need.

The suggestion that members on this side of the Chamber are engaged in exploitation means that members on that side of the Chamber do not understand what taking responsibility is about. They do not understand that members on this side of the House are prepared to confront the difficulties, and put in place what is necessary to give those young people the opportunity to turn their lives round.

So, yes, I stand in support both of this bill and of national standards. I also stand in support of investing in the social sector, because this Government has a full range of options to offer to the community of New Zealand—a full tool kit. We do not compare ourselves with members on that side of the Chamber, who were tool-less and toothless for the 9 years of the Labour administration.

I commend this bill to the Committee. I thank the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Paula Bennett, for having the courage to take this kind of leadership. I thank the Committee for giving me the opportunity to speak so passionately, albeit while apparently hurting the ears, as well as the minds and the sensitivities, of members opposite. Kia ora tātou.

Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) : I do not mind listening to a passionate speech, and I do not even mind listening to one I disagree with, but I do mind when the member who has just taken her seat, Hekia Parata, begins to shout without really reflecting on the facts. I will concentrate on that for a few minutes.

Todd McClay: We can arrange some counselling for your soft ears, if you want.

Dr RAJEN PRASAD: I say to Mr Todd McClay that he might also like to reflect on the facts I am about to talk about. I want members opposite to name one example of this side of the House not supporting a good idea since National came to power and brought this suite of legislation before this House. Which bills designed to address the problems of our young people today and the issues of the day in this particular area have members on this side of the House not thought about and supported? Members opposite, and Mr McClay in particular, might want to think about why a number of us feel so passionately—if that is the word—about a particular aspect of this bill that is a most fundamental shift.

Our first speaker, our second speaker, and our third speaker have asked for that question to be answered. They have asked the Minister in the chair, the Hon Paula Bennett, to take a call, but the Minister has not answered the question. However, one of the members, Chester Borrows, came very close. Chester is a reasonable person. He was reasonable throughout the hearings and reasonable in coming to an accommodation. He came closest to beginning to explain and give an answer. I do not agree with his answer, but at least I give him credit for trying to answer the question.

The Minister dismissed the question. She did not go anywhere near it, yet it is the Minister’s responsibility to answer. The question I am talking about is the change in the age of criminal responsibility, and I say to the Minister that her answers simply did not go there. I want her to take another call and address the specific question of how we make ethical and philosophical sense of changing the age of criminal responsibility in respect of 12 to 13-year-olds, and what fundamentally lies behind it. If the Minister could convince me, I would be impressed, because she has not addressed this issue and it ought to be addressed.

The change is fundamental, because when we take 12 and 13-year-olds and put them into a youth justice jurisdiction, we are taking away from, and giving less authority to, the primary responsibility of a decent society to care about the care and protection needs of young children. That is fundamentally where this side of the House disagrees.

Judge Becroft pointed that out powerfully. He is not stupid. He can see that this change is a fundamental change that needs discussion and justification. But no justification has been provided, other than for the Government to say: “Well, these are very difficult ones. We will have to deal with the more difficult kids.” That is no justification. You know, we are not ethically stupid, and I think that members opposite owe it to the citizens and the children of this country to provide the explanation. That explanation must be given, and it does no credit to this Parliament when it is not provided.

In the absence of robust evidence and robust argument, what do members opposite expect people on this side of the Chamber to assume? We can only assume that the rhetoric the Government got into during the election campaign is the only rhetoric that now guides it. The rhetoric was an attempt to ratchet up the concerns of our nation State about violence and offending. As the Government members make decisions on this point, we believe that they are incapable of riding beyond those decisions.

Hon Dr Wayne Mapp: It’s benchmarked against most other nations—Australia, Canada, Britain, and most of the United States. Are you going to ignore that altogether in the debate?

Dr RAJEN PRASAD: I say to Mr Mapp that his approach is entirely punitive. This country has had enough. Successive Governments have done the punitive thing to an extreme, and I tell Mr Mapp that his Government is doing the same thing. I do not think that the member is a violent person himself, but why does he not try to come up with some ethical explanations? The Government owes it to the country and to the children to come up with that kind of explanation, because it is not there.

Our 12 and 13-year-olds primarily need care and protection, and when they appear before the Family Court, then that is the perspective that guides that particular court. When we raised the issue at the Social Services Committee, as Jacinda Ardern talked about, I think that the officials could see that this was something that should have been visited, but it was not. It seemed, again, as if there was a directive from the Minister not to compromise on this, as well.

This bill took a lot longer for the officials to report on, for reasons that have still not been provided to us. We were told that more work was being done. I suspect that somewhere in the Minister’s own heart she must have said “By golly, these are 12 and 13-year-olds.”, because I do not believe that the Minister is as heartless as that. But somehow the rhetoric that drove National in the election campaign is what came to the fore, and I think that our country deserves better.

The other option, I tell the Minister, is still there. One option is to reform the Family Court. It does not make any sense for the Minister to say to us: “But they take too long.”, as Mr Chester Borrows said. Well, I say to members opposite that they are the Government and if the Family Court takes too long, then the Government, which has lots of resources, should address the problem through resources or through legislative provision. The Government can do that. What the Government should be saying is: “Yes, there’s a small group that does veer off the track quite seriously, but they are still young children and they have care and protection needs. We will not desert our young people.”

A previous speaker in this debate talked about Bailey Junior Kurariki. That is one case—and I do not defend him for anything he did; what happened was awful. But what we as a society have done to him does not do us any credit, either. Bailey Junior Kurariki was 12 years old, and what life does he have today? Can we as legislators, as people who developed the system he experienced, take any credit at all? This Parliament designed a system that could have taken him in when he was still a kid and could have provided him with high-quality provisions and systems that might have turned him round, and no matter how bad these young kids are, that is what we owe them. We cannot lock them away and throw away the keys, because that is not the kind of society we want.

I come now to the section of the bill that deals with the new orders. This side of the Chamber, I tell the Minister, does support the notion of greater options being available to the Youth Court. We said that at the select committee, and our minority report shows that. We are not against that, at all. But a message is given in that section, and it relates to the first point I made, which is that the Government has accepted a punitive approach in this bill and, believe you me, like most legislation, that is what will endure for the next 5, 10, or 15 years. That is what will endure, and that is how people will make decisions.

An impressive array of people came to the select committee and said: “Please, don’t go down the track of boot camps.” I know Chester Borrows’ defence of them, but the submitters said that they do not work. We have read the evidence they quoted, and we have quoted it, as well.

Chris Tremain: I guess we’re going to find out pretty quickly, aren’t we?

Dr RAJEN PRASAD: The member should not be too sensitive about boot camps. It is the idea that his Prime Minister—

Chris Tremain: I’m not sensitive. I’m saying that we’re going to find out pretty quickly whether they work—whether the new style works.

Dr RAJEN PRASAD: A group of people presented information, time and time again, at the select committee, and they said we should not go down that track. When will the Government listen to people who present information, from their experience, and say that this ought not to happen? What is the point of people making submissions?

Chris Tremain: It depends on how you define boot camp.

Dr RAJEN PRASAD: What, I ask Mr Tremain, is the point of people making submissions at select committees when there is not even a gentle move a little bit towards the direction they take? The bill still shows that that is the intent. The first flush might be fine, but two or three generations down the track it will happen again.

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) : I would like to address a few things that have been raised by previous speakers on this particular part of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdictions and Orders) Amendment Bill.

I will address some of the concerns about 12 and 13-year-olds. Yet again I reiterate where this change is coming from. We are talking about the most determined, most recidivist offenders of 12 and 13 years of age, who are getting more aggressive and are creating havoc wherever they go. I think of those young people not as our hope for the future but actually as our fear. Last month a 12-year-old in Palmerston North stabbed a stranger three times. The man needed 3 hours of surgery and was pretty close to death. So we are not talking about slight offences.

The best thing I can do is give members the Police Association’s submission, which said that changing the jurisdiction was not a matter of getting tough, but more about gaining access to the specialist expertise that the Youth Court offered. The submission said that for 12 and 13-year-old serious repeat offenders a more direct youth justice response is not only appropriate but required. The Youth Court requires accountability and provides a restorative approach for both victim and offender. Where necessary, it is able to protect the public interest through limitations on the freedom of those 12 and 13-year-olds. Unfortunately, that is necessary for some of those young people.

Let me give some assurances to the Opposition. Within our youth justice facilities the most serious young offenders will be separated out and kept in different wings. Sometimes they will be put with girls. We do not want 12-year-olds to be living with 16-year-olds. That was a huge concern for me when looking at the issue of the facilities. I give some assurances to the Committee that that is being looked at. I also assure the Committee that I am very keen to see the results of the select committee inquiry into child offenders, and I will be taking it very seriously.

I have had a very real concern about care and protection requirements being dealt with in the Family Court but not in the Youth Court. I feel that many of those 12 and 13-year-olds have care and protection issues that need to be dealt with. The news is that they can simultaneously have their offending issues dealt with through the Youth Court and their care and protection issues dealt with through the Family Court, so we can make sure that we address the issues of these offenders.

I make absolutely no apologies for the military-style activity camps. I do not think any members saw the one we ran as a trial. It was voluntary, so those young people got to stand up and say they wanted to do it. These camps are for our toughest young people. Some have gone through a youth justice facility 11 times. That says to us that we are not getting it right. It says that we are not actually dealing with the issues behind the offending, that we are not doing enough rehabilitation, that not enough mentoring is going on, and that not enough work is going on to change the behaviour back home. Those issues are all part of this bill and all part of this package.

But it also says that there are some young, hardened criminals whose behaviour is such that they need a short, sharp shock that will be sustained over a period of time. One need only see the look in the eyes of some of those young people who have had that shock. They have seen another side of life. Staff have worked with them over a period of time; the mentoring has continued. It surprises me constantly to hear Opposition members vehemently oppose the bill. All the evidence shows that if we back this policy up with mentoring, if we back it up with the right drug and alcohol programmes, and if we back it up with what really needs to be done, then we will see sustained change.

Recently I saw some research done in England—[Interruption] Opposition members are asking for evidence, so I will give them some. The research said that the outcomes of parenting programmes—I am pretty sure some of the research also related to mentoring—were exactly the same for those who were compulsorily on the courses and those voluntarily on the courses. The outcomes were the same. Ninety percent of those who went on compulsory parenting courses said they would recommend them to other people. They turned round and said that the programme had made a sustained difference in how they acted and in what they did, and they would recommend other people to do them.

I want to touch on drug and alcohol rehabilitation, because Jacinda Ardern asked how that is going. We worked on that issue over quite a long period last year. We met with Odyssey House, Ronga Atea, and Te Ropu Whariki, and we asked them how they thought it could work, where the capacity is in what they are doing, and how we could make sure that the right resources were behind it. They agreed that for the first year they would like to see the residential part of the programme being run by Ronga Atea, and we are certainly supporting them in that decision. As we roll it out further and the capacity comes up, they will roll it out to other organisations. They have made decisions on where they can best meet the needs of offenders, and they are really welcoming it in all respects.

We also ran parenting focus groups with organisations that are used to working with these people. We heard from the University of Auckland, Genesis Trust, the Ōtara Boards Forum, and many other organisations. The group met three times to talk about what the compulsory parenting orders might look like, how they might get together, what happens when the orders are made compulsory, because I think that is a very fair question, and how the parenting does actually change. But, certainly, a lot of the research that we have seen says that the legislation does have the capacity to make sustained change.

We also ran focus groups on the mentoring programmes, and they were certainly an interesting bunch of people. I do not know whether anyone else knows it, but if we ask people who had got into some pretty serious trouble when they were young what turned their lives round, they all have a “someone” story. Someone backed them over a long period of time. Someone helped them work towards change, encouraged them, and believed in them. It is often about believing in them and helping them over a long period of time, and that is what this bill does. That is what those mentoring programmes will do. We will see the introduction of supervision with activity, and we will see programmes like START Taranaki and Genesis Trust.

Those who are undergoing supervision with activity courses will make that link to mentoring, and that mentoring could follow them for up to 12 months. So they could spend 6 months under supervision with activity, and then they could receive mentoring for up to another 12 months on top of that. The mentoring can be almost daily with some of the supervision with activity courses. For example, mentors go back into the community with those young persons, showing them how to get on a bus and how to get to a job. The mentors take them shopping to get the right clothes to get them into the right course, and follow through on their areas of interest. They try to get them back into, firstly, education, because, to be quite honest, most of them are pretty young. When that is not working, it is about training and linking them up with employers, but following them over a long, sustained period of time.

I know that we keep saying it, and it can seem like it is not believable, but a military-style activity camp on its own will not work; supervision with activity on its own will not work; and sticking a kid into a youth justice facility, even with the therapy that goes on there, on its own will not work. I can assure members that within those military-style activity camps there is a therapeutic component: a social worker is with the young people at all times, 24/7. It is about behavioural change and everything else. But none of that will work unless it is sustained over a long period of time, going back into the community and going back into the home. That is what this package, this suite of options and activities, gives to judges. We will follow up those young people, and that is what will make the difference.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) : It is a pleasure to join in the debate this evening on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. Before I get into the material that I had intended to speak about, I would like to just reflect on the example that the Minister for Social Development and Employment gave of the stabbing that occurred in Palmerston North recently, and to reflect on some of the response that we have had from within the community. Yes, people were appalled that a child could be involved in such a crime but the community response has not been to lock him up and throw away the key, or to send him off to boot camp, or anything like that. The community response has been: “How can we do something that is effective, and does something positive for the victim, and does something positive for the child who was involved? How can we ensure that this will not happen again and that this young person will not continue down the path that he appears to be on at the moment?”.

In fact, this has become so important to people in Palmerston North that a local gentleman who is not known for left-leaning tendencies by any stretch of the imagination but is quite well known in the community, has asked me to help him call a public meeting to discuss the direction this Government is going in on justice and sentencing. He wants to discuss his concerns that the Government seems to be focused on harsher and longer prison terms and knee-jerk reactions that feel good in the short term but actually do nothing for him—he has recently been a victim of a high-profile crime—do nothing for victims, and do nothing to assist and protect the community by getting offenders, particularly young offenders, back on track, and to perhaps prevent a life of crime further down the track.

The reason I took this call this evening was to discuss some of the issues around alcohol and drug treatment, and particularly the submission made by the Alcohol Drug Association New Zealand. It states in its submission to the select committee: “… it is our considered opinion that the orders contained within the expanded orders are too prescriptive, are not based on overseas and New Zealand research or on the twenty plus years of experience of the addiction treatment sector in New Zealand in working with disadvantaged young people with both criminal offending and addiction related issues.” This is, I suppose, what the key problem is: the Government just does not appear to be listening to solid research, or to anything that makes sense. It is more interested in simply appearing to do something and having knee-jerk reactions, such as boot camps and the like.

There is a place in the justice system for the health sector. There is a lot of good that the health sector can do to reduce crime. In fact the research tells us that there is a reduction of between $4 and $7 in the cost of drug-related crime for ever dollar spent on addiction treatment. It is that kind of focus on treatment and it is that sort of thing that the Law Commission was getting at recently when it issued its issues paper on the Misuse of Drugs Act, which, sadly, the Minister of Justice and the Government seem to have written off out of hand. They do not want to listen to what the public has to say about where we might go on drug-related crime and how we might deal with those things. This is certainly a key issue for young people. The Alcohol Drug Association New Zealand really highlighted the fact that without a greater focus on workforce development, and without a greater focus on residential programmes and multi-systemic programmes that deal with the complex needs of young offenders, there will just be nothing to change behaviours and to protect the community through changing behaviour.

Frankly, sending young people off to boot camp is not the answer. It just is not the answer, because these are complex issues. There is no simple answer. Sadly, this legislation, like a lot of what the Government is doing, seems to be looking for the simple answer that will grab a headline, and will seem like it is responding to what the community wants, but in fact does not actually deal with the complex needs of young people—and in dealing with alcohol and drug issues that is what is required. There simply is not the capacity.

TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) : I point out to the member who has just resumed his seat, Iain Lees-Galloway, who spoke about drug rehabilitation programmes and the effectiveness of the dollars spent, that that, of course, is a major part of this programme, so it is good to hear he is in support of it. However, I suggest that he also talks to his colleague sitting beside him, Lynne Pillay, who pointed out just a short time before that that she and her colleagues are passionately opposed to every aspect of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. That member was not a part of the Social Services Committee, which worked on this bill. I suspect that her comment will be news to her colleagues if she goes and speaks to them, because there is much about this bill that her colleagues did support, albeit they are obviously talking tonight about the things that they did not support.

This debate is on Part 1 of a very important bill. I am proud to speak in support of it. As my colleagues have pointed out tonight, we campaigned on this major initiative. We are doing it with a mandate from the people of New Zealand. I think many who have listened to some of the things coming from members opposite tonight will be saying “May it be a very, very long time before that party with that rigid and outdated thinking ever returns to office.” This is a pragmatic measure, it is a compassionate measure, it is an effective measure, it is based on common sense—[Interruption]—and, most important, I say to Dr Prasad and Miss Ardern, it is based on practical needs and evidence. It is not based on blinkered thinking and outdated rigid ideology.

It is very important for the Labour members, if they are going to continue this line of attack, to confront the reality that the Police Association strongly endorsed this measure when it appeared before the select committee. It may be that others disagreed with the Police Association, but it is the Police Association and the officers whom it represents who are at the front line of dealing with these issues. The men and women of our police are the ones who are out there day in and day out dealing with those young offenders. Remember, we are talking about a thousand of the most seriously at risk, seriously disturbed, and seriously dangerous young people in our community. If we are not prepared to give our wholehearted backing to the police, then God help this country! They are the people whom we really depend upon to do something at the front line and turn this issue round.

What is the message that members opposite want to send to our front-line police? They are concerned that this measure is too tough. They demean this measure with dishonest slogans, such as “boot camps”. The deputy leader of the Labour Party earlier this evening suggested that it was akin to putting an eggbeater in the tool box. It is clear that her preferred style of eggs reflects her thinking: thoroughly scrambled. She was also opposed to intensive periods of supervision, and suggested that this measure will not work.

So I will turn her questions and her comments back on her. What is her evidence for that claim? Why is the member for Rongotai opposed to the wraparound services that will accompany the supervision that this measure has at its heart? Does she oppose drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes for the young? If she does, I can tell her that the member for Palmerston North has just been telling us how important they are. Does she oppose mentoring? Many of her colleagues actually have told us at other times that that is an important aspect, as well. Does she oppose parenting courses for our youth at risk who are already parents? Most of us know that some of the youngest parents in our country are also delinquents who are severely at risk, and their young children, therefore, are greatly at risk, as well. I want to do everything I can to protect those children of today, those children of tomorrow. This measure will go a long way towards helping us to do just that.

Then the deputy leader of the Labour Party also lectured us about the cessation of the Te Hurihanga programme in my city. Let me say to that member that no one in this House opposes the intention of the Te Hurihanga programme, and we share the respect of members opposite for the providers. But we have to acknowledge that it is horrendously expensive and it caters for a very small number of offenders. We have to ensure that we reach a much larger number of youth with the considerable sum that we are investing in dealing with youth offending. Contrary to the misinformation that members opposite have been spreading on this issue, I pay my compliments to the Youth Horizons Trust team, which have been running that programme. I hope that they will transfer their expertise and commitment to the Fresh Start programmes that will be run from the same facility in Hamilton East in the years ahead.

Hon Annette King: What nonsense!

TIM MACINDOE: Of course they will, because the Youth Horizons Trust already runs a whole range of programmes. It is a respected provider. There is no criticism of the trust. It has the skills and the commitment to run a wide range of programmes, and that is what it is already doing. I thank the trust for that, but we cannot afford that particular programme.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) : So far we have had quite a number of contributors to this very important part of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. First of all I acknowledge the contribution from Chester Borrows. He comes from a background in policing and in law, and in practice. Mr Borrows is always worth listening to. I do not always agree with everything he says, but he would make a very splendid Minister, in my view.

We have just heard from the member for Hamilton West, who pointed out that the Police Association supports this bill. I was the Minister of Police, and that is exactly what I would expect from the Police Association. I have a great respect for the association, but I do not always agree with it. I do need to tell members that some of the stars of the police themselves are the Youth Aid officers who work on a daily basis with our young people. They understand how young people work, and they try not to criminalise young people but to keep them out of the criminal justice system in a whole variety of ways. In fact, when I was the Minister I was told that our Youth Aid officers in New Zealand are amongst the best in the world, in terms of their practice and what they do. So I am more inclined to listen to the Youth Aid officers than to the association on this matter. The association is often right on other matters, and I have agreed with it. But I was not at all surprised that the association was one submitter, out of perhaps two of all the submitters, who agreed with this bill.

The member also mentioned Te Hurihunga and how the Government is going to use this facility, which was built for a programme that was working for some of the toughest children we could find, for Fresh Start. That is what Tim Macindoe said: the Government is going to use that facility for Fresh Start. Will we put the cost of the facility on every Fresh Start child who goes through it, so that we know the cost for the children who go through the facility? Why is the Government stopping something that has had an evaluation and been shown to be successful? The facility was dealing with “hard nut” kids.

The Minister mentioned her little pilot in the South Island. There has been no proper evaluation of that programme; no real work has been done to see whether it works. Something that the Government has had for a few months can hardly be evaluated over a long period of time. Why would we stop a programme that could make the very thing happen that the Minister has said she wants to make happen? That makes absolutely no sense to me, at all.

The Minister has forgotten a really fundamental thing. It is that 12 to 13-year-olds are not young people; they are children. Can the Minister remember what it is like to have a 12 or 13-year-old? They are children; they are not young adults. They still have developing brains and bodies, and although those who offend need to be held accountable for their offending, they also need to be given care and protection. It is the State’s responsibility to provide that care and protection when failing parents have not been able to provide it. What is wrong with this bill is that it puts emphasis on the Youth Court, without giving that attention to care and protection. We can punish those children, put them into boot camps, and require them to have mentoring, and we can require their parents, who are already dysfunctional, to have parenting training. But at the end of the day those children need to receive proper care and attention in order to ensure that they have a chance to grow up as decent young people.

The Minister then made a fundamental error by saying we can do things like imposing a short, sharp shock. If we heard anything at the Law and Order Committee, it was that short, sharp shocks do not work. They might last as long as the short, sharp shock is being given, but the children go away angry and defiant, and the shock does not work. So why would that be in the Minister’s thinking? I think it shows where she comes from. It is not from a basis of evidence, in terms of what she is trying to do. I tell the Minister I would like to know how she will judge this programme in 1 year’s time.

TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) : It gives me pleasure to rise to speak in the Committee stage of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. It has been an interesting debate, as interesting as it was when we were in the Social Services Committee, where many submitters came to speak to us. Certainly, Opposition members are handpicking little bits that they want to talk about. I thank the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Paula Bennett, for her openness and responsiveness, not only for answering questions here this evening but also for the interactions we have had as we have gone along from last year in looking at this bill.

There are a couple of points that I really must touch on. One of them is that during the course of the debate in the select committee, members opposite asked for more time. The Minister was responsive and gave us more time.

Hon Annette King: She gave us more time because she wasn’t ready.

TODD McCLAY: Not at all. The Minister gave us more time so we could consider the bill and look at it. I thank her for that. The reason I thank her for that is that she, along with every member on this side of the Chamber, wants to make sure we get this legislation right. Do members know why we need to get this legislation right? It is because on this very night, when Labour members opposite are speaking about all these things that will or will not work and about what they used to do or would be doing if they were in Government, we have young people in New Zealand, who started committing crimes when they were very young, out there in the streets tonight, now that it is dark, committing them again.

The sad reality, I say to members opposite, is that for the last 9 years, studies—

Dr Rajen Prasad: Oh, there you go again.

TODD McCLAY: Surely Mr Prasad cannot stand up in this Chamber and tell me that he is proud of the previous Government’s record in this area. The reason I know he cannot be proud of that record is that these young kids were committing crimes when all of the studies were being done. When the Families Commission was very busy with families working out what should be done—sitting on couches, and so on—those kids got to the age of 18, and now they are in our prisons. We know as a society and a country that we have not done well enough.

I will pick up on a couple of things that members have said in the debate tonight. Chester Borrows is a man whom I greatly respect. He is a man who has been out and been involved with young people as a policeman for many years, and he has worked hard to make their lives better. I say to members opposite that they should go and buy Chester a cup of coffee—he does not take sugar in it—and listen to him. They should not talk to him but listen to him, because he has some real experience about what happens on the ground. When I listen to the rhetoric that comes across from the other side of the Chamber, I know that clearly those members have to sit down with somebody like Chester and listen to his experience. I would listen to and trust Chester Borrows’ views on these issues, because of his experience, long before I would trust the hollow rhetoric from the other side of the Chamber.

I will now touch on the speech of Hekia Parata, who spoke with great passion. Of course, members opposite were critical of her because she was speaking too loudly. Well, I will back a member of this Parliament who wants to stand up and talk about those lost youths, the ones who are languishing in our jails, and their lost opportunities, any day of the week.

There are two issues in respect of Part 1. One is the military-style camps. Members opposite really need a reality check when it comes to what they think these things will be about. Of course they are about mentoring. Of course they are about drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Of course they are about wraparound services, but do members know what? Mrs King is not correct. A sharp, short shock will help some people some of the time. These are the ones whom we do not have to worry about, because a policeman coming to their door and talking to their parents could well be enough. Do members know what happens to most of these young people who may end up in the military-style camps? They will have had lots of chances, as the Minister said, often having been 11 times through Family Court jurisdictions. These are the kids for whom we have, as a society, one last chance to help before they go on to an adult prison. They will spend time with adults who will teach them to respect themselves and ask them to offer respect in return, help them to work through some of these issues, particularly drugs and alcohol, and support them in the communities when they go back into the communities. This is one of the last chances we will have to make sure their lives are not ruined and they do not end up in prison. This is an initiative that we have had support from the community for. Those who have been involved in some of these programmes support them fully, and I think this bill will do great things.

We have heard from members opposite about 12 and 13-year-olds. It is very interesting. We had a lot of submissions on that, and, again, my recollection of some of the things the Youth Court judges said when they came to us is quite different from that of members opposite. But I accept that the Principle Youth Court Judge said that he had concerns in some cases. One of the changes the select committee made will mean that when a 12 or 13-year-old appears before a Youth Court judge for those crimes, the judge can use some of the tools that are in the Family Court, or refer back to the Family Court if he or she chooses to.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) : I believe that the Committee is entitled to an answer to the question I posed earlier, about a change that is described by the Chief Judge of the Youth Court as constituting the most fundamental change to the system since its inception in 1989. That is why I think we are entitled to an explicit answer on the question of the age. I ask about the age of criminal responsibility for offences in addition to murder and manslaughter, which are already covered in legislation. The examples we are often given out there in the public arena are those that are already covered by that extension, by way of exception. This provision makes it more of the rule rather than the exception.

I want to know what evidence the Government is using to lower that age. What evidence does the Government have that shows that changing the age and shifting the jurisdiction to the Youth Court will, in fact, make a difference in terms of turning around the lives of children? I want to know why the Minister cannot say “children”. These are children under her own Act. Under the Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act 1989, a person is a child until he or she is 14, and then a young person. It is unfortunate that she will not pick up on the language.

I have another important question for her. Just over a week ago we referred another bill to the select committee. It was a bill not in the Minister’s name, but in the name of the Minister of Justice. That was to make an amendment to the offence provisions of the Adoption Act 1955, so that the Government could ratify the optional protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. I ask how on earth this legislation stacks up with that convention and our obligations as a country to that convention, to which we are a party.

My understanding is that the Government failed even to mention that this bill was in Parliament when the Government appeared before the United Nations Human Rights Council last year. That suggests to me that this bill runs directly counter to our United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child obligations. The Minister, Paula Bennett, should get up and explain whether that is the case—and, if it is the case, why on earth we would want to go down one track with the Minister of Justice and his changes to the Adoption Act, and down another track with this Minister in order to counter our obligations under that convention.

For me, the evidence base is the issue. I do not think the Minister was around when I was quoting the very excellent appointment the Government made to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Professor Gluckman. I was relieved when the Prime Minister appointed him to such an important position, because by way of that appointment the Prime Minister was saying that it was important to have an evidence base wrapped around social policy decisions—as we would have around all other elements of economic and scientific endeavour. I will quote Professor Gluckman—I raise a point of order, Mr Chair. I understand that if the Minister is in the Chamber, the Minister has to be in the chair. The Minister is having a conversation with one of the members at the back of the Chamber. I do not think she understands the Standing Orders in that regard.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): The member is quite right. I say to the Minister, the Hon Paula Bennett, that if she is in the Chamber, she is required to be in the chair. The Minister will either resume the chair or leave the Chamber. She is leaving the Chamber.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: I wanted to quote Professor Gluckman for the benefit of the Hon Paula Bennett but, unfortunately, I am not able to do that and will have to find another occasion. It is very important. Professor Gluckman talked about the “need for evidence to be rigorously based and inform policy formation,”. He said—and this I thought was really relevant—“that there can be many cogent reasons why evidence and policy need not align: the evidence may not be complete,”—well, that is a reasonable reason why they may not align. He said: “the public may not accept the evidence,”—that is a challenge, then, because one has to explain things to the public—“it may conflict with the accepted values of a society,”. That is certainly an issue in terms of some of the harm reduction approaches we would like to take. On that note, I was very disappointed at the immediate knee-jerk response of the Minister of Justice, Simon Power, to the Misuse of Drugs Act report from the Law Commission.

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) : It is a shame to interrupt my colleague and the previous speaker, Lianne Dalziel, who I feel was about to make a very good point. It is a shame that the Minister responsible for the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill, Paula Bennett, is no longer in the chair, because I wanted to reflect on some of the comments she made. I agree with one of her points. She said that for initiatives to work, they must be sustained. The use of the word “sustained” is something that, broadly, I agree with. My concern is that the evidence to date demonstrates that the Government’s intention is not to invest in sustained initiatives.

All of the Government’s language around short, sharp shocks is indicative of that, as is the closure of Te Hurihanga. I want to go back to this point. Te Hurihanga was an 18-month programme. Those boys who were still in the programme will not get the sustained assistance that was planned for them—and nor, I must add, will the next intake. The member for Hamilton West, Tim MacIndoe, should acknowledge that the Government is not proposing an exact replica of the programme; it is proposing a shortened version of the programme. It is proposing a programme that will cost significantly less and that will not have the same staff, who are acknowledged—and this comes directly from the independent review of that programme—as some of the most skilled in their area in this country. The cost per offender in that programme was less than the cost of locking up one of those individuals for a few years. I would call that more than affordable; I would call it a necessary investment.

I also appreciated the response the Minister gave around drug and alcohol programmes and her sharing of the conversation she had with those from Odyssey House and the like, but I still have a question. Given that there are significant waiting lists for residential places in those programmes, I ask her how many beds and places will be available nationwide. At the moment, the programmes are centred around the cities and in few other places. I would like a little more detail on that. The Minister also read from a Police Association submission, and the Hon Annette King has touched on the problems that come with relying solely on the views of the association. The only other submission that seemed to be broadly in favour of the Government’s proposals was that of Graeme Dingle from the Foundation for Youth Development. The significant reason for his favourable submission—and he acknowledged this at the Social Services Committee—was the fact that he had put in a bid for the Fresh Start tender that had been put out by the Ministry of Social Development, so I would expect him to give a glowing submission on the programme he hoped to provide.

It is very interesting that soon after all of this, the Minister asked the committee to delay the report back. Cabinet papers revealed that she was asked to downsize the cost of Fresh Start. Surprisingly—or not surprisingly, as the case may be—the contract was not awarded to Mr Dingle. In fact, the Fresh Start programme is being provided solely by the Ministry of Social Development and the army. I ask members opposite to forgive us if, from time to time, we revert to the language of the Prime Minister and call the programme a boot camp when one of the primary providers is the New Zealand Army. One would default to that position given that the army is a heavy part of the programme. In the minority report, the Labour members acknowledged the confusion around the Government’s intention for the programme. That is why we said that we believed that the Government had been disingenuous in the way it had presented its initiative. Publicly it described the programme as a boot camp, but after intense opposition from those working in the sector it tried to paint quite a different picture. We acknowledge that and we have always acknowledged that.

I talk now to the international obligations. We have already talked about Labour’s amendment regarding 12 and 13-year-olds. We also have an amendment before the Committee that shifts the age at which someone is a “young person” up to 18. That shift is for a very simple reason. We proposed it under the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6), which I believe is still on the Order Paper. I would like to hear the Government’s view on that bill. We are currently breaking our United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child obligations. My colleague Lianne Dalziel spoke about the fact that the Government did not even acknowledge that when it appeared before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) : I move, That the question be now put.

STUART NASH (Labour) : I was not going to take a call in this debate, but I decided to do so when I understood that Graeme Dingle had put forward a proposal to run the Fresh Start programme but it was awarded to the army. I want to talk about that because I was one of the mentors on Graeme Dingle’s Project K programme. That programme was about providing at-risk youth with a mentoring, supportive environment.

I will tell members about the little fellow that I looked after. He was from a very poor family; of that there was no doubt. The family ate KFC three times a week—he was slightly undernourished. He had asthma, yet his mother and her partner smoked two packets of cigarettes a day between them. But I understood that the mother actually wanted what was best for her son. She understood that her little boy was going off the rails, but she was prepared to try anything to make sure that he did not end up in jail like his father.

That was the sort of project that Graeme Dingle ran. It was a supportive project. It was about mentoring; it was about bringing the best out of kids. It was not about locking them up and saying that they would get fitter and faster by being sent away after six months, and then seeing them in another 12 months, when they are over 18 years and can go to jail. Project K was about turning kids round. It was such a positive experience that I learnt a lot about myself, as well as a lot about that little fellow.

I will talk about youth offending in a slightly different way, by continuing with the quote that my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel was in the process of giving before her time was up. Professor Gluckman said “There is the beginning of the recognition that there is a far greater need for evidence to be rigorously based and inform policy formation, although I hasten to say that there can be many cogent reasons why evidence and policy need not align: the evidence may not be complete, the public may not accept the evidence, it may conflict with the accepted values of a society, the cost implications may be contrary to the approach supported by the evidence, and ultimately the democratic process will put constraints on decisions that can be made. The important point, however, is not to deny the evidence but to acknowledge it and explain when and why policies are developed that are not in accord with the evidence.” In terms of how we can improve the use of evidence by a Government, Professor Gluckman went on to say his “goal is to try in an unbiased way to look at the evidence that explains why New Zealand adolescents have such high morbidity—second only to the USA—and to identify what we know about childhood and adolescence which might impact on policy settings in health, education, social welfare and justice that might lead to better outcomes.”

I acknowledge and I understand the need to seriously address the problems of youth offending. I think we all agree on that; the issue is just one of how we go about doing that. I think, first and foremost, we need to address the problems of disaffected youth. In respect of my little fellow, his friends and a lot of his peers, they had lost their cultural identity. Once people lose their cultural identity, it is a very short step to losing their personal identity, and from there it is just a short step to losing the ability to aspire. People in that situation do not care about anything, and do not see any prospects for themselves at all. There is no vision, and there is no ability to appreciate the value of other people’s property. Then what we get is graffiti, violence, and all those sorts of things from disaffected youth in our society and our communities. They should not be there; Labour put in place policies to address those issues.

Let us look at the policies that this Government has put in place, which actually do not address poverty—for example, tax cuts. This Government gave tax cuts, but anyone who earns under $40,000 per year—we are talking about 75 percent of the people in the Napier electorate, for example—did not get any tax cut. Those sorts of policies and the sort of tax proposal that we have on the table at the moment widen the gap between the most privileged in our society and the most vulnerable. That reinforces stereotypes, and that comes back, again, to a lack of ability to aspire. That is an absolute death knell for a lot of our young kids and a lot of our communities. We need to have policies that alleviate poverty. When I heard that the minimum wage was going up by 25c an hour, I thought about those who earn the minimum wage. They are people who are working in two, three, or sometimes even four, jobs, because they need to work 24/7 to put food on the table, clothes on their backs, and occasionally to provide schoolbooks. I think it was identified by Tim Macindoe that some children are growing up without parents because their parents need to work such horrendous hours, earning dreadful salaries, just in order to survive. It is a vicious circle, and it is our role as parliamentarians to provide policies that alleviate poverty. I am just not seeing that from members on the Government side of the Chamber.

DAVID GARRETT (ACT) : I was not intending to take a call on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill, and I will make it very brief.

There are a couple of points to be made about the programme that is not being continued. I just asked my colleague Rahui Katene the name of it, but she could not think of it either. We both know that it is Te something.

Hon Members: Te Hurihanga.

DAVID GARRETT: Well, I do not profess to have any great knowledge about it, but the evidence is quite clear from overseas, even from criminologists who are in the “rehabilitation is not possible” camp. The camps are broadly divided into two. Some criminologists say nothing works, and that is one recognised camp of criminologists, whereas others say lots of things work. Even the “nothing works” camp agree that if enough money is spent and a programme is intensive enough, the results will be OK, or better than OK. But the question then becomes one of how much we should spend, and for what sort of OK result.

I think the figures given by Ms Ardern yesterday were that there had been no reoffending by any of the graduates for 10 months. Is that correct?

Jacinda Ardern: I never said that.

DAVID GARRETT: Someone said that the graduates from the course thus far had not reoffended for 10 months after completing it. Sadly, that is not very significant. If the period was 2 years or 5 years, then that would mean something. In this country we have lots of manipulation of the statistics about sex offenders. We say graduates of particular courses have a 20 percent or 6 percent reoffending rate, but we have to know over what period that is. So although this programme may well be effective for a small number, although at a vast cost, the sad reality is that getting bangs in return for the bucks spent is important. We have to achieve rehabilitation of the greatest number—the greatest good for the greatest number; utilitarianism, I think it is called. That is one reason that, sadly, this legislation is necessary.

Secondly, I think Ms King, whose opinion I have considerable regard for, said we are talking about children. She was a little passionate about the issue, and said these children need to be given care. Sadly, I say there are 12-year-olds who are no longer children. They might be children chronologically, but they have offended seriously. They have no background; they have no values.

Hon Lianne Dalziel: Where are their parents?

DAVID GARRETT: Yes. Well, members on that side of House have encouraged their parents not to care, through the welfare system. That is the whole problem. We cannot say that all the young people—or young children—at my daughter’s school who are aged 10, 11, 12, and 13 are children. Sadly, they are not.

I am all for rehabilitation. Members can laugh over there; let us hear it. But I say rehabilitation is wonderful. As I have said in other speeches, I would be delighted if no one was ever locked up under the “three strikes” law on the third strike. But, sadly, that is not reality, and we have to target the available money to those who are most likely to benefit from it and to areas where the greatest number will benefit from it. This is what this part of the bill does. Thank you.

LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) : I will take the opportunity to speak again to my proposed amendment to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill, relating to the rights of victims. I will give a little bit of background to this amendment. From the previous Parliament I acknowledge Nandor Tanczos, who, as part of the agreement with the Labour Government at the time, undertook an inquiry into victims’ rights. As chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee I recall that time very, very clearly because of the number of people who came along who were victims of really tragic situations and circumstances that affected their dear and loved ones, and because of the commitment they made to the committee, and how important it was to them. It was not that so many of the submissions were not what we so often hear. As my friend and colleague Iain Lees-Galloway talked about before, it was not about locking up the offenders and throwing the keys away; it was about the role that the victims played in terms of reconciling and coming to terms with what happened and the ability to be part of the process in terms of dealing with the person—in this case, a young person—who has committed the offence.

I acknowledge that I have been very critical of this bill. But I did so very much from a principled position on things that we in the Labour Party hold very dear and, as so many of us have stated, things that we are opposed to. But I very much urge—

Tim Macindoe: You’re not opposed to all of it now?

LYNNE PILLAY: No, I am talking about something that I believe will constructively improve the bill and certainly improve the bill in terms of victims, and in terms of coming to terms and the resolution of very legitimate grievances.

I am seeking to amend clause 5 by including an amendment to substitute section 208(g) of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act. The new paragraph (g) will state: “the principle that—(i) in the determination of measures for dealing with offending by children or young persons, consideration should be given to the interests and views of any victims of the offending (for example, by encouraging the victims to participate in the processes under this Part for dealing with offending); and (ii) any measures should have proper regard for the interests of any victims of the offending and the impact of the offending on them:”.

Dr Rajen Prasad: Tim will support it.

LYNNE PILLAY: I hope so. This is not a controversial amendment; it will add value to the existing bill. If I were being naughty, I might say that it is probably the most valuable part we will see in the bill. But I will not do that, because I have been critical of the bill, and I think I have said all that needed to be said about it.

Again, when we are looking at a situation where family group conferences are convened, I urge members to note how important it is that victims are involved in that process. There should be a requirement for the chief executive to ascertain whether victims want to be informed of the progress. It is not mandatory by any stretch of the imagination, but victims may want to be informed about decisions, recommendations, or plans made by family group conferences to which their agreement has been obtained. They may also be informed of any penalty or reparation for an offence. There should be a requirement on the chief executive’s part to ensure that if victims wish to be notified of the child or young person’s progress in taking the action that has been agreed to by the family group conference, then that will happen.

As I said before, I urge members to give careful consideration to my amendment. I believe that I have had a very constructive conversation with the ACT member, and I thank that member for taking the time to talk to me and to make inquiries about that matter. I urge other members of the Committee to give equal consideration to this important amendment. Thank you.

TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) : I move, That the question be now put.

DAVID CLENDON (Green) : I have come late to this debate, but I want to take just a very brief call in order to make a few comments to reaffirm the Greens’ opposition to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill and to support some of the statements that have been made tonight.

The first point that I must make has already been made, but it is worth repeating and repeating: 12 and 13-year-olds are children. To the surprise of neither of us, I disagree with Mr Garrett, who tells us that some of these young offenders are no longer children, despite their chronological age. In fact, they are children. They are damaged children; they are corrupted children. They are children who have been formed and shaped by poverty, by neglect, by a lack of opportunity, by a lack of basic nutrition, and by a lack of education. I recently had the pleasure of spending some time with a niece and some of her friends, who are 15 and 16-year-old young women. I use the words “young women” deliberately. That young lady is a very, very different person from the one that she was 3 and even 2 years ago. A substantial evolution, a significant change, occurs at that age, between a child of 11 or 12 and a young woman of 15. To deny that is, I am afraid, a denial of what many of us who are parents and carers of children know to be the reality.

There is a question of responsibility. We share responsibility for the offences that young children commit. They are terrible offences, and it is tragic to see that young people are committing these crimes. But the fact is that it is our responsibility—ours more than anyone else’s, as parliamentarians. This bill does not address the resolution of the issue of how we face up to those responsibilities. Punishment is not the appropriate response to a failure to nurture young children in a way that prevents them from turning into damaged children. Why are kids on the street at night and, conceivably, committing crime? Today we had a rally at the front of Parliament’s steps by the cleaners who keep this place habitable and a nice place to be in. They earn $12.55 an hour. A minimum wage of $15 might go a long way towards enabling those people to spend more time in their own homes. We need to ensure there is a decent basic wage for every family. When I was bringing up my daughter, I was able to support a small family on a single income, but that is simply not an option for many people today.

Beneficiaries—in particular, those on the domestic purposes benefit—are now under enormous pressure to return to work when their youngest child hits around the age of 6. I fail to see the simple economic calculation in that. It seems to me that that is a very expensive policy. We are forcing women into the workforce and taking them away from the care of their own children, but I ask, who is better to look after a child than a parent? The fact is that people who are on low incomes and benefits can seldom afford stable housing. We know that children who are transient, who do not have a secure, stable home, are those who are most likely to offend. Again, a number of policy settings can improve the likelihood that children will be nurtured and brought up in a stable family home, but we are not seeing those emerge from this Government, I have to say.

A reference was made earlier to the opposition to this bill perhaps reflecting an outdated view. I would put it to the member who made that comment that this bill—and I am echoing my co-leader, who made the point—sounds like something from the 18th or early 19th centuries. The fact is that we would punish the child rather than look in the mirror and challenge ourselves to make sure that damaged children do not emerge.

The point was made that the Police Association supports this bill. I would just make the passing comment that it opposes the “three strikes” legislation, so let us give the same mana to the association’s statement as some would have us give to this bill. I say that in the context, clearly, of supporting the police in their work.

That is probably as much as I need to say, but I reiterate that this issue is a social tragedy. We need to take responsibility for it. We need to find an intelligent, informed, and long-term solution to it, and this bill is not that solution. Kia ora.

Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) : I move, That the question be now put.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) : I am speaking to Part 2 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. Reading this part of the bill was quite interesting; I think we might need a little bit of detailed explanation of what is intended. I assume that it simply adds 12 and 13-year-old children to the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995. The legislation—previously covering only those charged with murder or manslaughter, but now including those being prosecuted for a wider range of offences—will now apply to children.

It is quite an interesting area and it is quite ironic that we are having this debate the day after an event that occurred here in Parliament last night. I attended the 20th anniversary of DNA testing in New Zealand, an event hosted by the Minister of Research, Science and Technology, along with the Royal Society and the body that brings all of the Crown research institutes together. It was a fascinating history of the development both of the technique of DNA testing and also of the development of databases of information and the quality of the results taken from them. In a way, we are reflecting here the tragedy of the reoffending rates of our young people who get to this stage.

I think probably the point I was trying to make most of all in the debate on Part 1 of this bill was that if we have not successfully intervened early on, then this is really the last chance. I know I heard the ACT Party member indicate that these children were not able to be saved and were not really worthy of being saved, because of where they had got to. He said they were not children. I think what he meant was that their behaviour was no longer childlike, but he ignored the dreadful reality of the lives of so many of these children who get to this stage of serious offending.

I do not normally give movie reviews when I debate a bill in the Chamber, but I went to see the movie Precious, and if anyone wants to be completely drained and to have a real sense of hopelessness then they should go to see that movie. I read a review of it that said that it had an uplifting aspect to it, because of the meeting, or connection, with an alternative education teacher that gave Precious a hope that she could have a life. But I felt no sense of being uplifted by the end of that movie. In fact, I felt utter and complete desperation for the reality of those lives, which are so dysfunctional, so tragically destroyed at an early age by parents who either neglect or abuse children, or abuse each other, and who allow their children to grow up without a moral compass and to head off down a pathway to inevitably ending up with their bodily samples, their DNA, on a database. What a tragic record that is.

I think quite relevant to this part of the bill are the issues that came up in the evaluation of the Te Hurihanga pilot, because I do not think that Parliament has quite understood the extent of the development of the practice of the model that went on during that pilot. In fact, it makes me weep, now that I have read the evaluation—I would really like to know from the Minister of Justice why the evaluation took so long to be publicly released, since it is dated October 2009—which states: “The current treatment model is aligned with ecological approaches used in New Zealand and internationally. These approaches target known risk and protective factors that contribute to conduct disorder and youth offending by: increasing opportunities for the young people to mix with prosocial peers through positive activities (eg, education, work and recreation); …”—I guess that is the Youth Guarantee that we heard about before—“reducing opportunities for the young people to mix with antisocial peers and engage in antisocial activities (eg, by creating alternative positive opportunities and developing young people’s positive self-identities); building consequential thinking; and strengthening whaanau/families (eg, though skill enhancement, building positive parent-youth relationships, positive reinforcement).” That is the only direction that we should be heading in.

What bothers me about passing this amendment to the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act is that it really takes on board something else the ACT Party member said, which was to indicate that the only measure of success—the only outcome that we should look at for Te Hurihanga—is the reoffending rate. What about the participants’ pro-social choices and their ability to choose better peers? What about substance abuse reduction and identity development outcomes for young people? How about mental health safety and physical health outcomes for young people? How about the cultural and life skills outcomes for young people? How about the reduction in gang identity? How about increased thoughts and behaviours relating to personal appearance? How about some of the enhanced moral reasoning and enhanced consequential thinking?

David Garrett: So reoffenders with a nice haircut and a shower—that’s all right?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: That member might well mock, but he actually does not even begin to understand what an ecological approach to treating those damaged children is. Those children are damaged. The reason that we insist upon them being called children is that they are entitled to the care and protection of their parents, of their families, and of their communities. I will always stand in this Chamber and say that we have a collective responsibility for the children of our nation. This bill is not the answer.

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) : It is my pleasure to speak to Part 2 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. I think that this part demonstrates, as my colleague has already touched on, what the overwhelming ripple effect of what we are doing today on the age bands within our youth justice system will have, beyond just which court a young child or young offender will appear in, and beyond just what powers may apply to that particular given court. It has a knock-on effect.

• House resumed.

• The Chairperson reported progress on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Court Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill, and no progress on the Judicial Matters Bill.

• Report adopted.