Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) Link to this

I move, That the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill represents New Zealand’s biggest commitment to improving front-line youth justice services in many years. Our more serious youth offenders will get more attention. They will get greater support, they will face stronger discipline, and there will be greater expectations of change.

The legislative changes will give Youth Court judges new options by providing for tougher and longer orders for our most serious young offenders. These are young people who are on a fast track to prison if we do not turn their lives round. New Zealanders have been appalled that some of these offenders are as young as 12 or 13. This bill extends the jurisdiction of the Youth Court so that these young people—a tiny minority—can get the intensive support offered by this Government’s Fresh Start reforms. Their behaviour needs special attention if they are to be saved from a lifetime of crime.

All serious young offenders will be subject to longer and more intensive sentences, but they will, at the same time, receive support and rehabilitation opportunities unequalled in New Zealand’s history. This Government is serious about tackling youth offending, and we are putting $84 million into the Fresh Start initiative over the next 3 years in order to do just that.

I thank the Social Services Committee for its diligent and careful consideration of this bill. I especially thank the chair, Katrina Shanks, for the outstanding job she did. I am pleased that the committee received 51 submissions on the bill, with most people giving up their time in order to make oral submissions. The committee made a number of excellent recommendations, and I thank it for that. It is clear that there is a great deal of interest in getting this legislation right.

The bill introduces longer and more intensive sentencing orders. It doubles the maximum time that a serious young offender can spend in a secure residence from a standard 3 months to 6 months. I have talked to many professionals who work with young offenders and their families, and there is general agreement that 3 months is not long enough to make a lasting change. One mum told me that she had just started to see improvements in her son’s behaviour before he was home again and back to his old ways. A longer time spent in a residential programme will help to embed good habits and boundaries and better prepare young offenders for their return to their communities and families.

We will not just dump these young people back into the community. The bill also doubles the maximum amount of time—from 6 months to a year—that a young person will be supervised and supported in the community after release from a secure facility. Under this bill, Youth Court judges will also have new options to compel young offenders and their families to complete parenting education, mentoring, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes. These orders will address the root causes of offending.

Every single serious offender who appears before the Youth Court will have a comprehensive plan that addresses her or his particular crime triggers. We know that these programmes work. A young man sentenced for aggravated robbery was linked to a mentor who, by encouraging the boy into kapahaka, helped him reconnect to school. That young man is now crime-free and looking forward to studying business and information management at university.

Young offenders will be intensively monitored, kept busy and focused, and held to greater account if they fall from the straight and narrow. The bill will, for the first time, see young offenders kept under the scrutiny of the Youth Court. It has long been a defect in the legislation that young offenders cannot be compelled to come before the Youth Court to answer allegations that they are in breach of their sentences. Also, on occasion, sentences have expired without young people being held to account for their breaches. This has actively undermined public confidence in the youth justice system.

The Social Services Committee has proposed amendments that will enable the Youth Court to issue arrest warrants for young offenders who breach orders or go into hiding from the system. The amendments will also enable the Youth Court to suspend the operation of an order while it deals with breach allegations. Police are granted powers to ensure that the curfew conditions of intensive supervision orders can be enforced by arrest if necessary.

Our plans for 12 and 13-year-old offenders who commit serious crimes have attracted a lot of attention and debate. In my view, it is absolutely necessary for the Youth Court to have jurisdiction over this very small number of young people, if they are to be saved from a life of crime. The Family Court simply does not have the tools and solutions to deal with these extremely complex cases, especially when there is often little buy-in from these children’s families.

Let me be very clear—we are talking about only those young people who have a record of offending well beyond their years. These are 12 or 13-year-olds who are out of control and are a danger to our communities. Let us take the case of a 13-year-old boy whom the system is struggling with at the moment. He has been in trouble with the police since he was 8 years old, and he has a fully fledged drink and dope habit. His most recent offending involved threatening with a weapon, assault, and burglary. As the second-eldest of six children, his behaviour is now impacting on his younger brothers and sisters.

The bill gives us more choices as to how we address the issue of serious child offenders. Police will have the choice of taking action in either in the Family Court or the Youth Court. The Youth Court will have the power to refer a matter back to the police if judges feel that a matter would be better dealt with by the Family Court. I believe that this approach will protect those very young offenders—those 12 and 13-year-olds who are to be dealt with by the Youth Court. I want to be clear that the Youth Court is specially designed to deal with young offenders. I have no doubt whatsoever that Principal Youth Court Judge, Andrew Becroft, and his fellow Youth Court judges will take a balanced and sensible attitude towards the small number of 12 and 13-year-olds who come before them.

The Social Services Committee has recommended several changes in relation to child offenders. In particular, it has tightened up the rules that determine which child offenders should be subject to Youth Court jurisdiction. Many submitters were also concerned about the current inadequacies of the Family Court to deal with child offenders. For example, the Family Court has no power to impose bail conditions and has limited options when a child first comes before the court. The Fresh Start reforms will be better supported when we can fix the way that the Family Court deals with child offenders. As such, I welcome the Social Services Committee’s inquiry into child offenders. I am confident that the committee will identify practical ways to improve the ability of the Family Court to respond to child offenders.

An important feature of Fresh Start is our plan for our 40 most serious youth offenders to participate in military activity camps. These are kids for whom the system is just not working. These young people have no respect for the law, people, or property. They are notorious in their neighbourhoods, and many adults will have tried and failed to help along the way.

New Zealand’s armed forces have a long and proud history of working with young adults. Since 1993 thousands of young adults have participated in Limited Service Volunteers schemes. Seventy-five percent of those who have completed the military training life skills course have succeeded in getting work or have gone on to further skills training. The mix of traditional values—team work, self-discipline, individual responsibility, pride, and discipline—has turned round the lives of thousands of young New Zealanders. It makes sense to incorporate some of these elements into a programme for those who, until now, have been seen as hopeless cases who are tracking an almost inevitable path to prison.

The recent pilot run by Child, Youth and Family at Burnham shows what can be achieved. I am aware that getting that camp up and running in such a short time has placed some limitations around it. Nevertheless, it has provided valuable lessons for future camps. In November I attended the graduation at this camp, and it was inspiring to hear the stories. Some families were moved to tears by the changes they saw in their boys. It was pretty incredible to see a patched gang member dad apologise to his son for not being there for him in the past. All the young people made a real connection with their army supervisors. The programme challenged them physically and psychologically.

These camps have nothing remotely in common with the old sentence of corrective training. They are a modern innovation that incorporates army-style discipline with cognitive behaviour treatment and a full range of rehabilitation programmes, including alcohol and drug counselling, mentoring, and intensive supervision. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) Link to this

The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill had a very, very poor start on its journey in this House. In fact, the Minister of Youth Affairs was in such a hurry to make her name and have her photo in the paper that she brought in this bill half an hour before Parliament was to sit, at 1.30 in the afternoon. Nobody, including the public or other political parties, had an opportunity to look at it before she rushed it through under urgency to the Social Services Committee. So it had a pretty poor start. It was not because it was not ready; in fact the bill was ready 2 days before she tabled it half an hour before Parliament sat.

KATRINA SHANKS (National) Link to this

It is my pleasure to stand and support the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill in the House tonight. As chair of the Social Services Committee I can say that we had a substantial debate within the committee, and many issues were raised with submitters when they came forward. Because of some of the issues, changes were made to the bill. We do not always get a bill 100 percent right before it comes to a select committee. We listened to the submitters, and we made changes accordingly.

Tonight I would like to acknowledge the officials who put a lot of work into this bill. They came back many, many times with many new answers for us, as we dug deeper and deeper. The committee appreciates the hard work they put in. I also know that the officials worked outside their normal hours in support of this bill.

The bill received 51 submissions. They came from the Youth Court, the New Zealand Police, the Law Society, and many non-governmental organisations. At the select committee, a huge criticism was that there was no evidence-based research to support the changes made by this bill. The fact that New Zealand has undertaken little evidence-based research concerning youth offending and the programmes is no reason not to make a change—otherwise we would be waiting forever to make a change that will make a difference in these children’s lives. Because of that, the status quo is not good enough for us. We had to make changes; there was no choice.

In an article in the 5 September 2009 issue of the Dominion Post, Judge Andrew Becroft put forward some very important facts about the youth whom he sees in his Youth Court. I will give members just some of these facts, and they are pretty sobering: 85 percent of offenders appearing in the Youth Court are male; 80 percent are not at school—that is not truancy; they are entirely out of the education system—80 percent have alcohol and cannabis problems; 50 percent are Māori, and in some areas that figure is up to 80 or 90 percent of the youth who appear before the Youth Court.

Judge Becroft went on to say he sees a lot of family instability, such as a dad who is long gone and a mother who is struggling. One in three kids will undergo a psychological assessment, and many go on to further assessment, counselling, and treatment. He went on to say that no New Zealand research has been done but that, based on international evidence, about a quarter of teenagers who appear in the Youth Court have symptoms—sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle—of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Nobody really understands how seriously damaged a lot of these kids are. Judge Andrew Becroft was saying that we have a major problem in New Zealand, and one that needs to be addressed.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) Link to this

I am extremely disappointed in the direction this Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill proposes for children and young people. Unlike the previous speaker, Katrina Shanks, I attended the ministerial meeting on the drivers of crime, hosted by the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Māori Affairs last year. I would be interested to know the Māori Party’s view on this particular legislation.

I came away from that meeting last year quite heartened by the approach that I thought the Government was going to take over a really important issue. I felt it would eschew the law and order drum it had beaten the tattoo on every year, for several layers of intervention—early intervention, school-based intervention, and the youth development programmes that actually were effective in making a difference and being a last chance to turn people away from a lifetime of offending.

Following on from that meeting, I was then absolutely delighted to see that the Prime Minister had appointed a chief science adviser. I thought that that was fantastic, especially when I read the speech that Professor Peter Gluckman gave later on in the year. I quote from that speech. He 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,”—that is the assertion of the member who has just resumed her seat—“the public may not accept the evidence,”. Well, that is pretty much a problem that we have in terms of how crime is reported. The speech continues: “it may conflict with the accepted values of a society, the cost implications may be contrary to the approach supported by the evidence,”—ha, ha! That is why Te Hurihanga has closed down—“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.”

This policy and this bill are not in accord with the evidence, and I have not heard the Minister stand up and explain why the Government has decided to ignore not only the very good general advice from the chief science adviser but also the advice of the Chief Family Court Judge and all the researchers who spoke at that meeting that day, such as Richie Poulton from Otago University and David Fergusson from the longitudinal study in Canterbury. We had there everyone with a long-term interest in evidence-based policy and intervention, who had been working on these issues for many, many years—working with central government to bring about some change within our education system, and within social development across the range of policies where those policies needed to be changed.

But what do we have? We have had no explanation, other than that anecdotally it felt really good to be at the graduation ceremony. Well, I have been to lots of graduation ceremonies where I have felt really good about the change that has occurred, but I want to know that when change occurs it will be long-term and sustainable, and will make a difference in the lives of these young people. That is what I want from policy in this country.

I think this bill is an insult to the appointment of a chief science adviser. There is no evidence to back military-style boot camps as a method of achieving that long-term sustainable change that is often needed to override—and I think this is where on both sides of the House we are being honest—an upbringing that no one in this House has experienced. The Minister talked of the people who gave evidence in the select committee. Those who are committed to making a real difference actually opposed the provisions in this bill; they are not evidence-based.

Let me just briefly refer to the actual kinds of interventions that came up at the discussion we had at the ministerial drivers of crime meeting. They were to provide parenting advice, support, and intervention from pregnancy and through the early childhood years, particularly in vulnerable families—those in poverty, with young mothers, and with parental criminality—and to provide coordinated and effective early screening, diagnosis, and intervention programmes for at-risk families and individuals, encompassing and addressing a wide range of issues such as conduct disorder, mental health issues, and family dysfunction.

Another intervention was to address the alienation and disengagement of young people from education, by giving teachers the skills and support to deal with difficult behaviour, and to improve alternative education provision and pathways back into education for those who were excluded or not enrolled. Well, in my electorate this Government has got rid of all the adult and community education to speak of, which is exactly the opposite of what was recommended from that meeting.

A further intervention was to provide more accessible and timely mental health, drug, and alcohol treatment services, with greater use of tikanga Māori - based models. I thought that was very interesting, because the bill we will be dealing with next is a carry-over from legislation that our Government introduced—and guess what? All of the provisions about access to addiction programmes have been completely expunged from the bill; they have gone. We can see that this Government is not really interested in getting to the root of the problem; it is more interested in the headline news.

Another intervention was to provide positive leisure, sports, cultural activities, and role models for young people, in order to give them positive focus for their spare time and energy, and to build their confidence, identity, and sense of belonging and worth within society. That is the sort of thing that does make a difference. I have heard Judge Becroft use the expression that kids in sport stay out of court. It is a pretty simple one, but those kids are busy, involved, and engaged. They learn team activities: they are not individuals left to fight on their own; they learn the skills to work as team players.

Other interventions were to improve the quality and availability of therapeutic rehabilitation and reintegration services for prisoners and offenders serving community-based sentences, and to review the underpinning principles, structures, and processes of the justice system, to ensure that bias was addressed and the needs of victims were met, and that justice system responses did not inadvertently increase crime. That is very interesting, because of course we all know what the reality is, in terms of increased recidivism, of the effect on imprisoning people for longer. But we do not want to talk publicly about facts; they might get in the way of a good headline.

Yet another intervention was to reinvigorate a sense of caring and responsibility within communities by building community capacity, resources, leadership, and social capital. When the group was asked to say how that would happen in fact, the very first point the group came up with was to have interventions based on evidence, with a strong focus on what worked and with greater investment in research and evaluation.

I thought that day was tremendous; I felt very heartened by it. Other interventions were to support innovative community-based and Māori-designed programmes, but those needed to be evaluated and they needed to demonstrate effectiveness too; to develop an immediate, long-term, 10-year, cross-party, inter-agency approach to addressing the underlying drivers of crime, in partnership with iwi and communities; to adopt a strengths-based approach that built resilience and strengthened families and communities, by building their capacity and capability; and to adopt a resourcing model that provided sustained funding for effective programmes, and flexible funding to enable local responsiveness and build provider capacity and capability, and then to build relationships between iwi in order to share ideas, models, and initiatives. But that is all too hard for the Government. It just seems that it has given up on what really works.

I have a question for members on the other side of the House. Who are Alexander Tokorua Peihopa and Whatarangi Rāwiri? How about Phillip Kaukasi, Riki Rāpira, and Joe Kaukasi? Maybe this quote from the Sunday Star-Times website will help: “Michael was brutally murdered nearly 4 years ago by six thugs, including this country’s youngest killer, Bailey Junior Kurariki.” The first two names I mentioned were the two young people who murdered Michael Choy, and the other three were the others like Bailey Junior Kurariki who were convicted of manslaughter. It took me ages to track down the names of the people who murdered Michael Choy, because story after story only ever referred to Bailey Junior Kurariki. He was the one who contacted the pizza firm, who enticed the pizza deliverer to the house, and who opened the door when Michael Choy arrived. What Bailey Junior Kurariki did was wrong, but he has been additionally punished with the notoriety his youthful age earned him. Yet nobody knows the names of the real killers, the murderers.

I make this point about extending the jurisdiction of the Youth Court to 12 and 13-year-olds for other crimes beyond manslaughter and murder—as it already can—and I say that the Government should think about the consequences.

METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) Link to this

I firstly acknowledge those final comments from my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel. I agree, and I think that was exactly the issue that needed to be put on the table: that a child of 12 years old becomes notorious due to his age while those who committed the crime—he did commit a crime; but he did not wield the bat—become anonymous out of the notoriety driven by the youth of the child and what is done to that child by the legal system, which has no capacity to deal properly with issues like this. The problem with the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill is that it does not help, and it makes the situation much, much worse by not recognising that children as young as 12 years old are children. They might know what they do is wrong, but they do not or cannot understand the consequences of what they do, and they must never be treated as if they are anything other than the children that they are.

Children must only ever be treated in the context of their family, in the context of their community, and in the context of the care and protection issues that Judge Becroft talked about. That is the only way to make sure that that child gets the help that that child needs, however heinous the crime. Sometimes the crime can be terrible, but this is still a child—not a young adult, not an adult, but a child. Such children must be treated with all possible care to make sure that they are well and healthy, that they never commit that act again, and that they never suffer as they must have done so that they committed that crime in the first place. This bill does not do that. This bill does not treat the issues around children who offend. This bill attempts simply to treat them like young adults, meeting some need of a community that prefers punishment to care and punitive action to preventing recidivism and crime.

The Green Party will oppose this legislation at this stage and at the third reading. Following the first reading of this bill I was not able to be on the Social Services Committee for most of the time that the bill was being dealt with and when submissions were being heard. But at the very first reading of this bill I acknowledged that there were some good measures in it around extending the orders of the Youth Court, for example, and giving the Youth Court more tools to deal with the young people who go into that court. I can see that the select committee has tried to make some positive contributions and changes to the legislation. It is good that an admission of a prior offence at a family group conference cannot be used to then escalate that offending or that child through the process. It is good that there is an attempt at least to try to keep 12 and 13-year-olds in the Youth Court as opposed to the High Court and other courts, and that there is an attempt to try to restrict the time that 12 and 13-year-olds will spend in custody. I see that there has been some legitimate attempt to make the bill better.

But the problem is, of course, that the bill is fundamentally flawed. The premise on which it is based is that 12 and 13-year-old children should be treated as young adults, and that is simply inappropriate and wrong. It will cause more offending later on because of the way that the children will be dealt with. The bill is contrary to New Zealand’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. That alone should signal to the New Zealand community that legislation like this and the policies of the National Government, driven by the extreme radicalism of the ACT Party, are really driving New Zealand legislation around crime issues back to the 19th century. The legislation does not take into account the most recent evidence about what works to reduce crime in a community, what works for young people to reduce their risk of offending, and what works to prevent families from being in a situation where their kids might offend. None of that is incorporated into the policies of the National Government or ACT’s extremist agenda. All the extremism on that side of the House is geared towards making New Zealand a much more punitive country, one that cares even less for families and for children, and it is driving the penal system back into the 19th or even the 18th century.

One other concern I have related to that is that this Government has wasted thousands of dollars on this ridiculous legislation; thousands of dollars that could have been better spent elsewhere or on policy development that would have looked at how to prevent children from being in the situation where that kind of offending was even likely. The legislation admits that it might apply to about a thousand children in New Zealand and to only one hundred for the most serious offending. That begs the question of why all the resources are put into just those few, when, in fact, if we can put more resources into the 200,000 children, for example, who live in the most severe poverty, we might get a much, much better outcome. In fact, I will not even qualify it. We would get a much, much better outcome if we put the resources into the children and families who need them now, rather than wasting time at this other end on legislation that is unnecessary.

The truth is that there are no plans, and this has already been expressed tonight in the House. There are no plans to increase access to drug and alcohol treatment for children.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker, huri rauna kia ora tātou katoa e te Whare, tātou e nohonoho nei ki roto i tō tātou Whare Miere, tēnei hāora o te pō. Tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.

Whenever people screech and carry on about the sins of youth, one guy’s name keeps being brought up time and time again. Judge Andrew Becroft, Principal Youth Court Judge since 2001, is quick to point out—and rightfully so, I might add—that youth offending has remained relatively stable and has even reduced in some areas, while violent crime has increased right across the spectrum, particularly in the 51 to 99-year age group. It makes one wonder why all of a sudden the Government has decided to spend $84 million on targeting serious and repeat offenders in the Youth Court, when, in fact, only 1 percent of kids actually end up before the court. The Government should be focusing on the key issues put forward by people like Judge Becroft, such as ensuring more targeted resourcing and the coordination of relevant agencies, instead of beefing up the court infrastructure and extending the court’s jurisdiction to include 12 and 13-year-olds.

We are not walking away from our responsibility for dealing with serious and repeat offending amongst a small group of youth, either. We know that this country has to deal with this issue honestly and openly, but we also know this: increasing the thumping power of the courts, criminalising even younger kids, and dishing out orders and punishments like French fries quite simply does not work. Research from all around the world, as provided to me by Chester Borrows, shows that the countries that invest more in communities and in rehabilitative justice have lower criminal offending rates than those that use the big stick approach that this Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill is proposing. One report from Britain showed that the more face time that we spend with kids at risk and the better we target resources towards helping them, the better the outcome we get and the lower the cost our society pays, as well. The same report proved that the cost of support services needed to help youth to break out of the cycle of criminal offending is less than a quarter of the cost of keeping them locked up.

All that confirms what we already know—that the best way to reform young offenders is to help them deal with the issues in their lives and equip them to make better choices in the future. Of course, the long-term cost savings are not just economic. People profit as well: offenders, their families, their communities, and society at large. That is what Whānau Ora is all about: taking the funding currently being wasted in futile, one-size-fits-all social recovery programmes run by Government agencies, and targeting that funding in ways that help and that enable families and their communities to lift themselves out of despair and raise themselves to another level.

There has been a lot of talk about boot camps, too. Although I have a soft spot for good programmes—boot camps or whatever we want to call them—that encourage rangatahi to challenge themselves and raise their sights, I know, too, that some are based simply on isolating kids and treating them to a short, sharp shock. I know that all that does is increase their sense of alienation and fuel their anger. Boot camps are OK, but they simply will not work just by making somebody fitter, faster, and harder to catch. There must also be strong elements of rehabilitation and a challenge to youth to reach their potential. Dr John Langley, a member of the Youth Justice Independent Advisory Group, said: “the one single factor that correlates most highly with violent behaviour in our young people is that those who commit it have had an excess of violence and punishment inflicted on them … Why dish out more when we know that has caused the damage to them in the first place? Such an approach is both wasteful and logically absurd.” At its extreme, this wasteful and absurd approach also threatens the whānau-centred approach articulated by the Māori Party and enshrined in the Children, Young Person, and Their Families Act.

What this country needs now is effective interventions and programmes, like those where communities taking responsibility for their youth are supported by resources that would otherwise be spent on their incarceration and are reinvesting the savings in other community youth programmes. The results of the interventions and those programmes are clear: increased community care, a 25 percent reduction in detention and probation, and a 75 percent drop in jail time. That is what we should be talking about: strengthening communities and helping them to develop their own solutions to take care of their own kids. That is also the basis of the Children, Young Person, and Their Families Act: treatment, rehabilitation, and restoration. It is a youth justice system based on making young offenders accountable for their actions, but also, because they are just children, it is based on rehabilitation and restoration. Those principles remain the basis of our world-leading reputation in the field of youth justice—a reputation that this bill places at risk.

The Children, Young Person, and Their Families Act 1989 was the brainchild of John Rangihau and others who wrote Pūao-te-ata-tū. They recognised the centrality and importance of the whānau to the care and protection of young people, and of having positive alternatives to custodial sentencing, based on families and communities taking responsibility for their own. This bill will erode some of those principles, so, regretfully, we will be opposing this bill and focusing our energy on making Whānau Ora a concept that will help to turn whānau, communities, and the whole of Aotearoa round. Kia ora tātou.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) Link to this

I am pleased to be able to stand and take a speaking opportunity in the progress of this Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. It is important to look at where this bill came from and at what it is trying to address, and to look also at the way that the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act has been practised through until now. To be fair to Labour members, I say that the previous Labour Government realised there needed to be some alterations to the legislation. Some of those alterations National supported; some of them we did not. But what had grown over a period of about 15 years since the implementation of the 1989 Act was a lack of confidence in the ability of the Act to deal with younger offenders, especially prolific younger offenders.

The reason for that was that there was a lag in time between the apprehension of offending 12 and 13-year-olds and their finally being dealt with before the Family Court, which is where this legislation started out. A young child aged 12 or 13 and brought before the Family Court after being reported for prolific burglaries, for instance, took so long to go through the family group conference process and the resolution practice that before he—generally it was a “he”—could get in front of a judge and have a resolution, numerous amounts of further offending had been going on. What we ended up with was a situation when the practitioners—the police—and the youth justice social workers would lose faith in that system and not initiate those sorts of orders. In other words, they did next to nothing with those young offenders.

We have heard the name Bailey Kurariki quoted a number of times in the course of this debate—funnily enough, by people who were not in a position to be able to hear the evidence before the select committee. But the whole thing was, yes, that the serious offending on that occasion crystallised the fact in the minds of not only National members but also Labour members that we needed to do something. If Michael Choy had not died then Bailey Kurariki would not have been charged with anything, because there was no precursor for him to be able to be brought before the court. The action taken in response to the manslaughter conviction sustained by him would have happened under the law, both as it is now and as it was then.

So we have to be very careful that we do not set about muddying the waters here, and trying to think that this is some move by the now Government to do some dirty deal in order to deal to young people aged 12 and 13. What has been implemented as a result of the select committee process is that we now have a system whereby the Youth Court judge will act as the gatekeeper to where those 12 and 13-year-olds will be heard—either in the Family Court or the Youth Court. So when the police initiate a charge against a 12 or 13-year-old, the first appearance will be in the Youth Court. The person who decides whether that 12 or 13-year-old goes back to the Family Court to be dealt with, or continues within the Youth Court because he or she meets the criteria, is the judge. What is wrong with that? Who are the best and most appropriate to make that decision? It is the judges. When we had Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft before the select committee, what did he say?

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) Link to this

Last night I spent some time thinking about how I might describe this Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill to someone who was hearing about it for the first time—to someone who perhaps had no knowledge of our youth justice system, political agendas, and the issues we face in New Zealand—and thinking about how I would tell that person what we were doing here today. I would probably start with this: our youth justice system as it is now is unique. It is something we should be proud of. It is a system that acknowledges that young people should be treated differently; that for the most part we have an opportunity to turn their lives around. It is a system that, until now at least, has been internationally respected. But this bill and the policy that surrounds it undermines our existing system.

I will take this opportunity to go through the most significant elements of the bill. In fact, I want to focus mostly just on two elements, but first I give my thanks to all of those who participated in the select committee: practitioners, academics, youth leaders, and community organisations. They all gave up their time to present to the Social Services Committee. They are people with more hands-on knowledge than ourselves, and they undoubtedly told us how it is.

Two parts stood out for me, in particular, as a member of that select committee. The first was the Government’s decision to enable proceedings to be commenced in the Youth Court against children aged 12 or 13 years who are alleged to have committed specified offences. This point has been well canvassed in this House this evening. As my colleague the Hon Annette King has already pointed out, the Principal Youth Court Judge said it best when he stated that this part of the bill constitutes “the most fundamental change to the system since its inception in 1989.” Why would we make such a significant move, such a fundamental change? I have to be honest and say that after a full select committee process I was still none the wiser, and neither were the submitters.

If a child commits the worst offences in our law books, they can already be sent to our adult courts. As for the rest, there is no denying that if a child—I repeat, a child; a 12 or 13-year-old—is committing the kinds of crimes that the Government has identified, then there are issues going on in that child’s home and that child’s life. The best court we have in New Zealand to not just deal with that child but also assist that family is our Family Court. Nothing the Government has proposed has convinced me otherwise.

Again, Andrew Becroft noted that “there is a real concern by Youth Court judges that the Court will be assuming responsibility for the worst child offenders, who by definition will have the most serious care and protection issues, yet the Youth Court will not have the necessary statutory ‘ammunition’ to deal with the inevitable care and protection issues at the root of offending.” He did not talk in that statement about issues of streamlining or of the Youth Court being inundated with young people. He talked about its inability to deal with those young people with the statutory powers it has.

If the heart of the issue, as the chair of the select committee has pointed out, was the desire to give judges the right kinds of powers, then why in the first instance did the Government not look at giving greater powers to the Family Court? We proposed this to the Principal Youth Court Judge, who said that it would have been a much more elegant solution than the fundamental change we see before us today. Labour refuses to support such an amendment, a fundamental change that the Government cannot justify, for which it has no evidence, and which undermines our system.

Perhaps more telling, though, was the fact that the most commonly raised and discussed element of the bill was something that was not really even a formal part of the primary legislation. As the chair of the select committee has pointed out, everyone had a view on the Government’s so-called boot camps. I call them “so-called” because, in fact, it was the Prime Minister who first coined and referred to the military element of these camps so strongly. Almost unanimously, the view of submitters was negative. Submitters told us that these methods have been tried and have failed in New Zealand. We have heard over and over that those who graduated in the early version of these camps’ corrective training had a 92 percent reoffending rate.

TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) Link to this

Thank you, members, for the applause before I speak. It is a pleasure to speak in this debate on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill, and it was a great privilege to serve on the Social Services Committee. There was more than a year’s worth of work from the select committee on an issue that is a great problem for New Zealand. I can cast my mind back to when this bill was first brought to Parliament. I can remember the debate in this House, and I can remember what members opposite said. I thought then that it would be interesting to go into the detail of the bill at the select committee and really look at the problem we have in New Zealand, which is that younger people are being driven towards crime, and that those who have been committing crimes are not getting support from the Government of the day.

We had this bill before us in the committee for a whole year. Indeed, the Labour members of our committee, from the very first day, said we were going too fast and were rushing the proceedings. They had been sitting around there for 9 years, and they said the Government was going too fast on its new legislation. A case was made to the Minister for Social Development and Employment, and the Minister came back to us and said if we wanted to have more time, she would allow it, because it was important to get this legislation right, for the good of the children. A member opposite is nodding his head; he remembers that. But what happened when we turned up to the committee and said we could take a bit more time to hear more people and make sure the bill that we brought back to the House was a good bill? The Labour members threw their hands in the air and, as Mr Mallard said earlier, they chucked their toys out of the cot. They said the Government was in disarray.

Well, I say there is a growing problem of youth offending in New Zealand, and there has been for many years. I pay tribute to those members opposite who were part of the previous Labour Government. I believe they had the very best intentions at heart for the youth of New Zealand during their time in Government. Let us have a quick look at the problem. I will then briefly talk about how this bill will work through and help to address the problem.

Let us take the 9 years before 2008 and look at some of the offending by young people. Violent youth offending by those aged 14 to 16 rose by 47 percent. None of us here want children to get into trouble; none of us want kids to go out and commit violent crimes. But in the 9 years until 2008 there was a 47 percent increase. Violence by 12 and 13-year-olds increased by 30 percent, robberies by 14 to 16-year-olds increased by 94 percent, and offences involving intimidation and threats increased by 69 percent. Members should go out and listen to the public’s concern about law and order in this country. A grievous assault is a serious crime. Grievous assault offences by young people increased by 122 percent in the 9 years until 2008. What happened over that period of time? The previous Government forgot about those kids. I said earlier that I believe members of that Government had the very best intentions at heart, but I think they became caught up in the things that they were doing, rather than looking at whether children were being helped and whether the problem was becoming worse. The reality is that it did become worse over that period of time.

We have heard today lots of reasons why we should not pass this legislation. From members opposite we have heard about a lot of the things that they did. They have said those things were OK and were working. I tell members that anybody whose family member has been grievously assaulted by a young person—and those assaults increased by 122 percent—would disagree with the members opposite. I listened to those members during the select committee deliberations, I listened to them during the first reading debate, and I have listened to them today. The only conclusion I have come to is that I must treat them in the way that the New Zealand public did for at least a year before the last election, and certainly since the election: I think I pretty much have to just ignore them. That is what the New Zealand public has been doing; those members have no credibility on these issues.

The select committee went out and visited a number of institutions that work with some of the children who are the most troubled in our society and who get into the most difficulty with the law. I say to members, as a father, that I did not enjoy those visits. I did not like to see children up to the age of 17 locked up in a form of incarceration. I did not like that, at all. I came away from that visit to Auckland thinking that those kids should not be there.

We then went to a residence where young children were in the care of the State. I sat with some of those kids and listened to them as they were doing their schoolwork. I did not want to see those kids there, and I wish there was a way that they could not be there. I spoke to them and asked a young boy, who was 9, what he thought about being there. I asked whether he missed his mum. He said he certainly did. I asked whether he had a bike to ride there. He said it was OK, but he wanted to be back with his family. I spoke to the people who run that institution afterwards, and asked about the boy’s background. His father is a gang member; his mother is in hiding. There is huge violence in that community. I do not want that kid to be in that residence; I want him to be with his family. But the conclusion I came to, and the sad reality, is that there are too many parents in this country like that boy’s parents, for whatever reason: their background, or they do not have employment, or they do not have enough money, or they do not have a great house to live in. But that kid was better off in the residence. Otherwise he would go on to a life of crime, because his mother could not help him—she had to hide—and his father did not care enough about him. So it is the State’s responsibility to help that young boy.

This bill will do a number of things, and I will touch on them very, very briefly. We will look at how we can help these young kids. Members should think for a moment. Our prisons are full; we know that. It was a big issue during the election campaign a little more than a year ago. We know that people are going to prison. But are members opposite honestly telling me that the moment that young people reach the age of 18 to 24, all of a sudden they start to commit crimes, and that is why they go to jail? Actually, if members go and talk to the police and youth workers, they will hear that the problem starts for many people when they are young, and it gets progressively worse. Then, when they hit the age of 18, we say they are not youths any more. We say the problem is solved, and they end up in jail.

Well, we have to start at the very beginning. We need to look at the kids that have the most difficulty, and we need to support them much, much more. Of course, it will be about drug and alcohol rehabilitation—absolutely. We heard that in the select committee; the Minister has said it. Of course that needs to happen. The members opposite are turning a blind eye and being political if they think that this legislation is not about helping young kids to get out of those problems. Of course, it will mean, in some cases, children spending more time away from their families in an environment where some of the issues can be worked through. Do members know what has been happening over the last 9 years? A child would commit a crime. The Family Court would say the child must go into a residence. The child would go there for a period of time, and then be put straight back into the environment that he or she came from. The child ended up being back where he or she had started from, and of course started to commit crimes again. Those kids, when they hit the age of 18, would get into trouble and go to jail. That is not good enough, at all.

We heard other members talk a little about the military-style camps. We are not talking about the time when those camps were called boot camps, and the people had to wear boots and march up and down. Members should go and look at some of the work that is being done at the moment. In some cases, when a young person gets in trouble, a short, sharp shock is enough. The police may visit the home, and that is enough—the young person will stop offending. But for many of our children, that is not enough, and that means that they need to spend some months away from home, to learn to respect themselves and be taught to respect others. There will be some discipline. People will treat them as they should be treated, and there will be a large amount of follow-up when they go back into the community, rather than dumping them straight back there again so that they end up in our prisons.

I feel passionately about this issue. I could talk about it a lot more. I could talk about young people in Maketū who go out and rob houses and break into cars, but I will not. Those young kids need to be given some help, and members opposite know that. We need to start to work with them earlier, so they do not end up spending their lives in our prisons. I will be supporting this bill, and I think those members opposite who have any experience in these areas should support it, too. Thank you very much.

Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) Link to this

I inform Mr McClay that I indeed have the experience that he thinks members on this side ought to have before we address bills like the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. I worked with many of those families; I worked with them for years. I have also developed many workers to work with them, and, indeed, researched much of the background from which those families come. The member seeks an assurance that Labour members speak from that kind of background, and coming from that background, I am convinced that the kinds of provisions that this bill has come up with are not what those families require. I do not disagree a great deal with the member when he talks about some of what those families need, but where in the philosophical thinking behind this bill, or in the principles that guide this bill, are the provisions that will enable that to happen? They are not there.

I, too, thank the officials who worked with us over the last 12 months. I also thank parliamentary counsel, who helped design some of the amendments that were required. I acknowledge the chair of the Social Services Committee, Katrina Shanks, who led and chaired with good humour, and enabled us all to participate, with contributions from members from both sides.

The bill, however, has a chequered history. That history forces me to really suspect the real motivation for this bill. The bill was introduced under urgency in February 2009. That fact would immediately say to us that there is an urgent problem that needs to be addressed, and that we will do so fairly quickly. The bill was sent to the Social Services Committee quite early, as well. The committee had begun to receive submissions by April, and through May and June heard many of them. But at that point, when we were waiting for the departmental report, there was a vacuum. There was a direction from the Minister of Social Development and Employment—a letter that was sent to the select committee—saying that officials needed to do some more policy work. We asked what policy work was being done, because the select committee—having heard all of the submitters, and having understood what the bill was trying to do—wanted to know what the thinking was. Nothing was provided. Indeed, we realised later on that a trial of the boot camps—military-style training—was under way. At that point I became very suspicious, and I am still suspicious.

I ask whether this is a real attempt to address the complex and fundamental issues our young people face, knowing now what we know from the research and evidence that exists, or whether it is merely a demonstration or working-out of some attempt to be punitive—to be seen to be punitive, to be seen to be tough on crime. In the context of that particular flush, some of the provisions of this bill begin to make sense to me. I do not agree with them, but they begin to make sense to me. The Minister, in her statement at the beginning of the second reading, said that this bill was indeed about targeting the underlying causes of offending, but I am not at all convinced that this bill does that. The Government’s own work on the drivers of crime says that we need to move from a retributive or punitive model to a restorative and rehabilitative one, but the bulk of the provisions in this bill are really still quite punitive. Even though there are some wraparound services, as was talked about, the bill is still quite punitive.

Indeed, if the Government really was sincere in its own work on addressing the drivers of crime, then this type of bill would not come to Parliament. Much of that work would be about poor parenting, poor education and attachments, the disconnectedness from the wider society that many of these young people feel, and the failure of parents to provide the right environment, so that degeneration is taking place in family, community, cultural supports, and structures like that. There would also be a much more aggressive attempt to look at poverty, intransigence, and the demands on parents, particularly single parents. Indeed, the drivers of crime material would take precedence.

This bill does not talk about those provisions, but, as my colleagues have already pointed out, it makes one of the most fundamental changes in child welfare legislation in this country in the last several decades, which is to take 12 and 13-year-olds to Youth Court jurisdiction. That is a very serious move; that move forces us to begin to contemplate the particular stage of development of 12 and 13-year-olds. We have been parents; we have brought up those young people, and there but for the grace of God some of our own children could have strayed, if you like, at the ages of 12 and 13. When that happens—I am sure it has happened to members of families in this Chamber, and indeed to people we know and have worked with—a punitive approach should not be the response; we should begin to address all those complex factors, including our own behaviour, the way our family operates, the way we have supported our young people in our community, and the demands of the young people themselves in terms of their own personalities, etc. When we address those kinds of things we begin to manage this transition of the early teens into the later teens.

Judge Andrew Becroft was very clear about that fundamental shift. He really said to me to be careful about that change, and to ask whether that was what we particularly wanted. We know that 12 and 13-year-olds primarily have care and protection needs; they do not need for us as a society to be retributive—to really get our ounce of flesh, if you like. In the kind of decent society in which we live, 12 and 13-year-olds will always demand that we address their care and protection needs. We have a court that specialises in those care and protection needs, and although that court is not perfect—it might require more resources, it could be timelier, and what have you—it is those shortcomings that should be addressed if we really have in mind the care and protection needs of 12 and 13-year-olds. I have spent half my life working with that particular population, and that is what they require. In the time I worked with those young people, I fought the system that sought to be punitive towards them. We were trying to get around the punitive approaches of days gone past. But those days are coming back, and this is a fundamental change that we will live to regret. Now it is 12 and 13-year-olds, but what will happen if that group becomes much more troublesome? If 10 and 11-year-olds get troublesome, do we keep going backwards or do we use a different approach?

I will also talk briefly about boot camps. We pride ourselves that people come to select committees saying that their Government will listen to them, that Parliament will listen to them. They take a lot of pride in that, and they put a lot of emphasis on what they do. At the select committee, experts—people who have worked with this group—said that this particular model does not work. But not one of them has been listened to, because here it is in the bill, as originally envisaged. That is a problem. I do not think that in this Government there is a serious attempt to look at the programmes that achieve change. Te Hurihanga is a programme that was achieving change. The Minister said that four participants had reoffended, but she did not tell us that the overall rate of offending had reduced by 82 percent. The select committee visited that group—

TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) Link to this

I welcome the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill back to the House, because the simple reality is that the status quo is not working. Current measures are letting our young people down, and our whole society is paying a very heavy price for the inadequate provisions we have at the moment. I acknowledge the members who worked on the Social Services Committee on this bill. It has been obvious in the House tonight that we had some vigorous debates, and we are still quite some distance apart. Nevertheless, the issue had a very good airing. I particularly acknowledge the submitters, who also brought different viewpoints. But it all assisted us to come to a clearer understanding of the major challenge we face, and all of us, of course, were motivated by the common desire to turn troubled young lives round. I acknowledge the excellent work of the officials who guided our progress.

It is very disappointing to hear the efforts of members opposite who are belittling the work of the Minister and the real purpose behind this bill. It is worth remembering that New Zealanders voted overwhelmingly for measures of this kind at the last election because they know just how serious this problem is. It is disappointing to note the lack of focus of Opposition members on the breadth and comprehensiveness of the package, and their relentless determination to dismiss the bill with cheap slogans and irrelevant discussion of what it is not about.

Let us remind ourselves of what the bill is focusing on. Whether or not we like it, we have a worrying number of young people who are out of control. They are a risk to themselves and to those around them. There are many reasons for that, and it is a tragedy to see the increasingly youthful appearance of juvenile offenders. But we cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend that it is not happening. It is, and in berating the Government for tackling the issue, members opposite have chosen to look the other way and to ridicule the efforts of those who are determined to tackle the problem.

The evidence that we need this bill is found on street corners the length and breadth of this country. The co-leader of the Green Party was determined to dwell in a naive and discredited mindset that puts all the blame for our nation’s crimes and social ills on everything and everyone but criminals and the socially disaffected. Of course there are serious problems that knock many of our young people off course. Of course life has dealt many of them a cruel blow from the outset. But we will never help them to turn their lives around if we blame all their offending on the system and absolve them of responsibility for their actions. Of course we must provide significant support for our troubled youngsters and intervene when they are hurtling off the rails. That is exactly what this bill is all about. As my excellent colleague Chester Borrows emphasised, the crucial thing is to do so comprehensively and in a timely fashion.

By strengthening and expanding the orders available to Youth Courts, we will open up a raft of vital measures. These include parenting education, mentoring, and drug and alcohol treatment programmes, which are not sufficiently available through existing Family Court policies yet are desperately needed if life-changing interventions are to occur. Contrary to the claims of members opposite, this significant change is based on compelling evidence. For a start, we know that what we have now simply is not working. Many of the 12 and 13-year-olds who are being drawn steadily into youth offending have problems with substance abuse. If we do not give the courts the power to confront that reality, we will not only be wasting their time and the taxpayers’ money but, more worryingly, be dooming any intervention to failure.

There is clear evidence that access to drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes, which assist in getting young offenders off the booze, the dope, and the P, make a difference, and there is even clearer evidence that a lack of such programmes is often fatal. This bill is aimed at the 1,000 worst young offenders and contains three major reforms. These have been well canvassed by previous speakers. I commend this bill to the House. We must throw our efforts wholeheartedly behind this bill. Then we will start to see real improvements for the youth of our country.

SUE MORONEY (Labour) Link to this

It is a pleasure indeed to follow the member for Hamilton West, Tim Macindoe, who has sat on his hands—in fact, he was in the paper the other day because he has been fishing—while his Government closed down the effective programme in Hamilton called Te Hurihanga. While the rest of us were fighting in February to try to keep that facility open, Tim Macindoe was still fishing. He should have been on the ground; he should have been hearing what the people of Hamilton had to say about the Te Hurihanga facility being shut down.

If he had been listening, reading his emails, and at work over that period, he would have heard the same things that I have heard from the Hamilton community about why the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill will not work. People do not believe that the boot camp model works. All of the evidence says otherwise. If Tim Macindoe had been working during January and February, he would have read this kind of email—this is an example of the sorts of emails that the Minister of Justice, Simon Power, has been receiving. This email is addressed to the Minister; it is from a constituent in Hamilton. She writes: “Dear Simon, I am writing to express my extreme disappointment at your recent decision to close the Hamilton youth justice facility Te Hurihanga. Working with young offenders to turn their lives around is an incredibly difficult task. Internationally, research shows there are no quick-fix solutions. Success is hard to come by. Yet, in 3 short years, Te Hurihanga has been successful. With a sound research base,”—yes, I say to the Minister, that is right—“one of the most highly skilled staff teams in the country, and growing community support, the lives of young men at risk are being turned around. The young men and their families are committing themselves to change. Yes, the programme is costly in the short term, but such costs are small compared to the human and financial costs of long-term offending. The costs of a lifetime of welfare support, family dysfunction, recidivist offending, terms in prison, and the suffering of the victims of crime are immense, and are borne by the whole community.”

She goes on to say: “These are the costs that need to be taken into account when thinking about the cost-effectiveness of Te Hurihanga. I have seen no evidence”—and neither have the rest of us, by the way—“that the Fresh Start initiative has a sound research base or proven rates of success. Your comments so far suggest that it will be inadequately funded. Like many in the community I am deeply saddened by the decision to close Te Hurihanga. I am particularly saddened because I suspect that you are already well aware of the things I have said. Yet, despite this, you will still make your decision. That suggests to me that you are putting politics ahead of people. I urge you to reconsider your decision for the sake of those who desperately need and want to turn their lives around, and who looked to Te Hurihanga for hope.”

That email is indicative of what many in the Hamilton community feel about the very successful, ground-breaking programme that has been trialled. I was very disappointed to hear the Minister stoop to the level of inflating the cost of providing that programme for those young men.