Dalziel Lianne: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:9328] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I believe that this Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill is a shameful bill. It is without hope for a generation of young people who have been referred to tonight and it undermines the philosophy of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act which it amends. 
I draw the attention of the House to just a few of the provisions of this Act: the principles upon which it is based. First and I have already mentioned this in the Committee stage it is: “An Act to reform the law relating to children and young persons who are in need of care or protection or who offend against the law”. The comment I made in the Committee stage was that for those who offend against the law there are always—always—care and protection issues. The purpose of the Act is also “to advance the well-being of families and the well-being of children and young persons as members of families whanau hapu iwi and family groups:”. It talks about making provision for families “to receive assistance in caring for their children and young persons:” and its purpose is also “to make provision for matters relating to children and young persons … who have offended against the law to be resolved wherever possible by their own family whanau hapu iwi or family group:”. The intention of the legislation is summarised in that introductory provision. 
Then we have the principles of care and protection in Part 2 of the Act. The care and protection principles state first of all the utmost concern of this legislation which is: “the principle that children and young persons must be protected from harm their rights upheld and their welfare promoted:”. The second principle in section 13 of the Act states: “(b) the principle that the primary role in caring for and protecting a child or young person lies with the child’s or young person’s family whanau hapu iwi and family group”. That is all very well and good when things are good at home. It is not very good for those who do not have the range of opportunities available to them that all of the members of this House have had. 
Then we have the youth justice principles. There is one thing that I do not think this House has taken into account. We have heard the Minister for Social Development and Employment and others say that one of the reasons why we have to have this legislation is to provide for some clout as it were to ensure that orders can be put in place before the matter goes before the Family Court. Yet one of the founding principles of the youth justice provisions in Part 4 is: “the principle that criminal proceedings should not be instituted against a child or young person solely in order to provide any assistance or services needed to advance the welfare of the child or young person or his or her family whanau or family group:”. Again we are seeing an undermining of the essence of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. 
We had a most extraordinary contribution from the previous speaker Hekia Parata who said that we should not care about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child obligations. We have signed up to those and I was absolutely astonished to hear that we have a member in this House who does not think that is important. In the entire time that we have been debating this bill in the House not once did the Minister comment on the advice that she received on the challenge to our obligations under the convention that this measure will entail. Does it matter? The previous speaker said no it does not. I say yes it does. In fact the Minister of Justice is currently amending the Adoption Act so that we can ratify the optional protocol to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child on the trafficking of children. It certainly matters to the Minister of Justice that we are able to ratify an optional protocol but it does not matter to the Minister for Social Development and Employment that we are failing to meet our obligations under this convention in this most fundamental change. 
The Minister for Social Development and Employment said in her opening statement in the third reading—and I think others would have heard it as well—that she accepted that this was a fundamental change in a law that was world-leading when it was passed in 1989. The irony is that this Government thinks that children who have grown up in the most appalling set of circumstances should simply be punished for their subsequent wrongdoing without addressing any of the underlying issues. That is why I say that there are always care and protection issues involved. 
I have heard the Minister repeat the list of offences that will be covered by this change in jurisdiction from the Family Court to the Youth Court. Let me again make it clear that murder and manslaughter are already covered by the Youth Court jurisdiction. I think that we hear these different examples to try to put the numbers on the table. I ask the next Government speaker to please get up and tell us how many 12 and 13-year-olds have been charged with murder over the last few years. I am sorry but I could not find it in any of the documentation associated with this bill. 
Hon Member 
: It’s not an evidence-based approach. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: It is not an evidence-based approach. Only once in the entire time that the Minister spoke—and it was right at the tail end of her contribution in the third reading of this bill—did she talk about the environment within which the children are brought up. The offending does not occur in a vacuum. I thought that finally we had an acknowledgment from the Minister that that is the case but there is no ability to address the underlying drivers when we are talking about such young children. 
I asked the Minister a serious question during the Committee stage on this bill. She did not answer that question at all. It is a really horrible question to ask because there is no comfortable answer. The question was that if Chris and Cru Kahui had survived the attacks that they suffered in the very early days of their young lives which were snuffed out so early what would they have grown up to be like? What sort of adults would they have become if they had survived the brutality of their environment? What would they have become? 
I am hearing from the other side of the House a sense of disquiet or discomfort about actually addressing the underlying drivers of crime. We know that those drivers are fundamental to how these children are able to see themselves as part of the world and as part of a community and to what they are able to do in terms of responding to the challenges that they are confronted with. 
The ministerial Drivers of Crime meeting actually reinforced my very very strong views that we need a collaborative approach across the House so that when there is a change of Government—as there is from time to time; it happens—the non-governmental organisation sector is not thrown up in the air. The Minister of Maori Affairs was there and he will recall the number of non-governmental organisations that said that they are sick and tired of one thing coming in with one Government and then going out and a new thing coming in with the next Government. It is time we actually dealt with this and the public want us to do this collaboratively. That is why members on this side of the House made the offer to do so. The pilot we had been operating Te Hurihanga has been tossed out to be replaced with a programme that is not even ready to take its place. That is simply not good enough. That programme was designed to make the long-term difference to incredibly damaged children so that real change could occur. 
Then we move to the boot camps. I think Jacinda Ardern nailed it when she said that the Government used the language of boot camps to garner public support and then criticised everyone else because the public thought that boot camps were contained within the legislation. I have the Te Hurihanga evaluation and I have gone through the issues that it raises. It is not just about reoffending rates; it is about turning round the children’s whole lives which is quite a different model. 
Children need strong adult role models in their lives. Children need to feel a strong sense of belonging. Children need to feel safe in their homes and in their communities. All children who offend have care and protection issues and those issues must be addressed so that they can learn to take responsibility for their actions. It is hard to tell people to take responsibility for their actions when nobody intervened when they were being violently abused raped sodomised and everything else that has happened to these young children who have ended up in this category. I would rather see us work collaboratively to make a difference in the lives of these children so that they grow up to be responsible members of our community.