Dalziel Lianne: Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2011. Volume:675;Page:20907. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I feel that that speech made by Rahui Katene was a somewhat extraordinary contribution. I believe that she raises the issues from a genuine belief that she has an obligation to raise those matters here but she is mistaken as to the purpose of the Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill. I want to go back to the Police Act 1958. I thank the Minister of Police the Minister in the chair for explaining the history. I actually thought that would solve the problem for everyone in this Chamber but obviously it did not so I will do it as well—not “as well” as the Minister but “in addition to”; not “as well” obviously! 
Clause 57(3) of the Police Act 1958—and I have it here; it has nice red lines through it because of course it has all been overtaken—states: “If the person in respect of whom particulars have been taken under this section is acquitted the particulars shall be forthwith destroyed: Provided that this subsection shall not apply if the person is acquitted on account of his insanity or is discharged under section 19 of the Criminal Justice Act 1985 or section 347 of the Crimes Act 1961.” The Minister may correct me if I am wrong but that is a discharge without conviction is it not? 
Hon Judith Collins 
: Yes. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Yes. So we have always had in there the provision that the destruction applies on acquittal unless the acquittal is based on a discharge without conviction. As the member from the Maori Party must know in order to get a discharge without conviction the facts have to be admitted. That is the whole basis for a discharge without conviction. It is the only “get out of jail free” card that we have in our system. It literally lets one off the hook as long as one admits what one did. 
I think it is absolutely plain that the person who wrote that speech in good faith was basing his or her comments on misinformation from this House rather than the accurate information which is that we have always allowed the police to retain the identifying particulars of everyone whom they collect them from unless there has been an acquittal and that has not applied where there has been an acquittal on account of insanity or a discharge without conviction under the varying provisions of the Criminal Justice Act or the Crimes Act. Those provisions have been there since 1958. If the member felt so strongly about them or if her party felt so strongly about them why did they not raise them in relation to the discussion documents that the Minister consulted on? Why were they not raised in the debate in the House? The truth is that nobody thought the legislation was doing anything other than reinstating the law as it was at that time. 
The only reason that the law has had this effect is that some very very powerfully positive good legislation for children and young people allows judges to make all of these different orders rather than sending them off for sentencing in the District Court. I think it is really important that the member takes this into account because all of the things that she says she wants for our rangatahi and our young people she has actually got in the shape of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. A series of orders can be made in a Youth Court. There is a hierarchy of court’s responses if a charge against a young person is proved. Why are we hearing the member talking about charges that have been laid? These orders can be made only if the charge has been proved. We are talking about young people who are already off the rails. I accept the Minister’s contention in this particular regard that this hierarchy of responses was decided in order to give young people better opportunities; to get them in front of a drug and alcohol rehab service to get them under supervision to get different things happening for them so that they did not have to face the court. 
I am worried that judges suddenly will have to consider that the police will not be allowed to keep information about a young person who is already off the rails. We know that if a young person has already offended he or she is much more likely to be heading down the pathway of reoffending than not because we know that the reoffending rate amongst young people is very high. I think it is really important that there is a clear understanding of why we have ended up with the particular options before us. Do we want judges thinking that if they make a decision under one of these orders then the police will not be able to hold on to that information in case the young person reoffends and it might assist in tracking down the source of the offending so they enter a conviction in order for the young person to be brought before a District Court for sentence or decision in which case the Sentencing Act 2002 applies which means that they will be caught by the changes to the Act that that member’s party agreed with in 2008? 
I think we are getting into a circular argument because there is a fundamental misunderstanding. The law always provided for this. The only thing that has changed is that the Youth Court has some options for young people that let them off the hook in terms of being sentenced in the District Court under the Sentencing Act. And that is a good thing. I think everyone in the House would agree that what the Youth Court can do today is far superior to what it was able to do in the past. But where the member seems to depart from reality in my view is her misunderstanding about what that will mean in practice. Young people who head off down this pathway end up having multiple offences before they turn 18 and then they end up in the adult system and there is nothing really we can do to help them once they go over that edge—well apart from some. But anyone involved in rehabilitation will tell us and the Minister will know herself that the cost of rehab for those in their early 20s is far greater than it is for those in their teens as it is far greater for those in their teens than it is for those in their very early years. I think the whole objective behind this measure is to make sure that we have the capacity to utilise the legislation as it was always intended to be utilised. 
I come back to the point that my colleague Annette King made and I think it is the most fundamental point here. All of these issues are really important—how we look out for young people how we get them on to the right path. All of those issues are really important but that is not the purpose of this debate. Legislation that was written in 1958 was modernised after a series of consultations in 2008. This debate is about the fact that that modernisation accidently overlooked that the Youth Court now had a hierarchy of court’s responses available if a charge against a young person was proved. That was omitted and only in those circumstances could the information not be retained. So it is not a question of anything going wrong for the young person other than if the young person has already been convicted and their identifying particulars are on the record that information will be kept. That will mean that if that young person offends again either as a young person or as an adult that information will be available to the police who will be able to track the source of the offending much more quickly than they would otherwise. 
I cannot understand why the member objects to that. I think it is very straightforward. It was an error that was made at the time. I did not notice it. Nobody else in the House noticed it. But nobody voted on Part 3 of the Policing Bill in 2008. We had the debate on 27 August or something. We are ending up having a debate about something that is completely irrelevant to the context which is a technical error that requires fixing. The use of urgency and retrospective legislation in order to achieve that is an entirely appropriate use of our Standing Orders. I support the passage of this bill.