Power Simon: Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill — Second Reading 
Power Simon: Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16194] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I want to start by acknowledging the comments made by Mr Mark in the first half of his contribution this evening. On this side of the House we are in no doubt that Mr Mark was well intentioned in his desire to deal with what is quite frankly an appalling state of affairs in respect of youth violent crime. Mr Mark made clear tonight the course he wished to take and we acknowledge that his attempts to achieve this end through the Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill were intentions that were well placed. 
The bill and the submissions we heard during the course of its consideration enabled the Law and Order Committee to hear evidence from a wide range of people. It soon became clear that there were grave concerns about the rate of violent youth crime in New Zealand. Mr Mark is quite right when he says that since 1999 violent youth crime has risen 43 percent. The problem though is that this bill will not do what it needs to do in order to address those issues. 
To say that the criticism of the bill was strong would be to understate the case. It is worth listening to what Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft had to say about the bill during the submission process. He said: “In short it would effectively end our current youth justice system it would abolish the way that we have acted for the last 19 years and whatever … have been the intentions it is clear that this bill in my respectful view is profoundly poorly drafted. One could even say it is abysmally drafted. And I would have to say that I am concerned that such an important issue that is youth justice and youth offending has had to address such a poorly drafted piece of legislation.” 
Judge Becroft went on to say: “Frankly it is a bill that would require massive amendment in its present form. It simply could not proceed in its present form.” The important point though about the judge’s submission was this: “If any amendment were contemplated of the degree that would be necessary it would really result in a whole new bill. … So in my submission it would be quite wrong to amend what is here because that would deprive”—and this is an extremely important point given the comments just made by Mr Mark—“the youth justice community and the public from making meaningful submissions to what would effectively be a whole fresh product.” 
In other words we would be starting again if the massive amount of work required to get the bill into a workable form had been undertaken and the public would be denied the opportunity to make submissions on the amended version of the bill. That is a profoundly important point. The judge went on to say: “These are all in my view profound deficiencies in this bill. … I think this bill needs to be withdrawn and it needs to start again.” The Children’s Commissioner although perhaps less focused on the legalities of the matter made similar comments as did the New Zealand Law Society and the Human Rights Commission. 
When National put together its minority view on this bill—although we supported the recommendation of the select committee—we wanted these comments recorded. There were as Mr Mark rightly points out contrasting views—from the practitioners who thought that the youth justice system was working well and from the lay people who ran up against it and repeatedly expressed their lack of confidence. That meant that a discussion about the youth justice system was timely and warranted. However it became clear during the submission process after objections from the Principal Youth Court Judge the Children’s Commissioner the Human Rights Commission the New Zealand Law Society and the advisers to the committee that the bill was flawed. 
In spite of that and despite the impression that may have been given the committee did work in good faith to try to resuscitate the bill with targeted amendments. National viewed the lack of progress in this regard as a lost opportunity. But I return to the judge’s comments which were in effect that had the massive amount of amendments been made to the bill that were required to make it operational and workable the public would be denied the opportunity to have another say on the new bill. 
In effect the bill in its original form wiped out the jurisdiction of the Youth Court. In effect it abolished the police diversion scheme. All of these are big steps to take. Despite what Mr Mark has just expressed to the House National Party policy in this area is quite the opposite. Our policy is to extend the jurisdiction of the Youth Court in a downward fashion to capture younger offenders not to abolish the jurisdiction of the Youth Court as this bill would have done. In fact in our submission any attempt to abolish the police diversion scheme would be the wrong step to take. 
All that having been said there remains a serious problem in New Zealand society around violent youth crime. Mr Mark is quite right when he says that it has increased by 43 percent since 1999. This is an issue that will not go away. This is an issue that the Parliament will have to address in some shape or form. Unfortunately this bill was not capable of addressing that issue in a coherent and workable way.