King Annette: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
King Annette: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9003] 
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 25000 young people were in the category that needed education training or a job. There are now over 40000 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 2000 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 2000 positions have been promised by the Minister of Education for over 40000 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 25000 of those young people any more; there are over 40000. 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.