McClay Todd: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
McClay Todd: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:9296] 
This part identifies again some of the concerns Labour members have. We are discussing children who are 12 and 13 years of age and who will be asked to provide bodily samples I assume voluntarily. Once collected the sample is kept. All the uses and abuses of those samples are possible. 
Todd McClay 
: What abuses? Give us an example. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I say to Mr McClay that the major one is that it will give a dog a bad name. When a 12-year-old does stray and eventually comes back to the fold those samples are kept for a long time and one does not know how those samples will be used or abused. 
Todd McClay 
: It sounds like conspiracy theory. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: The member ought to be an advocate for 12-year-olds and protect their rights. This part does not do that and this bill does not do that. Here is an example of what is likely to happen to those children: they will be exposed to this bodily samples regime. This part of the bill opens them up to it. Where are the protections for 12 and 13-year-olds? New Zealand will be in breach of international conventions. What discussions have there been around that? We have not heard any of those arguments. The Minister may want to take a call to give us those kinds of guarantees. 
Todd McClay 
: The information will be misused. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I say to Mr McClay that he knows that these issues were not discussed at any length in the Social Services Committee. It was taken for granted but now when we come back and have a look at it in the totality of what this bill provides we see we have a major glitch that ought to be addressed and that ought to be talked about. What are the explanations we will provide for the responsibilities we have in terms of our United Nations obligations? They have not been reported they have not been discussed and they have not been identified. They were not discussed in the select committee and here we are again with the risks of exposing 12 to13-year-olds. We are told that it is for a small number but we do not know what the number will be under this regime. We believe that those children ought to have those protections but the protections are not there at the moment. So what is the real purpose of this legislation? How will the Minister address our United Nations obligations to protect children? 
One also wonders what other implications there are for the 12 to 13-year-olds who will be caught by the regime and by this legislation. What might they be? Which ones have been talked about? The present Minister in the chair the Hon Judith Collins might want to explain some of those. In the end these are ethical questions as well. They are ethical questions that accrue to this aspect of this bill and they have not been answered. They have not been addressed. Minister Bennett in the speeches she has given so far has not been willing to engage in a philosophical or ethical justification for these provisions but here is another opportunity for the Minister in the chair and perhaps for other speakers on the other side of the Chamber to address the question and convince us that the protections for children—because that is what they are—that they deserve and demand will be accorded. 
Indeed those are the obligations we have and we have given guarantees in our own child protection as well as in the United Nations rules and conventions we have signed up to in New Zealand that we need to address. I would like to hear some explanation about why this legislation is necessary and how it really protects the needs of very young children. I look forward to those explanations. Thank you.