Prasad Rajen: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Prasad Rajen: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:9319] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I want to speak to the commencement date of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. I take it that the Minister in the chair the Hon Paula Bennett is satisfied that the time frame allowed for this bill to come into operation is enough to do the complex development work that must be done in order to satisfy the direction that this Minister is trying to set. I have a sense that the time frame is too short. I will explain. 
I say to Mr Brownlee that it may be useful for him to reflect on what it actually takes to design a new model to begin to address the complex needs of people of this nature. If everything was working a bill like this would not need to be brought to the House. A whole new science needs to be brought together. “Wraparound services” is a term that is very easy to use. I have heard for the last 10 years or longer that they are what we are trying to do and many have tried to design wraparound services and apply them to the lives of troubled young people and difficult families. In fact many of them have been highly unsuccessful. They have been highly unsuccessful because the political masters have not allowed enough time for the complex models to be developed and tested before we subjected the lives of people who are at a vulnerable time to them. That member over there talks a lot. What is it that he is trying to say? 
David Garrett 
: The political masters over the last 10 years when you have been saying that the system has failed were the Labour Party. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Thank you. I heard the member and I would like him to hear me now. I wonder if that member knows how it long it took to develop the particular model of Te Hurihanga? 
David Garrett 
: No I don’t. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Well the member should not speak if the member is not aware. That model was one that has been shown to be successful I say to the Minister and it took a long time to design and put together. It is successful yet what is the Government doing with it? I use that example only to show that these models that the Minister believes will materialise will take some considerable time to design. It will not be like the national standards which are untested untried and are having a lot of problems and will not succeed. 
But this particular time frame—[ 
Interruption 
]—I am reasonably informed about this I say to Mr Lotu-Iiga. It is not possible to design a model in a short period from what will be a relatively standing start. If it were not being designed from a standing start it would be in operation already and it is not. The Minister will probably regret it when we bring up case after case in the coming years of failure. When we do I hope the members sitting up the back there laughing will apologise. Indeed that is what they will need to do. I say that to the three members—the troika—who are sitting there the new members of the National Party including Mr McClay and Mr Sam Lotu-Iiga. They should take the time to have the courage of their convictions and say that this October 2010 start date could not possibly be adequate to design the models test them resource them and put them into operation. 
The model that has been successfully operating will come to a close in June I have been told. Fresh Start is not designed to deliver on the needs of this group of seriously needy young people or service their families. I believe the Minister ought to explain how that will be done and in some substantive way not just by saying that the Government has tried a little of the boot camp model somewhere and some of it works or that the Minister attended a graduation of some sort therefore it will work everywhere. I think trialling something like this on the vulnerable lives of our children requires a lot more thought and a lot more time. We need some assurances that indeed that development time will allowed for. Therefore this particular commencement date is inadequate because it is not easy to bring a model together; unless it is brought together carefully it will not work.