Locke Keith: Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Locke Keith: Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2011. Volume:675;Page:20878. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party has argued in the first and second readings of the Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill that the process we are going through rushing this bill through in urgency is a travesty of the parliamentary process. A lot of the argumentation both by National and Labour speakers has been that this is all just about restoring the status quo. They are using the fact that there was not a lot of debate around this provision before the Policing Act went through in 2008—in fact there was no debate about this provision—to say that somehow the intention of the legislation is the way they want it: particulars can be kept by the police of basically the whole range of people involved in youth offending who have come before the Youth Court.  
The fact that there was no substantive debate on the 2007 Policing Bill does not make a case one way or the other. If there was no debate on it members cannot say that the intention of Parliament was in any particular direction. Labour members can come out and say they were the Government then their intention was in that direction and they are sorry but they got it wrong in the legislation. Labour members can say that if they like and National members can get up and say they now believe that the intention of the bill was this or that. But Parliament is made up of all of the MPs and parties in Parliament and the Green Party did not engage with this particular clause in the 2007 bill because we were not aware of all of the implications which were not part of the general debate so we did not commit to an argument one way or the other on this particular provision. So the idea that we or the Maori Party or any other party had a particular intention over the 2007 bill which can now be divined by Labour or National speakers is nonsensical.  
What has happened as a result of this debate is that there clearly is a substantive issue. Once this issue has been brought to the attention of the whole Committee including the Green Party and Maori Party there is a substantive issue. It is not just correcting an intention of Parliament. It may be correcting an intention of the Labour Government or it may be correcting an intention of National but it is not correcting the intention of Parliament. Rather than saying “Oh well we can rush this through in urgency under our definition of the situation.” as Labour and National are doing they have to take Parliament into account particularly on the substantive issue that has been raised.  
The second to last speaker for National in the second reading Melissa Lee said that this situation has applied since 1958. Well let us dissect that a little bit. In 1958 there was no Youth Court. I am not an expert on what our methods of dealing with young people were like in 1958 but I think those methods were probably a little bit backward and that is another reason to have a proper consideration of this bill so that we can actually look at what the treatment was of young people back in 1958. We know that it was not until 31 years later in 1989 that the Youth Court was set up. So for the National speaker to say as she did that all of these provisions have applied since 1958 when there was not even a Youth Court in 1958 is nonsensical which is another reason why we have to have a substantive discussion of this provision.  
As Rahui Katene said Maori Party members are out consulting their networks now that they are allowed to because they did not have to hold their confidences past half-past 9 this morning I think Rahui said. There is clearly not only a Green and Maori Party MPs debate in this Committee but a community debate starting up around for example the provisions in the Children Young Persons and their Families Act section 283 paragraphs (a) to (n) which cover all of the different penalties that can be applied to young people short of conviction. One of the first of these penalties as my colleague David Clendon mentioned comes up in paragraph (b) and is admonishment. The idea that someone in 2011 who is admonished for often the most trivial of offences in the Youth Court should then have their fingerprints and all kinds of things preserved is against the modern concept of justice and youth justice in particular.  
We have in this Parliament passed legislation like the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act reflecting a more modern concept of justice—that we do not want to tar offenders with things they may have committed in the past. Surely if an 11-year-old has committed a minor offence that is dealt with by admonishment in a Youth Court that offence is not the sort of offence that should be necessarily followed by collection of all kinds of personal details and fingerprints etc. We want to create in that young person the feeling that—after their admonishment and the family telling them they have done wrong and all the rest of it—they have put all that behind them that there is nothing in the police records in terms of identifying characteristics and fingerprints and that they can go on to a whole new life. They might have shoplifted a packet of chewing gum or something like that. 
The Labour speaker Carol Beaumont said it was good to have a debate on the causes of crime. Well this provision is actually a good point for a discussion on the causes of crime. I really respect what Rahui Katene said about Maori offending and Pakeha and all the rest of it. But one of the problems of repeat offending including Maori offending is people getting alienated from the system by feeling that they are unjustly targeted. To have a softer provision whereby all this stuff is not kept on someone who is admonished in a Youth Court for stealing a packet of chewing gum is one way of getting rid of that alienation and reducing repeat offending. That is all modern thinking in relation to responses to crime particularly youth crime and is much more modern than what existed in the Police Act 1958 which has been referred to in the debate.  
The question of urgency and why we need it—and David Clendon said this now—relates to the argument that there will be piles of court cases that cost huge amounts of money. Annette King came up with the figure of $6 million. In fact the regulatory impact statement put out by the police says that possibly 20 percent of cases where identifying information was collected on young kids and used in a subsequent case would be appealed and could cost $6.2 million. A bit of common sense would say that when kids and their families have been through that process they do not want to resurrect it. In something like 99 percent of cases they will not go through the appeal stuff and cost the country millions of dollars and all the rest of it. If members do not believe David Clendon and me on that then perhaps that is why we should have a whole process around this bill. At the select committee we could get lawyers in and people from Child Youth and Family to tell us what the situation is whether there would be a lot of appeals and what the advantages or disadvantages are of not collecting all this identifying information on some people who have been subject to minor penalties diversion admonishment and what not in the Youth Court. Why should we not have that discussion?  
There is a certain embarrassment amongst the Labour and National speakers about this being retrospective legislation and there has been a lot of criticism of retrospective legislation by the legal profession. I think that is another very strong reason for not supporting this bill and for going through a proper process whereby we can have all of the discussion. Even the whole question of the relationship between the Policing Act 2008 and the Police Act 1958 could be discussed. I have not had time as a Green Party speaker here to look at all the amendments to the 1958 Act. I know that that Act did not deal with the situation of a Youth Court because that was not established until 1989.