Lee Melissa: Reports — Inquiry into the Identification Rehabilitation and Care and Protection of Child Offenders 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Lee Melissa: Reports — Inquiry into the Identification Rehabilitation and Care and Protection of Child Offenders 
[Sitting date: 29 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4941. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MELISSA LEE (National) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise to speak to this report on the Inquiry into the identification rehabilitation and care and protection of child offenders. Before I begin I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate a young woman—this is the first time I have had the opportunity to do so—Lydia Ko a Korean-born 15-year-old Auckland schoolgirl who has done wonderfully well in the United States a couple of weeks ago and also in Canada becoming the youngest-ever LPGA winner as an amateur. Although she did not win the $300000 prize she was very happy with the trophy. I do know that she worked really really hard to achieve that result and I would like to congratulate her in this opportunity that I have got. 
Earlier speakers have talked about the purpose of this report. It does have merit. National is committed to reducing child offending and youth crime. This is reflected in the policy changes we are making to build a safer New Zealand. How we deal with child offenders and the balance that is involved is an important part of ensuring that today’s child offenders do not become tomorrow’s career criminals. The Government is engaging with the child and youth justice sector in the coming months as it develops its response to these recommendations. I will be welcoming that as a mother of a 13-year-old. 
When you look at the child offending age child offenders are over the age of 10 and under the age of 14—and my son fits right into that; he is 13. As a mother you do worry. The kind of stuff that I am actually worried about is whether he is going to be naughty in school and be called to the principal’s office. But we are talking about more serious issues here. When you look at the statistics from 2010-11 there were 7896 apprehensions of children aged between 10 and 13 with crimes like theft and related offences comprising 37 percent of these. 
I would like to commend the Social Services Committee in the previous Parliament which actually began and almost completed this inquiry because it is a serious issue. Children are the future of this country and we need to make sure that we protect them that they are on the right path and that they are on the right side of the law but often we do find that a lot of children are not. 
There are concerns around the delays in process to deal with child offenders as my colleague Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga has alluded to. We know that some child offenders continue offending after they are caught simply because we lack the tools to address their offending before the case is actually resolved. Where we cannot treat children as adults the interim offending needs to be addressed. 
As a woman of Korean heritage what Asenati Lole-Taylor talked about in terms of cultural sensitivity and the way we deal with children of different ethnicities went straight to my heart because as a child growing up the neighbourhood the community actually dealt with child offending. I remember when one of my friends got into trouble and an old man came and clipped him around the ear dragged him by the ear took him to the house where his parents were and told the parents off. That kind of community involvement does not seem to exist in today’s society and perhaps it is a shame that we do not have that. 
I am not in any way supporting the idea that we should actually clip kids around the ear of course but what I am saying in terms of community involvement in children’s offending is that perhaps we should care more about what our children are doing. And if our neighbours’ children are offending perhaps we should care about what we are doing to get them on the right track. 
New Zealanders deserve to feel safe in their own homes and communities. Our focus is on building a safer New Zealand and we have embarked on a comprehensive programme of reform to protect communities prevent crime and put victims first. We know that many young offenders have no self-esteem have uncertainty in their lives and lack any sense of purpose or direction. It falls on us to ensure that we put in the right systems to prevent further offending. I look forward to the Government’s response.