Mark Ron: Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill — Second Reading 
Mark Ron: Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16192] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I move  
That the Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill be now read a second time 
. It has been a rather long and torturous road to reach this point and I fear that the indications from the Law and Order Committee report and from discussions I have had with members of the National Party team are such that some of us in this House will be presented with a bit of a disappointment. 
I want to take a moment to remind the House why we brought this bill to the House. I guess tragically that we need look no further than this morning’s  
New Zealand Herald  
headline: “Grandfather dies after bus stop bashing”. Once again we are seeing another case that has all the hallmarks of youth offending written all over it. As I look at this headline and read the story having heard  
Morning Report 
 this morning I think that the great tragedy is that we will probably find with regard to the offenders who committed this horrendous crime and killed Graham Wallace Arcus while he was walking home from church the same litany of reasons and excuses and we will hear the same calls from the same quarters asking for more social justice more consideration more care and more understanding. I have no doubt that they will be labelled as brown and from a broken home. That will be the catchcry that will require us all to look at our shoes and wonder how those poor young men could have ever fallen to such a level that they would kill an innocent elderly man walking home from church. That is the fear I have and I guess time will tell over the next few months as to whether my assessment and the assessment of other MPs in the House is accurate. 
The fact is that for decades—since 1989—we have had a youth justice system that has been touted lauded and applauded as world-leading and something that is envied all over the world. It is said that it has reduced youth offending. Well the facts are quite the opposite. The facts are—and members will see it in the select committee report—that violent offending by young people has gone up by 47 percent. In the interdepartmental reports that we had an opportunity to examine at the select committee we learnt that privately and confidentially behind closed doors officials are writing to each other and expressing grave concern about the ferocity and the increasing frequency of extreme violent crime. 
Yet these same officials have the audacity to tell the public members of the House the select committee and Ministers that it is all under control that the youth justice system is working and that we are envied all around the world. I ask those people to take me to a country where they envy a 47 percent increase in violent vicious crime and where they envy the fact that 43 percent of all apprehensions for all crimes committed across all categories in all age groups involve people aged 10 to 20. Forty-three percent was the figure we were given. We were told that one of the four mitigating factors that are considered when allocating the extra 1250 police is the youth density within a population in a community and the amount of time police spend with youth crime. Twenty-four percent of all police time is spent dealing with youth offending. Members should remember that in court the legal definition of “youth” is a person aged 14 to 16. 
I said right from the outset that this bill which has had a lot of criticism was drafted for New Zealand First by the Parliamentary Counsel Office. There were a lot of rather interesting comments by some learned people about the quality of the drafting. I am not a lawyer. I do not write these things myself. I got people who do know how to write law to write it for us. But we made it clear at the time this bill was drafted that a number of the things had happened that had astounded and appalled the public. Michael Choy and Kenneth Pigott were both murdered by young offenders and it was not the issue of the unaccountability for murder that was raising the public’s concern. Rather it was the fact that had Michael Choy survived the horrendous beating Bailey Kurariki would have walked away because he could not have been charged for causing grievous bodily harm and he could not have been dealt with in the way that he was. So we raised this bill. It took 4 years to come out of the lotto and when it finally got here we made it clear to the House that we were no longer seeking to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 10; we were seeking to lower it to 12. 
The title of the bill is important to us. The title is the Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill not the “Youth Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill” and there is a clear reason for that. The term “youth” narrows the mind to those aged 14 to 16. We are interested in young offenders aged 10 to 20 because that is where 43 percent of apprehensions for crimes lay—nationwide in all categories and in all age groups. I have explained the reason for that and sadly there is more evidence in the newspaper today for the need for such legislation. As for the purpose of the bill it was proposed that beyond a certain point society needed to be able to take stronger measures to protect itself against these top-end offenders and that young offenders who commit serious offences should be held accountable for their crimes more in the same way as adult offenders are. The intention was to target the top-end serious repeat offenders not Cindy Kiro’s Moro bar stealer. That was a ridiculous analogy by that woman. The means by which the bill sought to achieve these aims was to change the legal position in respect of the age of criminal responsibility to 10 years; to broaden the circumstances in which young offenders could be sentenced to incarceration to include cases where offenders were convicted of serious offences and we went on to define that; to move children and young people aged 10 and over who commit serious crimes and offences to the same category and jurisdiction as those who commit murder and manslaughter—the District Court—and to define a serious offence as any offence for which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for a term of not less than 3 months or a fine of not less than $2000. In our innocence we thought that if someone went to jail for 3 months that person had committed a serious crime. However it appears that people in this House do not think that. 
In time we accepted some of the criticisms—and I will cover that—and we indicated a desire to take an amendment. The advice of the officials highlighted a number of consequences in respect of the bill’s impact on the Youth Court and lower level offenders and indications are that if the bill were to proceed in its current form neither of the two major parties represented at the Law and Order Committee would support it at its second reading—it is something they have said they will not do. New Zealand First has always said that its intention is to improve and enhance the youth justice system as it applies to young persons and to better equip the New Zealand Police so that they can intervene more effectively with persistent and serious young offenders. New Zealand First wishes to preserve those aspects of the youth justice system that are proving effective but to amend those that we believe are not effective. 
It was my intention to read out this letter which was tabled at the Law and Order Committee and clearly lays out all of the amendments that we were prepared to accept. I will seek leave to table the letter so that the House can see precisely the extent of amendment that we were prepared to accept at the select committee and in the Committee stage to achieve some of the things that notably Mr John Key said in his latest speech that he wants to achieve such as widening the jurisdiction of the Youth Court and widening the sentencing range available. I will also seek leave to table the document I have here. It is the revision-tracked version drafted by the Parliamentary Counsel Office to achieve these amendments. It is an amendment that could have been passed by the select committee and brought to this Table as an amended bill. One of the select committee members said to me: “But Ron this guts your bill.” My answer to him was: “I left my ego outside the door. The aim is to improve the youth justice system.” 
It saddens New Zealand First greatly that the opportunity to take these amendments put them into the bill and present the newly amended bill to this Table has been thwarted by the refusal of National and Labour to accept the amendments drafted by the Parliamentary Counsel Office. We think that is a perversion of the democratic process and of the select committee process and we are not happy. I will seek leave to table this document. Let us be clear that these amendments produced at the select committee would have achieved everything that Mr Key says he wants to achieve. They would widen the jurisdiction of the Youth Court not shrink it; enhance the sentencing options available to the Youth Court judge not restrict them; broaden the definition of serious offending and make it stronger and more acceptable to the two major parties; and ensure that young offenders do not go to jail but go to a youth detention facility. We were saddened by that. I seek the leave of the House to table PCO s7176/3 the Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill proposed amendments for the consideration of the select committee. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
RON MARK 
: I seek the leave of the House to table a letter from me to the members of the Law and Order Committee Parliament Buildings Wellington dated 16 October outlining New Zealand First’s ultimate intention and our willingness to accept amendments to definitions and the bill to make it more workable. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.