Ardern Jacinda: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Ardern Jacinda: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9006] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I want to reflect on the comments that were made by the Minister in the chair the Minister for Social Development and Employment. I acknowledge and I appreciate the faith that she has invested in our Youth Court judges. She spoke about the reason why it was appropriate for children to be dealt with in the Youth Court and I think she felt that it would be a safe option because of the high quality and the high calibre of those judges. I share that trust in those judges which is why I listened carefully when they appeared before the Social Services Committee and gave us their view on this fundamental change to our youth criminal justice system. I use the words “fundamental change” because that is the language that they used. They said that this change would fundamentally reorientate the way that we deal with child—I make the distinction of “child”—and youth offenders. 
What did they tell us? They told us that with regard to 12 and 13-year-olds they did not feel adequately equipped to deal with those young offenders in the Youth Court. They said that they did not believe they had the appropriate ammunition to deal with child offenders—12 and 13-year-olds. If the Minister genuinely places her trust in those Youth Court judges and believes that they are good at what they do then I ask why she did not heed their advice from the beginning and why she is making this fundamental change. That is something that stayed in my mind throughout the select committee process: why were we making this change? 
The first question that I thought would be relevant was the size of the problem and Annette King has already talked about that. We asked at great lengths in the select committee how many children would be affected by this change and the answer was 80 apprehensions. That does not mean 80 children; that means 80 apprehensions. Some of those who went through Te Hurihanga had up to 30 offences in their name so we could be talking about a very small pool of children. Some might say that the number does not matter. Well it did matter to the Government when it said that we should close Te Hurihanga because it was not dealing with enough people. Here we have an example of an entire piece of legislation orientated at a group of young people that is probably of the same size—a group of children in this case. For me and I think for the members of the select committee from Labour and for the Labour Party generally the question is that if the Minister cannot give us an evidence base for this fundamental change and if we cannot even quantify the number of children who would be affected by it why are we making it? If the Youth Court judges whom we are giving the powers to resist them why are we making this change? 
I guess I was charitable in also wanting to ask a different question: was it simply as the Government claimed that the Family Court did not have the powers it needed and that the Youth Court would have more powers? Why not look at this differently? If the Family Court has the power of care and protection which is a crucial power—and even the Youth Court judges have said that it is crucial—when dealing with all young offenders but in particular 12 and 13-year-olds why does the Government not look at giving greater powers to the Family Court? Why did it not look at that option? We asked that question not only of officials whose response was that it was simply out of scope but also of the Youth Court judge and the Family Court judge. Both said that it would be an elegant solution. If this was really about dealing appropriately with those child offenders why did the Government not shift powers to the Family Court? 
I fear that it was about moving the goalposts. I fear that it was an acknowledgment on the Government’s part that it does not know how to deal with these child offenders. So it will move the goalposts and start dealing with those offenders as if they are adults at a younger and younger age. That changes absolutely nothing. That is why the Labour Opposition tabled a Supplementary Order Paper today that will remove the clauses in relation to 12 and 13-year-olds. We will be voting strongly against this element of the bill because of what it stands for because it is a fundamental change because it has not been justified and finally because it will not work. In New Zealand we have a tiered system in our criminal justice system when dealing with young people and I fear it is becoming murky. We have already talked about the fact that that could make the outcome for these young children worse. 
I want to move on to another area of Part 1 and that is the additional orders we are looking at in this bill. New section 259A in clause 8 is headed: “Family group conference must consider attendance at parenting education mentoring and alcohol or drug rehabilitation programmes”. This is something that has been widely trumpeted by the Government as an important way of dealing with young offenders. I would like to believe that perhaps it has a chance to make a difference but I have some grave concerns. 
Some of those concerns were highlighted in the report released this week by the Ministry of Social Development which stated that court orders have a very low success rate. I think we can see some of the reasons why when in comparison intensive residential activity programmes have a better success rate. They are longer term they use greater interventions and they deal with the family as well and the social circumstances from which that young offender came. Court orders are quite the opposite. Court orders can often be quite short term. Court orders can for instance be short sharp shocks. Those relating to drug and alcohol programmes can have quite loose arrangements around them. In fact I spoke to some young people who had undergone court orders that were specific to drug and alcohol issues. They told me that they simply sobered up for the short time they had to be in attendance and that did nothing. 
The programmes that did work were longer-term residential-based drug and alcohol programmes like those provided by Odyssey House. The Social Services Committee heard that Odyssey House has a 12 to 18-month waiting list. It does not currently have the funding to deal with any of these potential court orders and I question how many would be residential anyway. I ask the Minister to take the next opportunity to stand and tell us what additional funding the Government will commit to drug and alcohol programmes. I know of a few that have already closed under this Government’s watch yet we are going to be extending the amount that they will be used. 
Chester Borrows 
: What? 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: Drug and alcohol programmes in Dunedin have closed on this Government’s watch. 
On the submissions I am happy to recall for the benefit of the Committee that the submission from Dr Sue Bagshaw stated that already there are not nearly enough placements in youth alcohol and drug programmes. The submission from the Alcohol Drug Association New Zealand stated that it recognised that staffing was a primary consideration and that recruitment of staff was a serious challenge facing youth services in New Zealand. We have to make sure that we are prepared for these orders over and above the question of whether they will work. Judge Andrew Becroft has already told us that 80 percent of young people coming before his court are manifesting some kind of drug and alcohol issue but we are dealing only with those who have committed a crime. There is a whole debate about what we should be doing to intervene in the lives of these young people before they get to the court. 
In relation to the mentoring programmes I would like the Minister to share with us if she could the outcomes of the mentoring hui that she had. I know that some of the concerns raised at that hui were around whether mentoring would work if there was an element of compulsion. It is something I have heard from those who have worked in the field: whether we will lose the success of mentoring programmes if compulsion is a core element; whether volunteers will be adequately trained to deal with the quite weighty issues faced by the young people who will be going through these mentoring programmes; and how long the mentoring programmes will be for. Some of the people in this field I have spoken with have said that 12 months is the bare minimum and that some of the most successful interventions they have made have involved mentoring relationships that have lasted up to 6 years. Can we genuinely expect that from these mentoring orders? I have serious doubts about that. 
I also have concerns about an omission that was pointed out by Judge Andrew Becroft when he came before the select committee. He said that nowhere in this legislation has there been adequate discussion about the mental health issues that a lot of these young people are presenting with. We already know about the issues of dysfunctional families family violence poverty social deprivation lack of engagement in education and lack of employment and the contribution they make. But mental health is an issue that the Youth Court judges are coming up against time and time again and they pointed out to us that there are not adequate programmes to refer these young people to.