Ball DarrochDARROCH BALL (NZ First): Oh how far left the National Government has come. Today we are going to have legislation go through this House in order to change the Youth Court age the youth justice jurisdiction to include 17-year-olds. Guess what? Eight or 9 years ago in 2008 Labour had this exact same legislation on the table and what did National say? National said: We would be a bunch of wusses if we supported this legislation." That is what those members said. Now we have got a situation 9 years later—flip-flop—where National is using Labour legislation. The Labour Party loves it the Green Party loves it—that is how far left the National Government has come in 8 short years. I know for a fact that there are going to be some senior members in National who are cringing at the left liberal pathway that this National Government is going.The problem with the youth justice system is that National has got its blinkers on. It has got its fingers in its ears and it does not want to listen to facts. It does not want to listen to the evidence. In fact the major mistake that most people make in looking at the youth justice system is that they do not realise that 85 percent of the youth justice system is operated by the police. It does not even make the Youth Court. It does not even go through the family group conferences. So who is the first group you are going to ask whether you should change legislation? How about the people who deal with those young criminals those young thugs day in day out—how about the Police Association? How about the fact that the Police Association said that 75 percent of the front-line police do not want this legislation to change? They do not want 17-year-olds to be involved with the youth justice system.How about going even further? How about asking the police officers who deal with those young people day in day out the youth aid officers? Fifty-five percent of the youth aid officers do not want this youth age jurisdiction to change. Why? Because they know that it is not going to work for those young people. They can see that right now the youth justice system is failing the 16-year-olds and under so all that is going to happen is that 17-year-olds are going to be failed as well.The problem we have got is that the Minister stands up day in day out and now Mark Mitchell stands up and says there is evidence and there is proof—evidence and proof—that 17-year-olds will be better off in the youth justice system. I asked for that proof and they sent it to me. I am going to quote from the evidence that the Minister and this Government have sent to me. I am going to quote from the evidence they use as justification to include 17-year-olds in the youth justice system: "the conclusions regarding diversion programs become rather difficult to interpret as these two meta-analyses which set out with the same goal ended with virtually unique sets of included studies and opposing findings."—opposing findings. And: "the evidence from these studies is insufficient to determine whether or not laws or policies facilitating the transfer of juveniles to the adult court justice system are effective… ". They do not know whether they are effective.What else? "As indicated in the above review the findings from these studies were contradictory." This is all evidence that has been given to me. How about this one: "the effects of transfer on crimes not regarded as violent are not yet clear although transferred youth seemed to show lower rates"—lower rates—"of later drug offenses." That is contradictory evidence—mixed evidence at best. This is the best part—the conclusion: "There is insufficient evidence to conclude whether laws or policies facilitating the transfer of juveniles to the adult criminal justice system are effective in preventing or reducing violence in the general juvenile population."This is the evidence that this Government and this Minister presented when asked for justification for the very legislation that is going through the House today. When asked for the evidence that is the evidence that we got. That is the evidence that this National Government thinks is sufficient to include more 17-year-olds in a failing youth justice system—a failing youth justice system. I have been in this House for the last couple of weeks and I have told that Minister that there has been an increase in serious offences by young people of 40 percent across the country but there has been a decrease in the convictions in court for that same age group over that same time period. Is there any wonder that dairy owners liquor store owners and the hard-working small-business owners feel threatened and unsafe in their communities?"