Coffey TamatiTAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. We are supporting this bill through to its first reading. Why? Because we understand that youth offending is actually a very serious issue in New Zealand and we're committed to addressing it from various angles. We want to make sure that we're engaging our at-risk families our at-risk youth making sure that our Māori organisations are wrapping around and supporting where possible; that we've got kaupapa Māori service providers which are able to swing in and help build better pathways to a better future for our rangatahi. Improving access to healthcare improving access to mental health support training being able to get an education and actually taking away some of the financial barriers all create part of a package that this Government is dedicated to to make sure that we're turning around the fortunes of our young people out there all across New Zealand. A Ministry of Justice report released in August 2019 found that the number of child offenders aged from 10 to 13 had more than halved from just over 5000 children in 2010 to just over 2300 children just last year. The number of youth offenders aged 14 to 16 is also down: more than 13800 in 2010 to just over 5600 last year. That report also stated that Māori youth offending rates had improved. It said that the proportion of young Māori offenders who appeared in the Youth Court decreased from 46 percent in 2017 to 36 percent in 2018. So the more that we can wrap around the more that we can do to be able to help turn around outcomes for our young people—that has to be welcomed which is why we are supporting this bill the Oranga Tamariki (Youth Justice Demerit Points) Amendment Bill to its select committee. The intention of the bill is to provide for a consistent system of intervention for young people who have accepted full responsibility for committing an offence or who are charged with committing an offence in order to identify deter and penalise repeat offending by young persons and increase the accountability and transparency within the youth justice system.I want to thank the member Darroch Ball for bringing this to the House but just raise one thing as something that should be discussed in the select committee when we do put it out there for submissions which is that we have been made very aware of the racial bias that sits within our justice system. We need to make sure that as we are dealing with our youth offenders as we are hearing the various submissions that are going to be coming in from around the country—this bill doesn't necessarily deal with that. So I would still like to put a call out there to all of those people across Aotearoa who are thinking about submitting to actually submit and come forward with various ways that we can help to address that racial bias within our justice system. But it doesn't take away from some of the good stuff in this bill. One of the implications in this bill is also that police need extra guidelines to effectively manage youth offenders or at-risk youth; that their training and judgment are somewhat inadequate. We just need to push back on that because I believe that our police have our best interests at heart; that they need to exercise their expertise in their roles without that level of parliamentary intervention. So I'm hoping that all of these various issues are going to come through in the submission hearings. For that reason again as I said before we're supporting this through to the select committee. So I commend it to the House.