Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It's a great pleasure for me to be back in these hallowed halls and to have as my first speech in the House since my return on Tuesday this Oranga Tamariki (Parent's and Guardian's Responsibility) Amendment Bill in its first reading. My area of responsibility is now as associate spokesperson on children so this bill fits very well with the aims of the bill and my role. The aims in this bill are to give the courts the ability to connect how the parent's behaviour impacts on their child's offending and it also is to help parents recognise how their parenting has consequences on the behaviours of their children.As any parent will tell you raising a child is a tough job. Most achieve great outcomes for their children. They live in secure and loving homes and with appropriate discipline. But there are some parents who do struggle—they struggle with the job of bringing up their children—or some as we know simply do not care about their parental role and they fail to provide that necessary oversight that their children need when they grow into young adults. As my friend and colleague Barbara Kuriger mentioned earlier there are numerous studies that have been done by a range of organisations that clearly demonstrate there is a link between the lack of parental or guardianship oversight and youth crime.I'd like to read out an excerpt from a probation officer in the UK: V. Increase in material standards has corresponded with a lowering of moral standards—easy living encourages moral flabbiness. VI. Ideas on the care and training of children on the 'no repression' lines have not been fully understood by many parents and have encouraged an emotional instability amongst the youth. [This] old type of discipline has been discarded but nothing constructive put in its place. VII. The influences from abroad (particularly USA) have largely been responsible for [this lack of discipline] but it is interesting to see that the USA has (a) the highest standard of living in the world (b) the greatest emotional instability (c) the highest crime rate—both Juvenile and adult. … IX. This USA influence and emotional instability seems to be increasing and is likely to be a more serious problem than larceny offences. The growth of gangs … flick knives brutal fighting … [etc.] are all against English tradition and have only had a destructive effect on life."This report was dated 1958. Now we all know there have been and always will be tensions between young people and their parents as the boundaries between them get tested and for some that will overflow into tensions with the law. The work will never be finished when it comes to finding more creative and effective ways to assist our young people to avoid falling into this downward spiral of lawlessness. We all agree there is no one magic bullet but that is not a reason why we should not keep making progress.This bill adds another tool for our judiciary to assist them in dealing with our young people who come before the Youth Court. Currently there is no ability for the judicial system to hold parents to account for the lack of their oversight that leads to some young people committing crime. Parents do hold that responsibility. By giving the judges the ability to impose conditions on the young offenders who find themselves in the judicial system who are charged with an offence and released on bail it will help focus and support parents to comply with the imposed appropriate conditions. The judge has discretion over these conditions. As we've heard tonight already they can impose a curfew or where that person can live and I actually trust our judges to impose the most appropriate conditions for each individual on a case by case basis.I've also had experience myself where young people were knocking on doors in my local town and I can tell you that there was a parent at the far end of the spectrum training those young people to be criminals. That is the far end of the spectrum that we are addressing with this bill. I have pleasure in committing it to the House."