Prasad Rajen: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Prasad Rajen: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:9313] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I speak on the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill with some sadness. When I heard Mr Chester Borrows talking about this bill and what it intended to do with young children I was reminded of my days in practice. I was reminded of the Act under which I worked the Child Welfare Act 1925. Under the provisions of that Act I was working in South Auckland with young children young people and their families. 
In those days after committing a very small number of reasonably minor offences those young people were railroaded which was the practice of the day. What we did then with those young children was very much what this bill tries to do with our 12 and 13-year-olds. The Minister might not recall those days but I am sure her officials can inform her and show her the research. We sent those young children to national institutions to undertake discipline training. There was one place called Hokio Beach School in the Horowhenua. There was Kohitere and places like Kingslea Residential Centre and others. They were sent there to go through so-called intense training. 
At one point these young children were taken out to Camp Peak owned by the then Department of Social Welfare in the forest at the foothills of the Tararua Ranges which is where these young people were given this kind of training. They were then brought back to Kohitere and sent back to South Auckland. We were supposed to provide wraparound services for them at the time. Within a very short period of time these young children ended up in youth justice facilities and in the criminal justice system. The recidivism rate was over 70 percent. 
It was because of those experiences that the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act was designed. It took 10 years to design. I was very involved with it because of the work I was doing in those days. It took a long time to design the Act but it really set out the major difference between care and protection and youth justice. My colleagues have read out parts of the Act and the purpose behind it. But this bill takes us right back to pre-1974 days. I am confused as to what it delivers. I think it does nothing more than deliver the Government’s punitive agenda. 
During the election campaign National members talked so much about violence. They talked about how they would be very strong and punitive and this is the unpacking of that agenda. Sometimes it is best to stop and rethink and say: “I now find myself in a different place. I now have material that officials have put before me and on that basis I will design a much better and much more effective system.” 
But that is not what this bill does. It takes us to someplace else. That is why the title of this bill should be the “Shifting the Age of Criminal Responsibility Bill” because that seems to be its driver. It has a punitive mindset. It will do again to our 12 and 13-year-olds what the 1925 Child Welfare Act did. It was all of those kinds of things that were in the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act that focus on care and protection for that age group. We are talking about children and we are talking about care and protection needs. We know that the science and the opportunity are there. The system is there to do better for that particular group than where this bill takes us. Submitters to the select committee made it quite clear that this was a radical shift.