King Annette: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
King Annette: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1443] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 The Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill was given to Opposition members at 1.30 this afternoon. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: What? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: At 1.30 today we received this bill. I have a copy of the bill as given to me. It was printed and ready for introduction on 16 February not on 18 February when it was given to us. If the Minister is serious about this bill why would she not want to share it with the Opposition? Why would she not want to share it with the media? Why are the public of New Zealand not able to have a look at this bill? Why is it not allowed to sit on the Table of the House for the usual number of days? Why would the Government not allow that to happen? 
By taking urgency on this bill the Government has bypassed a crucial part of the democratic process. It means that the bill does not have to lie on the Table of the House for 2 to 3 days as normally occurs with bills so that people can have the opportunity to digest the bill in detail and to take some account of what is in it. Why is there such an urgent rush to introduce this bill right now? 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: Are you going to support it? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: If that member would stop carping and think about the democratic process I would ask her to have a look at the bill and turn to the part of the bill that tells the people of New Zealand when the implementation date will be. Does the member know when this bill is to be implemented? When is it to take place? Does the member know? I can tell the member that this bill is not due to come into force until October 2010. According to the bill itself it does not come into effect until 1 October 2010. 
The Government has introduced the bill under urgency without allowing the opportunity for any other member of this House let alone the media or the public to look at it and study it. I say it is an absolute disgrace. The Minister herself has said that the Government will not be able to put boot camps in place until the end of 2010—in 20 months’ time. It is 20 months before this policy can kick off but we have to introduce the bill under urgency right now. If the Minister thought it was so important to bring in an order covering residential care why not support the bill already in her name before the House which was Labour’s bill? The Minister has also said that the residential facilities needed for the hardened young criminals will not be ready until the end of 2010. We have to ask ourselves why we are rushing such a serious legislation. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: Because you were talking about it but there was no action. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Government members do not like me raising this point but it is a fair point to make. When those members were in Opposition they made a pledge to the people of New Zealand they would always be transparent they would always be open and they would be cooperative in the way they approached legislation. On every one of those counts those members have failed. This is not the first time the Government has introduced legislation in this manner. I say to the Minister that I am very disappointed in her bulldozing of democracy when the bill does not come into effect until October 2010. 
What about the bill itself? It sets out to do five things: it widens the jurisdiction of Youth Courts to deal with serious offenders between the ages of 12 and 13 it widens the sentencing options available to Youth Courts it imposes longer residential orders of up to 6 months it introduces military-style activity camp programmes for the most serious and recidivist offenders and it enables the Youth Court to spotlight and monitor the conditions of certain community-based orders. 
Let us look firstly at the aim to widen the jurisdiction of Youth Courts. The provisions base the need to widen the jurisdiction on 80 apprehensions—not 80 arrests not 80 convictions but 80 apprehensions—given as a figure by the police. That figure of 80 includes an offender who has reoffended. So in that 80 there might be a young offender who has reoffended four times and that makes part of the 80. On the basis of 80 youths—some of whom have reoffended many times—the Government needs to bring in this legislation to extend the jurisdiction to 12 and 13-year-olds. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: You’re not making any sense. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The member should read her own bill and read the reference in her own bill that states that it is based on 80 apprehensions including recidivist youths. It is in the bill. It is notated in the bill and it comes from the New Zealand Police. 
If we look at the sentencing options what do we know about the sentencing options that already exist? We find that there is already a range of options under section 306 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. I say that for the member’s benefit. Judges can already add additional conditions and they tell me they have been doing it for the last 20 years. They have been able to send young people to drug and alcohol and mentoring programmes etc. They can summon parents before the court. So to say that this is something new that has never been done before does not take account of 20 years of what has been happening. 
Then we look at the residential orders for up to 6 months. This is what has been in a bill that is currently in the Minister’s name but which was the previous Government’s bill. If it was so urgent that we have that measure why was it not put ahead of the Minister of Education’s educational standards which had to be rushed through before Christmas even though the schools were closed for 8 weeks? That had to be done under such urgency because the schools were closed and obviously high standards were needed when the schools were closed! I have to ask if this matter was so important why did it not happen then? We support this part of the bill. 
Then we get to the military-style boot camps. I have to say to the Minister that there has certainly been a change of attitude by the Government. During the election campaign John Key said that boot camps would not be run by the Ministry of Defence. National did not intend to have the army running military-style boot camps in New Zealand. Oh yes he did. It is on record I tell Mrs Tolley. It is on the public record that John Key said that the army would not be running these boot camps. Now we know that National is in negotiations with the Ministry of Defence for it to run boot camps. I have to say that the Ministry of Defence gave us advice that it did not want to run such programmes other than voluntary programmes such as the Limited Service Volunteers programme that is already in place. 
I was astounded to hear from the Minister yesterday when I asked her whether she had read any reports or any international evidence and research about the success of boot camps that her answer was no she had not read such reports or research. Can members imagine a Minister bringing out a policy that has no analysis around it? She had not read a single report. I direct her to a report on boot camps that were abolished in Florida 2 years ago; the report on boot camps in America in 2007; the Home Office report on military-style boot camps which condemned them as a failure in 2002; and the study of offenders for 2 years after they were released which showed that they were more likely to commit violent offences than others who had not been in such camps. 
The report that came out of the United States showed that this corrective training has not led to fewer young criminals. In fact what is the reason that we have so many? What do the judges say? What does a judge like Judge Becroft say? Judge Becroft said that the underlying causes of offending are poverty drug and alcohol abuse neglect and abuse of a young person. This bill tells us that it will tackle the underlying causes of offending. How can it tackle the underlying causes of offending when the programmes are being put in place after the young people have offended? This is really a case of the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. It is not an approach whereby one is trying to address the causes of offending. It does not matter how much the Minister yells across the Chamber because that does not make this bill any better. Labour will vote against it.