Locke Keith: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Locke Keith: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:9297] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Green Party to oppose Part 2 for many of the reasons that have been outlined by my Labour colleagues. I think that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is very relevant here because the essence of that convention is that the rights and welfare of children come first. If we apply that in this situation to 12 and 13-year-olds the imposition of a regime of DNA testing and bodily samples is not putting the rights of children first. 
We can look at this in perspective. It was not long ago that we did not have any DNA testing. When the select committee discussed the bill that Part 2 is amending it was said quite clearly by a number of jurisdictions and by the Privacy Commissioner that taking bodily samples of people’s DNA is particularly intrusive much more so than is taking fingerprints or other forms of biometric testing. It is an intrusion on the privacy of the person. If we look at it in the context that this has just come in then it is very intrusive. We have not had the taking of body samples in place for too long; I ask why we need it now for children. 
The Green Party opposed the original bill that effectively brought in compulsory bodily sample extraction. I ask why we now have to bring it right down to include children—12 and 13-year-olds. There is no argument for it to be brought to that level. A provision in the bill talks about suspects and it should be borne in mind that we do not actually need to be charged to have a bodily sample taken according to the original legislation that this bill is amending; one need just be a police suspect. The police have a couple of months before they can charge a person or decide not to after they have taken the bodily sample. 
Then there is the question about whether a 12 or 13-year-old is able to give consent. When we are talking about 12 and 13-year-olds are we really talking about consent? For example a 12-year-old is bundled into the back of a police car and is taken to the station and asked whether he or she will consent to a body sample being taken. In any rational analysis there is no consent there—99 percent of the time you do what the police say and there might be a few implications that if you do not there might be a few downsides for you and your family. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The member is bringing the Chair into the debate. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: I am sorry Mr Chairman. I am talking about “you” in the generic sense but I should not use the word. I think that is the problem with a lot of legislation in this House. We keep running down the track of having more and more restrictions on people’s rights. Sure people can argue that there might be an upside to it and that there might be a really bad 12-year-old and that this particular provision will enable a bodily sample to be given. That person may at some point in the future be convicted and that provision will be good. But if we put it in the balance of what is happening to children in this society—the criminalisation of children—and adding the extraction of bodily samples from them in essentially a forced way then I ask which is the greater problem for society. Is it the occasional child who might get off when he or she should be convicted—the one in one thousand or whatever—or is it the intrusion that this measure will cause and the infringement on children’s rights that is contrary to all our international commitments to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child? Thank you.