Gallagher Martin: Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill — First Reading 
Gallagher Martin: Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill — First Reading 
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MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
: 
 When this Parliament is at its best it debates issues in good spirit and recognises members’ day. In debating the Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill I was hoping until the last speech that we would avoid some of the petty point-scoring that has been occurring. 
I say to a member opposite Nathan Guy that he should not dare lecture me about family values. If he wants to have a bit of a chat about family values then he should not lecture me about adultery infidelity and things like that. We need to be really careful if we want to go down that path. I have had a gutsful of those people opposite who have cynically gone on about the family unit. That member may laugh but if we want to go there we should step a bit further. For the benefit of those who are listening to Parliament tonight that man actually said that New Zealanders who are in some form of civil union have no family values whatsoever and are terrible people. Effectively that member and other members opposite have said that the National Party does not want to know people who are for whatever circumstance in a de facto relationship. I am really sad that the previous speaker stooped to some opportunistic low-down point-scoring. 
I want to come back to the purpose of this bill and the opportunity it gives us. I will not say anything about the attack on the family unit that the National Government in the 1990s was responsible for— 
Brian Connell 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I have been timing this member. He is now 3 minutes into his speech. He has not addressed this bill at all. I ask you to bring him to order please. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: The member has come back to the point and I think he was addressing points that were made by the previous speaker too. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER 
: I thank my good friend and colleague Brian Connell for bringing me back to the bill because he has reminded me that time is running out. 
The bill is to be referred to the Law and Order Committee and as the chair of that committee I am certainly looking forward to receiving it. I hope the committee can have a detached discussion on it look at all the issues and address some of the very very important issues that Ron Mark and others in the House have raised. I really hope we do not get into some kind of political posturing and that was my concern about the previous speech. With due respect to the previous speaker I think he detracted from what has been a very valuable and considered debate in the House tonight. 
I also hope the select committee will take the opportunity to hear some of the good-news stories that are happening in this country in respect of youth offending. I come from a city that has youth offending teams that are doing some really fantastic work. A number of programmes out there are trying to address the problem and we want to take the opportunity to look at which of them are working. Certainly I concur with Ron Mark the sponsor of the bill that there are issues of serious concern—and I have struck these in my own city and my electorate Hamilton West—relating to youth offending and appropriate penalties. For example I was talking to my colleague Clayton Cosgrove the good MP for Waimakariri—an incredibly hard-working MP. He told me about the Turn Your Life Around programme by Mr John Banks—not the John Banks of Auckland fame—which is very very victim oriented. I understand that at any time the victim can pull the plug on that particular programme. 
It is really important in the context of this debate that we look at some of the rafts of positive measures that are happening. I will also be very interested—and I think Mr Mark alluded to it; certainly he did in my discussions with him—in overseas examples in relation to the age of criminal responsibility. Also in terms of the discussion on the family unit it is obviously up to us all to do what we can. That is why I am such a passionate believer in our Family Start programme and I honour the people who are involved in it in my city and who are trying to intervene at the very beginning of problems so that we do not have tragedies down the track. 
Finally I look forward to this bill coming to the Law and Order Committee and to that committee giving it a very fair hearing. I also look forward to hearing the witnesses and the evidence. I think the exercise will be very constructive.