Katene Rahui: Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Katene Rahui: Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2011. Volume:675;Page:20905. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Before I go on to Part 2 of the Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill I will just respond to some of the issues that have been raised. One of those issues was raised by the Minister of Police who seems to think that because we are talking about the way Maori are picked up by the police we are saying that the police are being mean to Maori. In fact that is not at all what I am saying. I am saying that ethnic profiling exists it has existed for a while and our kids are being picked up more by the police regardless of whether they are doing anything wrong. All they have to be doing is walking down a road and the police are picking them up and taking them in for questioning. Not only are they being picked up more often they also are being charged more often— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: We are on Part 2 and Part 2 is about identifying particulars. I ask the member to come back to Part 2. 
RAHUI KATENE 
: Thank you Mr Chair. It is a fact that when we are talking about being discharged without conviction it is the judge’s decision as to what those orders will be about. But because of this part because of this amendment the police can also make the decision to hold on to their particulars. So regardless of whether someone is to be convicted the police will be able to hold on to their particulars. It is a matter of these kids being found guilty by the police—not by the judge but by the police.  
Part 2 of the bill sets out in new section 34 the detail of how the identifying particulars of the person “may be entered recorded and stored on a Police information recording system.” New section 34(2) authorises those same images to be destroyed depending on whether an outcome authorises continued storage. The section however does not provide any detail about how the impressions of a person’s fingerprints palm-prints or footprints will be destroyed. It does not specify how the photographs or visual images of a person are protected and how they are to be destroyed. All we learn is that the identifying particulars of a person obtained under sections 32 or 33 of the Policing Act are able to be entered recorded and stored. Section 32 says that a constable may use “reasonable force that may be necessary to secure the person’s identifying particulars.” Of course that could well open up another debate about how we define “reasonable force” and what sort of force one needs to use to retrieve a photograph or a set of fingerprints.  
New sections 34 and 34A are woefully inadequate in providing details around the collection utilisation and storage provisions. We know that there have been trust issues with the police holding such information and there are concerns also from human rights advocates and civil liberties spokespersons around the whole issue of storage of personal data. I think the anxiety around the storage of personal data is such that the bill should have addressed this. The public has a right to know what is going to happen to personal data that is stored and also when a decision is made to discharge that data how it will be destroyed.  
The explanatory note to the bill tries to give some sort of explanation around storage. It tells us: “The storage of youth IP is vital for the detection of youth offenders who go on to reoffend. Early identification of repeat youth offenders is important for ensuring that interventions are put in place to help prevent repeat youth offenders from progressing to the adult court system. It is also vital to solving crimes and providing satisfaction to victims of youth crime.” But a defining characteristic of this bill is that these broad statements go nowhere. There is no detail about the types of interventions that might be put in place. We are told that fingerprints and photographs are vital for solving crimes—a fact that I would have thought was fairly self-evident. We are also told that fingerprints and photographs provide satisfaction to victims of youth crimes although it is hard to see exactly how that works either. But what we do not have in any part or clause of this bill are the analysis and the policy justification of why this bill is necessary.  
I will leave the last word to Joseph Stafford who wrote this comment on Facebook this morning: “If you are not convicted then your details should be erased.” 
Hon Members 
: They are. 
RAHUI KATENE 
: Discharged without conviction? That is not convicted. He continues: “Our Gen Z teens are the most likely to infringe on society because that is just how they are wired. Having got bored with the boundaries set for them at home they now are testing society’s boundaries outside the fence trying to figure how much rope they have to play with. This is normal and what any actual community should absorb. It takes a village to raise a kid and a teen. I’m not advocating raving mayhem either but misdemeanour things like drinking in a public place driving on a learner’s licence and the like are all part of a teen’s learning. Call it youthful exuberance. But there seems to be more lax behaviour expectations of white middle-class company directors and their management of hundreds of millions of mum and dad investors’ moneys which has a far more significant impact on our society. All these folk should be fingerprinted on suspicion. They are going to commit fraud because the form book clearly shows they have a disposition to.” This is a direct quote. This is what the public thinks of this bill. This is what we should have heard if it had gone to select committee. Because it did not go to select committee this is the only way the public can have its say on this bill.  
There are legitimate questions to be asked about this bill which the Maori Party has tried to bring to the debate by sharing the views of our listening and viewing public. We believe that it is important to have the debate to enable people to engage with the issues. Most of all when we come to the end of Part 2 of the bill we come to the word “outcomes”. We want to see outcomes that focus on the potential of our rangatahi and that support our rangatahi to be leaders not outcomes restricted to the storage of photographs and fingerprints.