Young Jonathan: Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeYoung Jonathan: Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1113. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth):I am very pleased to stand and speak on the Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill. Can I just say in terms of my regard for Asenati Lole-Taylor who brought this bill to the House and who was a member in the last Parliament that I send my greetings to her. I felt she was a good contributor to this House and obviously as someone who was a former corrections officer she understood some of the issues that face our communities—just as you do Mr Deputy Speaker as a former detective sergeant and a solicitor of the court. You are very much aware of the issues that our communities face around lawbreaking particularly the issues around the vulnerability of people.Although we understand that this bill would not actually stop people doing those heinous deeds to young people—in fact I cannot think of anybody in our society as low as somebody who would manufacture P which is dangerous not only for the community but at the threat of the lives and obviously the influence on young people. We need to be people who see the future for our young people unlike those sorts of people. All they care about is money. All they care about is what they gain not the pain they cause.But this bill does not really address the issue by making the fact of doing something like this in the presence of a child an aggravating offence because those people do not respect the law. They will do it anyway. There are issues that we understand around aggravating offences particularly when people attack our first responders—our police our ambulance drivers and those who because of their commitment to the safety of others go into situations where they do not have the option or the opportunity to withdraw from a difficult threatening situation. They are by obligation of their job and their commitment to our community required to go into unsafe situations. So in those cases where somebody would attack a police officer or ambulance driver you can understand why we would make that an aggravating offence.But these lowlifes who do this other sort of work—I do not know whether anything can change them. What they need to do or what needs to happen to them is that they need to be apprehended by the police and they need to go through the courts of this land. They need to have the sentences put upon them that will stop them having that sort of activity behaviour lifestyle and certainly that negative influence—not only upon the health and well-being of young children but also the influence upon them. What happens is that kids look at the adults around them and they see that as the norm. They see that as acceptable behaviour. We need to put a stop to that. We need to have a vision for the future of our young people.I am very pleased to say that I come from a region that has exactly that. We have a great organisation called Taranaki Futures. This is made up of people in our community who actually care for the young people who actually see that they have a future. They want to nurture them help them enable them to become the very best that they can be in their life so that they can have some future to look forward to. These people whom we are talking about in this bill have none of that. They have none of that.One of the things that I believe we need to also have confidence in is our judiciary. I am sure and we know by case law about the approach taken by the men and women who sit in the courts of this land when they come across cases like this. When people do a crime in front of a child whether it is the manufacture of P or whatever it might be do those judges take that into consideration? Of course they do. Of course they do because they know that these kids these young children are vulnerable. As I said before they are vulnerable to influence and they are vulnerable to harm. They are defenceless in many situations. So what we need to understand is that our judges the men and women of our courts are understanding rational intelligent people who actually do not need this Parliament to tell them that a crime done in the presence of a child is a bad thing. It is a worse thing; they know that already. Case law shows that they are giving sentences accordingly.One of the things that I think is really important is that when it comes to law and order and crime and when it comes to safety in our community we need to ensure that the men and the women the young and the old who enter our corrections facilities actually have their behaviour changed. I am pleased to say that this Government has put into place educational programmes and individual learning plans for every person who goes into prison. That is a great step forward. The number of prisoners gaining qualifications has increased by 830 percent up from 197 in 2008-09 to 1833 in 2012-13. What I cannot understand when I read figures like that is how the previous Government with all of its 9 years of surplus—Kelvin Davis: Oh you were doing so well Jonathan.JONATHAN YOUNG: —Mr Davis—and 9 years of skiting that we have got money in the bank never did anything in this space. I cannot understand. We have almost 3000 prisoners starting literacy and numeracy programmes in the 2013-14 financial year up 155 percent compared with 2007-08. And this is the important thing coming back to the bill: we have had an almost 1500 percent increase of places on drug and alcohol treatment programmes for prisoners since 2008.Simon O’Connor: How much?JONATHAN YOUNG: A 1500 percent increase since 2008.I do not know what the previous Labour Government was doing. I do not know what it was doing for all those years—you know the party that cares! How come when we came into office we lifted all these programmes especially rehabilitation around drugs? The people who are out there creating drugs making drugs are people who live in a drug culture. So this bill is saying that that drug culture is destructive for those individuals those kids and the people they sell drugs to but what is Labour doing about it?What we are doing about it is that we have increased the number of places by 1500 percent so that people who end up in our corrections facilities have drug and alcohol rehabilitation to get off it to pull their lives together to have a fresh start and to be able to come out of a corrections facility with skills training so that they can go out and get a job get an apprenticeship and get something that is going to give them another source of income instead of making this destructive stuff.So you know we could bleat on about things as people do but we as a Government are doing something about it. We are being pragmatic and being proactive. We are changing the culture of this society by the things that we do. I believe it is not just a matter of creating a law that punishes but it is about creating an opportunity that changes. This is what we are doing. Thank you.