Maharey Steve: Children Young Persons and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
Maharey Steve: Children Young Persons and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:14441] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I move  
That the Children Young Persons and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 4) be now read a first time. 
 I introduce this bill which will amend the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act and improve the operation care and protection of the youth justice systems. It is my intention to move at the appropriate time that the bill be referred to the Social Services Committee that that committee be required to present its final report on the bill by 15 November 2004 and that the committee have authority to meet while the House is sitting but not during question time during the evening of a House sitting day and on a Friday of a House sitting week. That will enable the provisions relating to the remand of young persons to penal institutions to be reinstated by the end of this year. 
This bill contains an amendment that will enable the Prime Minister to allow responsibility for certain provisions of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act to pass to the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development consequent on the establishment on 1 July 2004 of the family and community services group within the ministry. This bill contains measures that are designed to make the operation of the youth justice system more efficient and effective. The youth justice amendments contained in this bill largely stem from the ministerial task force on youth offending that was established by the Government in the year 2000. The Government accepted the findings of the task force which were that overall the youth justice - related legislation was sound but that improvement was needed in the sector’s coordination in information gathering and in operational practice. The bill amends the objects of the Act to explicitly make the reduction of reoffending the focus of services delivered to young offenders. That will signal that actions taken under the Act should be aimed at preventing children and young people from developing patterns of offending that persist into adulthood. 
The second group of amendments relate to victims’ rights and interests. The bill includes an amendment to modify the youth justice principles in order to signal the importance of addressing victims’ rights and interests. The bill will enable a victim or his or her representative to attend a court youth hearing without needing the leave of the court. The bill will also more closely match youth jurisdiction reparation provisions with those in the adult jurisdiction. 
The next group of amendments relate to bail conditions and remands in custody. The bill includes an amendment to empower the police to get young people to comply with bail conditions without having to make an arrest or if it is more appropriate the police will be able to arrest a young person without warrant for breaching his or her bail conditions. The bill includes an amendment to enable police bail to be granted to a young person following his or her arrest for a purely indictable offence. An amendment is also included to extend the Youth Court’s powers to order the detention of a young person who has seriously breached his or her bail conditions. 
Remanding young people to institutions in certain circumstances is also covered in this bill. The bill will also extend until 30 June 2008 the ability of the Youth Court to remand a young person to a penal institution under certain circumstances. The renewal of those provisions is sought in recognition of the need for more time for alternative measures to meet the demand for residential beds to take effect. I note that the provisions introduced in 2002 expire on 30 June this year; therefore there will be a gap in the options available to the Youth Court until this bill has been passed into law. 
Another group of amendments relate to the operation and enforcement of Youth Court orders. An amendment is made to ensure that orders imposed by the Youth Court on young persons approaching the age of 17 are completed. An amendment is made to allow the Youth Court to cancel and replace a supervision or supervision with activity order after the order has expired where there has been a failure to observe the conditions of the order. An amendment is also made to allow the Youth Court to issue a warrant for the arrest of a young person who has failed to comply with an order. To ensure consistency with practice in the adult jurisdiction an amendment is made to give the informant usually the police the right to appeal a sentence order imposed by the Youth Court. 
The bill includes three amendments to improve the operation of the family group conference process. Those amendments will firstly provide additional discretion for family group conferences to be waived; secondly simplify the structure and language of the section governing the power to waive family group conferences; and thirdly provide discretion to exclude certain relatives or caregivers from attending a family group conference where their presence may endanger the safety of the young person and disrupt the family group conference. Those are very practical changes. 
 The bill amends the Act by empowering the Youth Court to transfer all related charges to the District Court or High Court for hearing. That would occur when a young person is to already have one or more charges heard by a judge and jury in a District Court or a High Court. 
The bill includes a number of procedural amendments. There is an amendment that will mean that breaches of a community-based sentence made by the District Court will be automatically dealt with in the District Court. The bill clarifies that the processes used for preliminary hearings in the Youth Court relating to sexual offences will be in accordance with the special provisions in Part VA of the Summary Proceedings Act. The bill makes an amendment to enable the police to lay charges for an offence within 6 months of the completion of an “intention to charge” family group conference when the young person fails to comply with the family group conference plan and has no reasonable excuse for that. The bill clarifies that when Youth Court proceedings have been completed State agencies can retain the records relating to the investigations of the offence and the prosecution. The amendment is made to enable young persons under the age of 15 who have been proven to have committed a purely indictable offence to be transferred to the District Court for sentencing. 
The bill includes an amendment to clarify that the role of care and protection resource panels is to promote the coordination of the provision of those services in relation to individual cases or a case. Those amendments will improve the care and protection and youth justice provisions of what is already a sound piece of legislation recognised for its innovation the world over and that is the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. 
That completes what I need to say in relation to the bill. But as someone who has been around this bill and this area for a wee while—and I am looking across the House at other members who have been as well and behind me is the current Minister responsible for the delivery of these kinds of public services—I say that the changes here are ones that all of us who have been in this area have experienced as ones that need to be made. Therefore I commend the bill as one that is full of good practical ideas. I look forward to what people have to say about the bill but I do expect it to have a good productive passage through the House.