Doocey MattMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): I would like to take a bit of a different tack compared with Darroch Ball the last speaker and talk about children and young people and about how they should be at the centre of the legislation that we are talking about today. If we take a step back I want to join my colleague Marama Fox and acknowledge the very brave children and young people who spoke very openly about their experiences in care and those experiences have informed this bill that is before us in the House in its first reading today. I would also like to acknowledge Alfred Ngaro the chair of our Social Services Committee where this bill will be going after its first reading. We have heard today some very empathic energetic and emphatic views and thoughts about where we are heading with this legislation. I think overall this level of debate is correct. It is something we need to get right. It is very clear from the expert panel's recommendations that things have been broken for a long time. This is not just about a reform; it is a root and branch change to the way we care for some of our most vulnerable children and young people in New Zealand. I think what is important is that we stay focused on those vulnerable children and young people and put them at the heart of the decision making. What we know about the life course that we travel on as we age is that it is all about transitions—transitioning from infancy into childhood adolescence teenage years and adulthood. What we know is that these young people require a certain level of support that we have not been providing so I think it is fantastic that this bill will be ensuring that children in care receive a transitionary service up to the age of 21 as well as future support up to the age of 25. Also in this bill as well is provision for a lot more early intervention. Like me there are other people in this House who will have worked in early intervention services for young people. They will know themselves that quite often you get to work with young people in an early intervention framework in their teenage years but it becomes very clear very quickly that if it was early intervention you would have intervened a lot earlier and this bill will support that. Unlike the last speaker I welcome the introduction of 17-year-olds into youth justice. I think it is not only about being tough on crime—because we all know that for that level of youth criminal they can go into the adult court—but it is also about being tough on the causes of crime. Through the youth justice system we will be able to address that and I applaud Minister Anne Tolley for being so bold in bringing in these changes under this bill. I think what we also need to do is think about how we provide a whole-of-Government approach to ensure we work with these vulnerable children and young people. Behind the scenes with a lot of the services involved this bill will be looking at sharing data better between services to inform better outcomes. This goes to the heart of one of the principles of this bill about this Government's social investment approach. We know that with vulnerable children and young people if we act earlier if we put the resources up front and if we invest earlier we can support these children to go on and be productive members of New Zealand society. That is why I support this bill to the House. Thank you.