Ardern Jacinda: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Ardern Jacinda: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9024] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 It is a shame to interrupt my colleague and the previous speaker Lianne Dalziel who I feel was about to make a very good point. It is a shame that the Minister responsible for the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill Paula Bennett is no longer in the chair because I wanted to reflect on some of the comments she made. I agree with one of her points. She said that for initiatives to work they must be sustained. The use of the word “sustained” is something that broadly I agree with. My concern is that the evidence to date demonstrates that the Government’s intention is not to invest in sustained initiatives. 
All of the Government’s language around short sharp shocks is indicative of that as is the closure of Te Hurihanga. I want to go back to this point. Te Hurihanga was an 18-month programme. Those boys who were still in the programme will not get the sustained assistance that was planned for them—and nor I must add will the next intake. The member for Hamilton West Tim MacIndoe should acknowledge that the Government is not proposing an exact replica of the programme; it is proposing a shortened version of the programme. It is proposing a programme that will cost significantly less and that will not have the same staff who are acknowledged—and this comes directly from the independent review of that programme—as some of the most skilled in their area in this country. The cost per offender in that programme was less than the cost of locking up one of those individuals for a few years. I would call that more than affordable; I would call it a necessary investment. 
I also appreciated the response the Minister gave around drug and alcohol programmes and her sharing of the conversation she had with those from Odyssey House and the like but I still have a question. Given that there are significant waiting lists for residential places in those programmes I ask her how many beds and places will be available nationwide. At the moment the programmes are centred around the cities and in few other places. I would like a little more detail on that. The Minister also read from a Police Association submission and the Hon Annette King has touched on the problems that come with relying solely on the views of the association. The only other submission that seemed to be broadly in favour of the Government’s proposals was that of Graeme Dingle from the Foundation for Youth Development. The significant reason for his favourable submission—and he acknowledged this at the Social Services Committee—was the fact that he had put in a bid for the Fresh Start tender that had been put out by the Ministry of Social Development so I would expect him to give a glowing submission on the programme he hoped to provide. 
It is very interesting that soon after all of this the Minister asked the committee to delay the report back. Cabinet papers revealed that she was asked to downsize the cost of Fresh Start. Surprisingly—or not surprisingly as the case may be—the contract was not awarded to Mr Dingle. In fact the Fresh Start programme is being provided solely by the Ministry of Social Development and the army. I ask members opposite to forgive us if from time to time we revert to the language of the Prime Minister and call the programme a boot camp when one of the primary providers is the New Zealand Army. One would default to that position given that the army is a heavy part of the programme. In the minority report the Labour members acknowledged the confusion around the Government’s intention for the programme. That is why we said that we believed that the Government had been disingenuous in the way it had presented its initiative. Publicly it described the programme as a boot camp but after intense opposition from those working in the sector it tried to paint quite a different picture. We acknowledge that and we have always acknowledged that. 
I talk now to the international obligations. We have already talked about Labour’s amendment regarding 12 and 13-year-olds. We also have an amendment before the Committee that shifts the age at which someone is a “young person” up to 18. That shift is for a very simple reason. We proposed it under the Children Young Persons and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6) which I believe is still on the Order Paper. I would like to hear the Government’s view on that bill. We are currently breaking our United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child obligations. My colleague Lianne Dalziel spoke about the fact that the Government did not even acknowledge that when it appeared before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.