Ngarewa-Packer DebbieDEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Kia ora. It's not good to see something of this significance being rushed through the House. Te Paati Māori notes the irony isn't lost on us: the same day our Government is seeking to lower the voting age for local elections to 16 they're also looking to lower the age for our tamariki who can be charged and locked up for burglary to 12 years old. I mean with your left hand you are giving a voice to our rangatahi but with your right hand you are taking the voice away for those who are in need the most.So what I would like to warn this Government is that you cannot have it both ways. When you reach a crossroads especially involving the rights of our mokopuna of our tamariki you need to be really careful which path you choose because you may find yourselves walking alone in October. Our rangatahi are not a problem waiting to be punished. They should not be pushed aside and rushed through; they are solutions waiting to happen and this bill is not a solution. I put to you sadly it's a knee-jerk little response to the fearmongering which the parties on the right have been doing for the last year plus. Now look we've got a situation where even the Police Association agrees: creating a separate crime for burglary is a superficial virtual signalling and we've also known for decades that a punitive approach—you've said it numerous times in the House—to crime doesn't work. But if this is indeed proposed as a suite of tools and if you're serious about supporting rangatahi to make better choices then we need to actually give them some choices. Instead of alienating young people for committing crimes of poverty we should be aiming to eradicate poverty. I know it's not the easy road but we've said numerous times in this House that it's the right road. Where are the rights of our tamariki—collecting bodily fluids unreasonable search and seizure—even the Attorney-General says the ram raids legislation violates the rights of children. We have existing law which you haven't acknowledged which already deals with burglary. So we're really really compromised by the fact that you of all parties are here today saying that this is the right way forward for our tamariki and our rangatahi.Now we've got a population here of rangatahi that make up more than half of Aotearoa's homeless—more than half of Aotearoa's homeless. They deal with mental health pressures. They're a generation that we can't begin to ever understand. They carry the trauma of every other generation before them but most importantly they've also had their natural development interrupted by numerous things starting from at the least COVID. Politicians and media need to look at what we could do across parties to stop this continual alienation and reacting to treating our rangatahi again like they are the problem waiting to be punished. We've seen—and I've mentioned this earlier today—the Independent Police Conduct Authority and the Children's Commission found that police were guilty of racially profiling and illegally photographing rangitahi without their consent. Children as young as 15 in Whanganui were approached in broad daylight and threatened with arrest if they refused to have their photo taken. All for the crime of looking out of place." This is not policing with consent. This is bullying it's predatory behaviour a total abuse of power and it worries us that here today instead of standing up for our rangatahi—as our police Minister who is actually now the Prime Minister said at the time—that we're continuing down this path. It's medieval. It's a medieval approach to criminal justice that we know just doesn't work. We need to start talking to rangatahi and to our youth about what it is that we could be doing better because I'm sure as hell our tūpuna did not sign this Te Tiriti o Waitangi for our mokopuna to be in care incarcerated and continually traumatised.We must do better all of us across this House and if there's anything we say in the eleventh hour before we all depart in a couple of days: we cannot be tough on crime when collectively we were allowing the soft on poverty. And we cannot continue arresting inequality out of society and ignore the state of our tamariki and our rangatahi. We will not be supporting this bill. Kia ora rā."