Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Ryall Tony: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:619;Page:14527] 
9.  
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
 to the  
Minister of Youth Affairs 
: How many young people have completed a Specialist Youth Service Corps programme and what are the criteria if any for young people to become part of this programme? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Youth Affairs 
: The Specialist Youth Service Corps is a new programme being trialled to determine its effectiveness in turning round the attitudes and behaviour of youth at risk. It targets young people where there are problems of parental control; young people who are at risk of school expulsion benefit dependence and drug and alcohol abuse; and young people not involved in any positive social activities. They may be referred by the police the Youth Court or a family group conference. In 2003-04 in its first year 86 young people completed the programme. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: What incentive does this scheme give law-abiding teenagers when repeatedly breaking the law gives one the opportunity to go snowboarding scuba-diving rafting and sailing at the taxpayer’s expense? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: For a start the member’s allegation is absolutely wrong. A local programme in his own region has scuba-diving because the local scuba-diving business which is community-minded is providing it free of charge—not subsidised by the taxpayer—for young people who are at risk of going on to a life of criminal offending. It is strongly supported by the local police. The local organisations the local council the YMCA and all of those other organisations are asking why Tony Ryall keeps knocking this programme instead of getting behind it and supporting it like the rest of the community. 
Moana Mackey 
: What other options for youth at risk have been trialled in the past and what are their outcomes? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: There is a range of other local options. Some like Project K which deals more particularly with young people without self-esteem also use these sorts of outdoor activities to try to build up the well-being of those young people. Then of course there was an approach called “corrective training”. Corrective training sounded quite good because it had boot-camp features. The only trouble is that at the time when National went out of office 94.5 percent of the young people on that programme were reoffending and it was costing a small fortune without providing any community safety at all or any improvement in the behaviour of the young people concerned. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Why does this Government choose to spend taxpayers’ money on Club Med - style programmes for young offenders but refuse to expand proven and effective programmes like the Limited Service Volunteers scheme run by the Army? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: In fact this programme has many features in common with the Limited Service Volunteers programme. Contrary to the member’s claim the programme for these young people involves literacy and numeracy skills personal health and fitness communication skills anger management drug and alcohol awareness and community service for a third of the time. One of the attractions of getting young people who often have not been at school for a year on to this programme is that of getting them to do things that will interest them and give them pro-social activities instead of antisocial activities. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Has the Minister seen the project proposal guidelines which indicate that the Government will pay $6300 per young offender for challenging recreation activities including tramping canoeing mountain biking sailing personal fitness camping kayaking confidence courses caving abseiling rock climbing and team sports; and what message does that send to law-abiding teenagers given that his Government will not spend a dollar on any of that for them? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Before the Minister starts I do not need a barrage of interjections. Members should at least let him have the first sentence. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The Minister for Sport and Recreation could attest to the hundreds of millions of dollars that we are investing in sport and recreation for a cross section of New Zealanders. The cost per young person of this course is $6000. For that the taxpayer gets 20 weeks of intensive full-time activity followed by 40 weeks of follow-up to try to ensure that the safety-net the mentoring and the individual plans are there to prevent the young people concerned getting involved in crime. That would be one of the cheapest courses we run. If a young person ends up in a residence with supervision it costs $120000 to keep him or her in custody. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Can the Minister confirm that one of the alternatives of such a programme would be prison; and can he also confirm that Mr Tony Ryall is opposed to prisons within in his own area? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Only the first part of the question can be answered. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Can the member repeat the question? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I have forgotten what the first part was. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I think we are going to forget about it. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table the funding stream for Nga Hau e Wha in Christchurch on which the National Party spent $14 million of which $6 million went into thin air. 
Document not tabled. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I seek leave to table a letter dated 3 March 2004 from the sergeant of Tauranga youth services to the Tauranga YMCA which runs that programme stating that it is a recognised credible provider of community programmes has a positive relationship with the police and a proven track record. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: I seek leave to table two documents. The first is the Ministry of Youth Affairs’ project proposal guidelines which detail the substantial recreational activities the Government will pay for. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Secondly I seek leave to table that part of the ministerial taskforce on youth offending in which Judge Carruthers recommended an expansion of the Limited Service Volunteers programme something the Government has failed to do. 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I seek leave of the House to table the full YMCA programme which shows that recreation is one aspect of many that are being provided to stop these young people from reoffending. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.