Moroney Sue: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Moroney Sue: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:8799] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure indeed to follow the member for Hamilton West Tim Macindoe who has sat on his hands—in fact he was in the paper the other day because he has been fishing—while his Government closed down the effective programme in Hamilton called Te Hurihanga. While the rest of us were fighting in February to try to keep that facility open Tim Macindoe was still fishing. He should have been on the ground; he should have been hearing what the people of Hamilton had to say about the Te Hurihanga facility being shut down. 
If he had been listening reading his emails and at work over that period he would have heard the same things that I have heard from the Hamilton community about why the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill will not work. People do not believe that the boot camp model works. All of the evidence says otherwise. If Tim Macindoe had been working during January and February he would have read this kind of email—this is an example of the sorts of emails that the Minister of Justice Simon Power has been receiving. This email is addressed to the Minister; it is from a constituent in Hamilton. She writes: “Dear Simon I am writing to express my extreme disappointment at your recent decision to close the Hamilton youth justice facility Te Hurihanga. Working with young offenders to turn their lives around is an incredibly difficult task. Internationally research shows there are no quick-fix solutions. Success is hard to come by. Yet in 3 short years Te Hurihanga has been successful. With a sound research base”—yes I say to the Minister that is right—“one of the most highly skilled staff teams in the country and growing community support the lives of young men at risk are being turned around. The young men and their families are committing themselves to change. Yes the programme is costly in the short term but such costs are small compared to the human and financial costs of long-term offending. The costs of a lifetime of welfare support family dysfunction recidivist offending terms in prison and the suffering of the victims of crime are immense and are borne by the whole community.” 
She goes on to say: “These are the costs that need to be taken into account when thinking about the cost-effectiveness of Te Hurihanga. I have seen no evidence”—and neither have the rest of us by the way—“that the Fresh Start initiative has a sound research base or proven rates of success. Your comments so far suggest that it will be inadequately funded. Like many in the community I am deeply saddened by the decision to close Te Hurihanga. I am particularly saddened because I suspect that you are already well aware of the things I have said. Yet despite this you will still make your decision. That suggests to me that you are putting politics ahead of people. I urge you to reconsider your decision for the sake of those who desperately need and want to turn their lives around and who looked to Te Hurihanga for hope.” 
That email is indicative of what many in the Hamilton community feel about the very successful ground-breaking programme that has been trialled. I was very disappointed to hear the Minister stoop to the level of inflating the cost of providing that programme for those young men. 
Paul Quinn 
: Do you have any joy in your life? 
SUE MORONEY 
: I say to Paul Quinn that I do not have joy in my life when these successful programmes that people have sweated over and put their lives into are used to score cheap political points. The Minister got up in front of the media and pretended that the programme had cost $600000 per offender when the truth is that it cost about $170000 per offender. That is a lot less than the human costs that even the ordinary person from Hamilton who wrote that email could work out. She could work out how much in human costs and financial costs it will cost this country to not look at the evidence from Te Hurihanga. The Minister has decided to go against what many in the Hamilton community are calling for. 
There is one particularly telling thing. When Te Hurihanga was established it was controversial and two groups formed in the Hillcrest community in Hamilton. One group desperately wanted the facility to be opened up because they saw the wisdom and the importance of the community taking care of its own. The second group had a different range of agendas. Some did not want that type of facility in their backyard and some were concerned about a lack of consultation. They held a range of different perspectives but they came together to oppose the opening of the facility. One of the most telling things about the success of the programme is that those two groups have now joined forces. They united just this last weekend to campaign to keep the Te Hurihanga model operating as it is. The people who vigorously opposed that facility’s being established in their neighbourhood have now in 3 years completely turned round—as reflects the English translation of Te Hurihanga’s title. They have turned round because they have seen those young men turn their lives round they have seen the commitment of the staff they have seen that the programme has enhanced and improved safety in their community and they have now become convinced. After being completely opposed to that facility’s opening they are now fighting this Government to keep the facility in place. That is incredibly telling. But is the Government listening? The fact that the Government has hurried this bill back into the House before the Social Services Committee has even had a chance to report back shows that this Government has its fingers well and truly plugged into its ears—and not just the Minister but also the members of Parliament for Hamilton. 
There is another telling thing about the opening of Te Hurihanga. At the official opening there was a protest—by the group that now desperately wants to keep the facility by the way. During the opening they left their placards up against a fence and walked away from them. One of the people who did not like some of the offensive slogans on the placards turned them around and guess what was on the back! It was David Bennett of National: “Tick David Bennett. Tick National.” David Bennett was right in the thick of winding that protest up. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: He’s got his way. 
SUE MORONEY 
: He has got his way. Now 3 years later when the people he was supporting in their protest have changed their minds David Bennett still has not changed his. His Government is closing down an effective programme. 
People in Hamilton cannot believe that this Government is turning its back on a programme that is showing successful results with the most hardened of offenders—young men who on average have offended 23 times before they even get to the facility. Let us remember that these young men are aged between 17 and 24 years of age so they have not had a lot of time to rack up that sort of record. But that is where they have come from. That is what they have been doing before they enter the grounds of that facility. Until about 3 days ago the police were reporting that of the eight who had graduated none had committed offences. In the first— 
Hon Member 
: That’s not the problem. 
SUE MORONEY 
: Absolutely. In the first 10 months—the Minister is shaking his head but he is wrong and he knows it—no offences were committed. Subsequent to that there have been four. A 50 percent strike rate is very very good when dealing with this level of criminal activity. Here the Government is closing down a programme that is proving to be successful and replacing it with something that we know does not work—boot camps. The evidence everywhere here and internationally is that boot camps do not work and that is why Labour is opposing this bill.