Turner Judy: Children Young Persons and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
Turner Judy: Children Young Persons and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:14452] 
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
: 
 I anticipate that the select committee process on this legislation will be extremely interesting because it appears that the two parties prepared to support it going through its first reading do so with a range of extreme cautions. I am not sure whether they are cautions on the same issues. None the less United Future will support the first reading of this bill but I want to say right from the outset that we do so with great caution on some points. Ensuring the objectives set out in section 4 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act are met has been a major concern for United Future. As the baseline review highlighted the Department of Child Youth and Family Services has we believe been set up for a bit of a fall. It has been given a set of responsibilities that it really cannot meet. One of the findings of the baseline review was that the department’s activities have been by necessity stuck at the critical end of the spectrum. I have often referred to the phrase “the tyranny of the urgent”. It is our worry that the implications of the department failing to deliver the level of preventive work needed to stop the massive tide of child abuse and improve its youth justice outcomes means that vulnerable families do not receive help that could actually prevent abuse and instead the negative cycles of abuse and crime are perpetuated. 
United Future has some reservations about the bill. One of its main objectives is to redefine the Government departments that can be responsible for meeting the obligations of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. That responsibility will now move beyond the Department of Child Youth and Family Services to include the Ministry of Social Development. As far as United Future is concerned that does not go far enough. We would like to see the Act amended so that not just other Government departments but non-governmental organisations can be included and can pick up some of the work and particularly some of the prevention work that is going undone. We would like to encourage the Government to give that serious consideration from the point of view that even if its own policy and ideology prevents it from taking advantage of those provisions there are certainly those of us who for the future of this country would like to see those provisions addressed. We think there is a degree of dishonesty in the legislation because although at present the Department of Child Youth and Family Services cannot contract that work out it manages very subtly to talk to different agencies and to get around the provision very cleverly. The department seconds social workers from organisations like Presbyterian Support and the Salvation Army and has them officially working for the Department of Child Youth and Family Services rather than taking the more honest approach of just giving a contract to the agency it seconds the workers from. So United Future would like to see those provisions extended beyond just the Ministry of Social Development to include the very fine non-governmental organisations that are well able to do the work. 
United Future would also like to refer the Government to our policy on a dual-track model in this process. It is based upon models that are already working on the ground in the United States in Canada and in Australia—countries that face the kind of numbers crisis that we face here in New Zealand. Those models have made a huge difference in those countries. We are very excited at the appointment of the new Chief Executive of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. She is a lady who has had experience in implementing such a programme. 
My colleague Marc Alexander has some real concerns about the youth justice issues. The reduction of offending and reoffending is an objective of the department’s activities but we are very concerned that an offender’s first or second offence may be waived and that the amendments in section 4(f)(ii)(A) and (B) of the Act inserted by clause 5 create the possibility of legal obligations to reduce reoffending which youth offenders may profit from. There is an interesting measure in clause 12 which will be interesting to consider in the select committee that talks of reasonable force being used against a child or young person. That seems to be in direct contradiction to the overturning of section 59 of the Crimes Act which this Government states is one of its aims. So it will be interesting to overcome that contradiction. Another concern is section 239(3A)(a) (d) and (e) inserted in the principal Act by clause 10(3). Those provisions limit the age and culpability in terms of a court order to a youth of no less than 15 years of age set a time limit of 2 months or more for an offender to be on remand pending a trial and also provide that detention can be rescinded if it compromises the ability of the department to meet its demand to detain other young persons. 
I think other members of the House have covered our concerns in terms of the need at this very early stage of offending when a young person is beginning what could develop into a life of crime to send very clear messages from the beginning that a young person cannot start to play one criminal act off against another criminal act or start playing a game with our criminal justice system. We need to send the message from the earliest moments that the young person is apprehended and found to be in breach of the law that that behaviour is not acceptable. We should not send the message that multiple offending will somehow reduce the overall response and consequences. I think we need to think very seriously about the message we are sending through the youth justice system and I agree that we need to look very closely not just at the consequences of crime but also the causes of crime when talking about young people. We need to think creatively about interventions into families where crime is a reality but I think that one does not do it by softening down and compromising on the truth which is if someone has broken the law he or she has broken the law and society frowns on that very very strongly. We want young people to see that crime does not pay. So we have some real concerns we want to see addressed and by the sounds of things the Green Party has a set of concerns too. 
I opened up this speech by saying there will be a very interesting select committee process on this bill. In taking it beyond a first reading I anticipate a number of serious changes will have to happen. There are however some good things in this bill. For instance the family group conferences have some interesting issues that need addressing and I think there is a serious attempt in this legislation to do that. It does seem ridiculous that when there has been a family group conference there is an attempt to bring an intervention but before there has even been a chance to start to implement it the young person may be caught in breach of some other law his or her parole or something like that and before there has even been time to implement the last family group conference another one needs to be set up. That seems to undermine the whole process so I think some common sense can be applied there. I think there is a genuine attempt in this bill to do that and we would want to be supportive of those things that do reek of common sense. 
But we must make sure that the messages sent to youth offenders are very clear and that we do not send mixed messages. Nor should we start into a process whereby young people could for one moment believe that when they are caught by the police charged and found guilty they can start to play a game with the law can start adding up offences and can have one offence waived because another one is on the books—that some sort of game will be played. That is a very very concerning message. United Future would be very keen to see those kinds of concerns addressed. So although we will be supporting the first reading of this bill with caution we look forward to seeing some big changes made during the select committee process.