Harawira Hone: Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill — Second Reading 
Harawira Hone: Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16198] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Kia ora tatou e te Whare. Last Sunday the  
Herald on Sunday  
ran a snoop story on Bailey Junior Kurariki. It talked up his home detention like he was in paradise when all it had was shots of a young man standing around talking on his cellphone which he could already do in jail and the fact that he had a birthday and got some presents too. Big deal; one can get that stuff in jail too—even the birthday cake. This young fellow will have it tough enough trying to make it on the outside as a man after spending all of his teenage years in jail without a camera highlighting his every move and rednecks calling for his head every second day. 
Today we consider this Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill which aims to severely punish young offenders who commit serious crimes as a means of deterring others because somebody thinks that the youth justice system is too lenient and that we should be hitting young crims harder. To no one’s surprise on analysing the statistics of those who are arrested most prosecuted most and convicted most Maori youth get the prize three times more often than anyone else. The Maori Party thinks this bill is rubbish; it is another knee-jerk reaction to a problem in society that the Government does not know how to fix. And how do we know that severely punishing young offenders who commit serious crimes as a means of deterring others does not work? It is easy—because the Americans have been following that route for decades and they have thousands upon thousands of seriously violent criminals whom they are too scared to let out on the streets because they are 10 times worse than when they went into prison and many of those started off as teenagers. That is how we know it will not work here because it does not work anywhere. 
Do members want to know another reason why it will not work? The reason is that the Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft says so. He has seen more of those cases than every single one of us will ever see—that is why. And who is this judge? He is the guy we have appointed to deal with all the seedy problems of our youth that we do not want to deal with—that is who he is. OK so Judge Becroft is the guy who knows it all. What did he actually say about all of this youth offending? He reckons: “The over-representation of Maori in the youth justice system is probably the most pressing issue confronting all of those who are involved daily in our youth justice system in Aotearoa. 
And what does he say about this bill? What is his opinion on this bill? Members will all want to hear what he says about this bill because he knows more about this stuff than all of us. He said that this bill was “profoundly poorly drafted in fact abysmally drafted”. “No no” I say to the judge “do not try to spare our feelings. Tell us what you really think.” He said: “profoundly poorly drafted in fact abysmally drafted”. Judge Becroft has also spoken out previously about how biased the criminal justice system is against Maori kids noting Ministry of Social Development research that suggests half the Maori population is under 19; there is an increased vigilance of Maori youth by police; Maori youth are highly visible in the youth justice system; Maori youth are more likely to end up in the Youth Court where tougher sentences are handed out than go to a family group conference; and Maori youth are likely to get more severe sentences than other kids. 
With all this going against our kids we knew that somebody had to make the safety and well-being of our rangatahi an absolute priority. Angeline Greensill Maori Party candidate for Hauraki-Waikato reminded us that that is exactly what the Maori Party is here for: “to defend Maori rights and to advance Maori interests for the benefit of the whole nation.” That is an excellent philosophy because it seems that the two major parties have become obsessed with trying to bash Maori kids into submission with tagging bills and youth offending bills without any thought whatsoever to the consequences of continuing down the pathway of heavy sentencing. Even the New Zealand Law Society was heavily critical of this bill and we could hardly say that that society is a puppet of the Maori Party. It said: “the Bill demonstrates a misunderstanding of New Zealand’s youth justice system adult criminal justice system and international obligations in respect of children and young persons”. We would go further. We would also say that the bill demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of New Zealand’s young people and their families. 
But no it seems that this bill simply does not accept the fact that a Government that shows scant respect for its youth is asking for trouble from those very ones it has discarded. A Government that allows rampant illiteracy must also accept the consequence of having so many disaffected people within society. A Government that would charge teenagers for an education that its members got for free can hardly expect respect from its youth. A Government that would ban the smacking of children but reacts to the problems with teenagers by simply getting a bigger and bigger stick is a Government destined for the Opposition benches. 
Yes crime violates people and yes serious crime is a crime upon society itself. But given how poorly prisons actually rehabilitate inmates all we will actually achieve by fast tracking teenagers into serious offenders is leaving our kids a time bomb to deal with that we did not have the guts to deal with ourselves. Determining blame and administering pain is not the answer and banging on about youth crime in election year is an ugly and pathetic way to get votes. Restorative justice has a far better success rate. It may take a little longer and it certainly takes a lot more intelligence but as Nelson Mandela himself would say if renewal is your game then reconciliation beats retribution every day. 
New Zealand’s ground-breaking Children Young Persons and Their Families Act and the family group conference are not perfect by any means but they are steps in the right direction. Families are actively encouraged to help address crimes committed by their young people and the conferences are where whanau hapu and iwi can resolve disputes for the betterment of all parties. Locking people away simply does not work—again ask Nelson Mandela. They locked him away for 25 years and they could not break his spirit. They could not get him to renounce his beloved African National Congress and they could not get him to accept apartheid. All they did was make him more determined to win and win he most assuredly did. 
Talking about the great Nelson Mandela he also said that a nation should be judged not by how it treats its highest citizens but by how it treats its lowest ones. That is the challenge we are faced with whenever bills like this come before the House. We have to be smarter we have to listen to the alarm bells signalling a breakdown in our society we have to be willing to admit that we do not have all the answers we have to listen to one another again and again and we have to actually decide whether people are more important than property. We have to decide whether to build a nation going forward by empowering those on the bottom to believe that the world is theirs and not just the shadows; or to take the easy road chuck the kids in jail and hope they never come knocking on our nightmares when they get out again. 
The Maori Party will oppose this bill and all that it stands for. Tena koe.