Borrows Chester: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Borrows Chester: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:8790] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I am pleased to be able to stand and take a speaking opportunity in the progress of this Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. It is important to look at where this bill came from and at what it is trying to address and to look also at the way that the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act has been practised through until now. To be fair to Labour members I say that the previous Labour Government realised there needed to be some alterations to the legislation. Some of those alterations National supported; some of them we did not. But what had grown over a period of about 15 years since the implementation of the 1989 Act was a lack of confidence in the ability of the Act to deal with younger offenders especially prolific younger offenders. 
The reason for that was that there was a lag in time between the apprehension of offending 12 and 13-year-olds and their finally being dealt with before the Family Court which is where this legislation started out. A young child aged 12 or 13 and brought before the Family Court after being reported for prolific burglaries for instance took so long to go through the family group conference process and the resolution practice that before he—generally it was a “he”—could get in front of a judge and have a resolution numerous amounts of further offending had been going on. What we ended up with was a situation when the practitioners—the police—and the youth justice social workers would lose faith in that system and not initiate those sorts of orders. In other words they did next to nothing with those young offenders. 
We have heard the name Bailey Kurariki quoted a number of times in the course of this debate—funnily enough by people who were not in a position to be able to hear the evidence before the select committee. But the whole thing was yes that the serious offending on that occasion crystallised the fact in the minds of not only National members but also Labour members that we needed to do something. If Michael Choy had not died then Bailey Kurariki would not have been charged with anything because there was no precursor for him to be able to be brought before the court. The action taken in response to the manslaughter conviction sustained by him would have happened under the law both as it is now and as it was then. 
So we have to be very careful that we do not set about muddying the waters here and trying to think that this is some move by the now Government to do some dirty deal in order to deal to young people aged 12 and 13. What has been implemented as a result of the select committee process is that we now have a system whereby the Youth Court judge will act as the gatekeeper to where those 12 and 13-year-olds will be heard—either in the Family Court or the Youth Court. So when the police initiate a charge against a 12 or 13-year-old the first appearance will be in the Youth Court. The person who decides whether that 12 or 13-year-old goes back to the Family Court to be dealt with or continues within the Youth Court because he or she meets the criteria is the judge. What is wrong with that? Who are the best and most appropriate to make that decision? It is the judges. When we had Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft before the select committee what did he say? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: “I don’t want them.” 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: No he said: “What you are doing is trying to lump far too many 12 and 13-year-olds straight into the Youth Court.” That is what he said at his initial appearance. He said to the select committee: “What you need to do here is streamline the process so that the practitioners working within the Youth Court process and within the youth justice process are able to get those 12 and 13-year-olds dealt with more quickly and on to curfews and adjournment provisions like bail conditions so that they are under curfew there are non-association clauses and there are prohibitions on knocking around certain neighbourhoods where the crimes they are committing are happening.” He said that the process should be streamlined. 
So what happened? Those bits were pulled they were rewritten and we have pretty much done what he said. We have streamlined that process so that 12 and 13-year-olds appear initially in front of the Youth Court. If they are prolific offenders they can have adjournment conditions put on them and be sent back to the Family Court and that is where the vast majority will go. But those offenders with previous offending or previous admissions after they have had legal advice—which is another condition put in after the select committee process and on advice from officials—will carry on through the Youth Court. By doing that they will be able to access programmes they cannot access at the moment in the Youth Court. 
We were criticised by the Labour spokesperson on social services for not increasing the powers of the Youth Court to equal those that currently exist within the Family Court. Those of us who were privileged to be in the committee when we discussed this know that we had a look at doing that. But we were told that we could not do it because the scope of the bill was not wide enough to increase the powers of the Youth Court along those lines; therefore that has not happened. It is true to recall that the children young persons and their families legislation put up by the Labour Party when it was in Government extended the provisions of supervision with activity and supervision with residence. What we have done is to glue conditions on to the back of that on which they are then released back into the community. A number of things were put up in the initial bill that the National Party was happy with and was happy to support and that was one of them. 
Those on the other side of the House who have had the privilege to attend those supervision-with-residence courses know that a huge chunk if not the majority of those young people who are sitting in those places right now are doing back-to-back 3-month courses. Some of them are on their fourth fifth and sixth 3-month period on a course and it has gone nowhere for them. Every time those young people have been released they have had to go out and create a whole new set of victims before they can come back and access what we call the justice system. That is rubbish. So we are pleased to have received at least within the select committee the support of those Labour members who agree with that particular part. It was foolish to have ever stated in legislation that before a child could be ordered to attend community work that child had to agree to it. How ridiculous was that; we are pleased to see that change happen as well. 
We have heard a lot of talk about military-style activity camps and I can understand why. It is a bit of a touchstone for people who want to give the whole thing a smack-around. Let us look at where that came from. The introduction of military-style activity camps came from an agreement which is also bipartisan across the House on the way that limited service volunteer courses work and on the way that the military components of academy education courses work as well. Yes the point can easily be made and it is well made that people who attend those courses do so voluntarily as much as those who attend as part of an academy volunteer This is usually their last chance at education; they go on that course or they are gone. 
What we have tried to do with military-style activity camps is to take the best of the limited service volunteer courses and the best of the military component of the academic programmes then to force those young people by order of the court to attend those courses and wrap services around them that actually address for instance issues within the family—issues that deal with drug and alcohol that deal with literacy and numeracy that deal with violence and that deal with their background. My colleague from the Maori Party talked about Whanau Ora; this is exactly that. It is about reaching back into families which the current system does not and cannot do and is not empowered to do. 
It is hugely frustrating to have a bill that seeks to intervene in the lives of young people—the most vulnerable in our community who desperately need intervention—shafted and ridiculed by people who want to put those sorts of labels upon it knowing all the time having sat through the select committee process that that is not what was intended and that that is not how it is going to work. I urge the members of this House to look within themselves and have the courage to be able to support this legislation because it is worthy legislation.