Beaumont Carol: Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Beaumont Carol: Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2011. Volume:675;Page:20872. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak in support of the Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill. I have been listening to this debate very carefully and I find it quite fascinating. I find fascinating how this issue has been construed and the sorts of arguments that have been presented. I am not going to look at this bill from a historical point of view or even a technical point of view. I was not in Parliament when this legislation was passed and I certainly do not have the technical expertise of colleagues like the Hon Lianne Dalziel but it seems that if we take just a very simple common-sense approach—and I know that that word gets overused and I say it with some nervousness—then essentially what we are talking about here is a mistake. A mistake in legislation was made that has some significant consequences. The Hon Lianne Dalziel has referred back to the  
Hansard 
 of the time and has been very clear in looking at what the intention of Parliament was. It is always important when we look at our legislation to see what the intention of Parliament was at the time. The intention of Parliament at the time was clearly not to make the change that has been inadvertently made in this legislation.  
It seems to me that the average person living in this country would think given that circumstance that it is the responsibility of Parliament to fix that mistake—not to create a long and unnecessary debate about one very specific matter but to actually fix the mistake that everybody agrees was made. I have not yet heard a speaker stand up and say: “No no that was not the intention of Parliament and we strongly did this that and the other thing at the time.” Clearly the intention of Parliament was not to end up with the outcome we have currently. What is being sought here is to amend the Policing Act to restore the legal position in relation to the storage of youth identifying particulars—that is fingerprints and photographs for example.  
The Hon Annette King took us through the process she led as then Minister of Police of amending the Policing Act. I also say that everybody in this House understands that Annette King has a reputation for being a Minister who was very thorough and—as she has often been described—a “safe pair of hands”. She undertook a long consultative process of 2 years to look at an Act that was 50 years old. She has recognised in this Chamber as we all have that a mistake was made during that process. But given the long process and given the complexity of some of the things that were being changed in that legislation it is hardly surprising. This does happen from time to time and Parliament should be duty-bound to fix that.  
So now we have the situation where loopholes could be created and young people will not be picked up for committing subsequent crimes because their identifying particulars cannot be stored because of a technicality. Charles Chauvel—and this has been quoted by others—has talked about what we need to do when there are legislative mistakes. We try not to make them—that is the first thing. He is quoted in  
Hansard 
 talking about trying to identify how and why mistakes are made so that we do not repeat the problem because as a Parliament we want to pass good law. I think that everybody in this place would agree with that. We want to pass good law that will stand up and reflect the policy intention reflect the consideration undertaken by a select committee where the public have their say and reflect what we are trying to achieve—not to create unintended consequences as has happened here. So I put a lot of weight on the reference to what was in  
Hansard 
 around this particular provision. It makes it very very clear that there was no intention for this to happen.  
The storage of the youth identifying particulars is vital for the detection of youth offenders who go on to reoffend as I have said and it is important that we have the correct mechanisms to prevent youth offenders from progressing to adult criminals. The sooner we pick up people who are offending the more that can be done to try to stop them going down a certain path—especially with young people. We want to be able to intervene at the earliest available opportunity to identify the underlying problems and to try to ensure that they go down a different track. If that is delayed because the police do not have the ability to identify somebody in a repeat situation then the consequences will come to the fore—just later. They will come to the fore later. I think we all agree that early intervention around youth offenders is important. So rectifying the mistake that was made is vital to solving crimes and vital to providing early assistance and intervention for our young people.  
Later we will be talking about the parts of the bill but it is a pretty simple bill. The first part really just says that it is retrospective and the second part looks at repealing section 34 and inserting new sections 34 and 34A in the Policing Act to clarify the instances in which the identifying particulars of young people will be destroyed. It looks at that situation. There are two factors here in terms of general rules. I understand why the Greens and the Maori Party are raising concerns and I think it is important that we are scrupulous about these things particularly around retrospective legislation. We all want to be scrupulous around those sorts of situations because that is important and we want to be scrupulous about process. We in the Labour team have often raised concerns about process under this current National Government: the abuse of urgency the lack of scrutiny and the lack of an evidence base in legislation. But we do not believe in this particular circumstance that this is what the problem is. We are talking about dealing with something that everybody agrees is a mistake.  
The broader issues that have been raised in this debate are very very important ones: the causes of crime. I think we all want to get to the bottom of the causes of crime. One of the differences is that we on this side of the House understand that increasing inequality and poverty are part of the problem and that this is something that is going on in this country as we speak. More and more people are struggling to make ends meet the gap between rich and poor is growing and our young people and our children are being disadvantaged. Too many of them are living in poverty too many of them are unemployed and too many of them are not in education jobs or training. These are serious issues that we keep raising and I am afraid to say the Government has really really failed in regard to our young people.  
These are important questions to deal with when we are talking about the causes of crime. But I do think we need to ensure that the police have the tools they need to identify whether people are starting down a criminal track and to intervene so that we can try to do something about that earlier. I also think it would be very good for us to have a much more substantive debate about the causes of crime and to hear the voices of young people. I had the privilege recently with my colleague Charles Chauvel of visiting Arohata Women’s Prison and speaking to a number of the women who were there undertaking drug and alcohol treatment. They were very pleased to have two MPs asking their view on what led them to be there and what would make a difference to their chances of reoffending when they are released from prison. It was a very very interesting conversation and a lot of good insights came from that. People want to have the skills to get a job. People want a chance and people want to deal with things like addiction so these are important things. But hearing that directly from the women in Arohata was very very powerful for me.  
So as I say I understand why there is debate here but I think that if we want to talk about the causes of crime if we want to look at particular disadvantaging of Maori—and I absolutely accept that Maori are overrepresented— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. Her time has expired.