Lees-Galloway Iain: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:660;Page:9018] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to join in the debate this evening on the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. Before I get into the material that I had intended to speak about I would like to just reflect on the example that the Minister for Social Development and Employment gave of the stabbing that occurred in Palmerston North recently and to reflect on some of the response that we have had from within the community. Yes people were appalled that a child could be involved in such a crime but the community response has not been to lock him up and throw away the key or to send him off to boot camp or anything like that. The community response has been: “How can we do something that is effective and does something positive for the victim and does something positive for the child who was involved? How can we ensure that this will not happen again and that this young person will not continue down the path that he appears to be on at the moment?”. 
In fact this has become so important to people in Palmerston North that a local gentleman who is not known for left-leaning tendencies by any stretch of the imagination but is quite well known in the community has asked me to help him call a public meeting to discuss the direction this Government is going in on justice and sentencing. He wants to discuss his concerns that the Government seems to be focused on harsher and longer prison terms and knee-jerk reactions that feel good in the short term but actually do nothing for him—he has recently been a victim of a high-profile crime—do nothing for victims and do nothing to assist and protect the community by getting offenders particularly young offenders back on track and to perhaps prevent a life of crime further down the track. 
The reason I took this call this evening was to discuss some of the issues around alcohol and drug treatment and particularly the submission made by the Alcohol Drug Association New Zealand. It states in its submission to the select committee: “… it is our considered opinion that the orders contained within the expanded orders are too prescriptive are not based on overseas and New Zealand research or on the twenty plus years of experience of the addiction treatment sector in New Zealand in working with disadvantaged young people with both criminal offending and addiction related issues.” This is I suppose what the key problem is: the Government just does not appear to be listening to solid research or to anything that makes sense. It is more interested in simply appearing to do something and having knee-jerk reactions such as boot camps and the like. 
There is a place in the justice system for the health sector. There is a lot of good that the health sector can do to reduce crime. In fact the research tells us that there is a reduction of between $4 and $7 in the cost of drug-related crime for ever dollar spent on addiction treatment. It is that kind of focus on treatment and it is that sort of thing that the Law Commission was getting at recently when it issued its issues paper on the Misuse of Drugs Act which sadly the Minister of Justice and the Government seem to have written off out of hand. They do not want to listen to what the public has to say about where we might go on drug-related crime and how we might deal with those things. This is certainly a key issue for young people. The Alcohol Drug Association New Zealand really highlighted the fact that without a greater focus on workforce development and without a greater focus on residential programmes and multi-systemic programmes that deal with the complex needs of young offenders there will just be nothing to change behaviours and to protect the community through changing behaviour. 
Frankly sending young people off to boot camp is not the answer. It just is not the answer because these are complex issues. There is no simple answer. Sadly this legislation like a lot of what the Government is doing seems to be looking for the simple answer that will grab a headline and will seem like it is responding to what the community wants but in fact does not actually deal with the complex needs of young people—and in dealing with alcohol and drug issues that is what is required. There simply is not the capacity.