Macindoe Tim: Reports — Inquiry into the Identification Rehabilitation and Care and Protection of Child Offenders 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Macindoe Tim: Reports — Inquiry into the Identification Rehabilitation and Care and Protection of Child Offenders 
[Sitting date: 29 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4943. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 Dr Prasad has just stolen my thunder because I too wanted to begin by acknowledging in particular the leadership of Katrina Shanks as the chair of the Social Services Committee in the last Parliament and also the very important work that was done by our colleague the Hon Chester Borrows whose knowledge in these areas is perhaps as great as any in this Parliament and who brings a huge amount of life and professional experience to it. 
As my colleague Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga the new chair of the committee has acknowledged the report of the Inquiry into the identification rehabilitation and care and protection of child offenders straddled two Parliaments and two Social Services Committees and I think all of us who have had the opportunity to be a part of it have found it both a challenging but also a very rewarding exercise. So I want to acknowledge the fact that there are some members—Dr Prasad is one and Su’a William Sio Jacinda Ardern and me—who worked on the report in the previous committee. We were able to do the work that went into it and I want to thank the members of this current committee in the 50th Parliament for picking it up and bringing it through to the point where it can be presented to the House discussed here this morning and most important the lessons that we can draw from it are made available to all the agencies in order for it to be implemented wherever possible. 
It is a very important topic. It is one of the issues that really pushes all the buttons for me as a member of Parliament. It is one of the main reasons why I felt it was so purposeful to come here in order to try to assist our society to intervene effectively with young people who are at risk not only of going off the rails but in many cases of getting into a serious lifetime of crime drug addiction and all sorts of other terrible social evils that are so devastating for them but always devastating for the wider communities in which they live. Children in the bracket we are talking about—the ages 10 to 14 years—are probably at greater risk in our society today than ever before. That is simply because we are seeing more and more family breakdowns more and more intergenerational welfare dependency and more and more children struggling with literacy and numeracy which means that they do not achieve what they need to in education in order to be able to set their sights on a pathway forward. Many of them have known no other sort of lifestyle than the one that is leading them on the path to ruin. So a report of this type is very timely and is very important and I am hopeful that it will lead to some really effective forms of intervention because as Dr Prasad has just said the notion of early intervention is a really important one from the report. We all know I am sure that the earlier we can intervene in the lives of these youth at risk the greater the likelihood is that we will be able to help them turn their lives round. 
Others have spoken in this debate this morning about the need to identify the youth at risk of becoming child offenders. That of course is absolutely critical. But I do also want to acknowledge that there are many people out in our communities doing great work in this area. We have outstanding teachers many of whom would be able to tell you very quickly what the problems are and who those at risk are. Equally we have social workers up and down the country doing outstanding work and in both of those particular professions the challenges are often considerable. I think it is appropriate that we acknowledge them this morning and thank them all for the vital work they are doing. But it is the interventions and in particular the rehabilitative programmes that are most significant if we are going to turn things round. So I do just want to highlight chapter 3 of the report which commences on page 21 to say that as a committee we acknowledge that to some extent the jury is still out about the definitive view of the effectiveness of the programmes that are on offer. To be valid each assessment would require comprehensive evaluation over an extended period. There are people doing that work and we will be monitoring them closely. 
I want to acknowledge Child Youth and Family which is a vital part of this package. It stressed the need for agencies to work together which is another theme that I am really very keen on and we saw some good examples of the way things are moving in this direction. We had an opportunity to visit a number of remand centres youth offending teams and the like both in Australia during our trip and also around the country. I would just like to finish by praising the efforts of one very close to home on my own doorstep of Hamilton—the Kauri Centre. It is an outstanding facility working with some young people who are outside the mainstream education system. For various reasons they are not able to be in our usual State schools. The Kauri Centre is working with these young people and every time I go there I am really inspired by the work that it is doing. I am hugely impressed by the commitment of the teachers and the adults who are working there. I have to say they are delightful young people. Their lives are in many cases in a bit of a mess but there is hope there for them. 
I want to conclude by saying that every one of those young lives that we can turn round and turn back from the path to ruin and on to a path of hope aspiration and achievement is good for them good for their families and good for our country.