Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill

I move, That the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 27 May 2019. I also intend that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day where there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week where there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 191, 193, and 194(1)(b) and (c).

The purpose of this omnibus bill is to give effect to the policy to raise the upper age of the youth justice jurisdiction to include 17-year-olds, as enacted by the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Act 2017. The bill contains amendments to ensure that 17-year-olds in the youth justice jurisdiction receive appropriate and consistent treatment, benefits, and protections from 1 July 2019. It will also enable the judiciary, New Zealand Police, and other key stakeholders to exercise their functions consistently and effectively in relation to 17-year-olds. The bill makes technical and consequential amendments to 11 Acts and to one set of regulations including the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989, the Bail Act 2000, the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995, and related regulations, the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 and the Sentencing Act 2002. The bill removes ambiguities in the current legislation that may cause confusion, inconsistent treatment, or operational difficulties.

While technical and consequential to the 2017 amendments, the changes proposed in this legislation are necessary to make the reforms work. The decision to raise the upper age of the youth justice jurisdiction to include most 17-year-olds was a majority decision made by the previous Parliament. The expansion of the youth justice jurisdiction will take effect on 1 July 2019 after a two-year lead-in. I am confident that Oranga Tamariki has the capacity to respond to the inclusion of 17-year-olds in the youth justice system both immediately following 1 July and over the longer term. Oranga Tamariki are developing extra residential capacity by redesignating Whakatakapokai care and protection residence in Auckland as a youth justice residence and by adding additional capacity at Te Au rere a te Tonga youth justice residence in Palmerston North.

In consultation with iwi partners, Oranga Tamariki is developing community-based, custodial options which will take some of the capacity pressures off residences. Oranga Tamariki are looking at a range of options to reduce custodial remand including better supporting young people who are on bail: 70 to 80 percent of the population in residences are on remand. Many 17-year-olds will have spent time in the youth justice system prior to turning 17, including time at Oranga Tamariki residences. Staff will know them and have built relationships with them. I know that having more time to work with them in a restorative, care-based environment will increase the likelihood that they will not end up on a pathway into the adult justice system. In addition, Oranga Tamariki are developing programmes and services tailored to the 17-year-old cohort. These include vocational training and employability and independent living support.

Since 2017, other pieces of legislation have been identified as needing amendment to ensure alignment with the age increase and to address errors. It is important that processes and procedures affected by the expansion of the youth justice jurisdiction are clear and that the policy is consistently applied. The consistent treatment of 17-year-olds in the youth justice jurisdiction will ensure that our young people are given the rights and benefits that should be available to them and support New Zealand’s compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and its Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice.

Features of this bill include amendments to the definition of “young person” to reflect the expansion of the youth justice jurisdiction and transactional provisions to clarify whether a 17-year-old should be managed within the adult or youth jurisdiction. Broadly speaking, this will depend on whether proceedings have commenced prior to 1 July or not. Transitional provisions are required to ensure that there is certainty for all parts of the system including the judiciary and the police at the front line when the new jurisdiction takes effect on 1 July. I note that serious charges—those that have a maximum sentence of no less than 14 years taken against 17-year-olds—will remain in the adult jurisdiction. This bill does not alter that policy.

The bill will also clarify the making of urgent interim orders that may be required in care or protection proceedings under the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989. This covers custody, restraining, or guardianship orders. Some current provisions, due to come into effect on 1 July, contain drafting errors in the original legislation from 2017. They would allow the court or a lawyer for the child to take action without knowing whether they had all of the relevant information available to understand the interests of the child, and this needs correcting.

There are established processes in the Act to ensure that, when required, children and young people can get the urgent help they need, including where the court or a lawyer for the child hold serious concerns for them. Moving a child away from their whānau requires an interim order and it is a decision that should not be taken lightly and without the relevant information needed to determine the risk to the child. This is why a robust process is needed to ensure that it is the right thing to do. The Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill ensures that children are only moved into State custody under defined circumstances and with an appropriate amount of information. To allow these drafting errors to remain would undermine the process and, therefore, present a risk to children.

This bill also addresses three other drafting errors in the 2017 Act, as well as making a consequential amendment to the Children’s Commissioner Act 2003 to correct a cross-referencing error. These changes are also required ahead of 1 July 2019.

I ask that my colleagues across the House support these amendments so that the original intention of the Oranga Tamariki Act can be truly implemented on 1 July without unintended consequences. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. As it is the first time since the Christchurch tragedy that I’ve been able speak in the House, can I just briefly give my condolences to those families that have lost their loved ones and also to the city, too. I want to acknowledge the solidarity that has been given right across the whole of the nation in this regard, and so, with that, I give my remarks for that.

I stand on behalf of the National Party as supporting this bill—at its first reading—to the select committee. I want to acknowledge the Hon Tracey Martin and the work that she has put in, in putting this legislation forward so that we can progress what is, as she has said, a very technical piece of legislation, which completes the original legislation that was put through in July 2017. In saying that, it is a bit of a concern that we’ve now fast-tracked to here, because we were in the process of about eight weeks—if I take it rightly—from the report-back date that’s now being given. We would have hoped, again, that there would have been more time. So I want to go on the record, on behalf of the caucus, to register our concern where again we are now beginning to see, for no just cause, process being rushed, when we could have had an opportunity where we would have had a bit more time to be able to go through a submissions process—again, so that others could contribute to that. I’ll allude to some of those concerns that will be raised, I believe, through the submissions process as well. But I do want to go on record about the issue around the fact that, again, we are rushing a piece of legislation that we are supporting right across the House.

I want to make remarks to the comments that the Minister’s made in regard to the original bill in 2017 that was passed in this House, where she made the remark that it was by majority. Unfortunately, it wasn’t by majority with the support of New Zealand First. I have looked through the Hansard and the remarks that have been made by the spokesperson of that time for New Zealand First, which was Darroch Ball. On his remarks, looking through the Hansard, right the way through the first reading, second reading, the committee of the whole House, and the third reading, he was disparaging in the sense of where the then current Government, the National-led Government, was progressing this form of legislation—that actually is before the House as we speak today. In his remarks he would say and indicate: “There was so much promise, opportunity. It has been wasted. Issues around living costs: none of these will have been addressed. A number of issues that are to do with issues of youth in the justice system have not been addressed in this current bill.”—which is the current bill that is before the House.

So while across this House and on the side of the House we are in full support of this legislation, I just want to go on the record again: it wasn’t by full support of New Zealand First in that regard. So I want to go on the record of saying that I’d like to hear from New Zealand First, if there are other speakers, in regard to what they see has changed, which has shifted their position to where they are now, inside the House, with this piece of legislation that’s before us.

This bill is a bill that is an omnibus bill. It gives full effect to the aspects of Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Act 2017 and by seeking to ensure that the benefits of the policy do include 17-year-olds in the youth justice jurisdiction and are fully realised in addressing drafting errors in the original 2017 Act. This bill tightens up legislation, particularly around procedures and process related to 17-year-olds within the youth justice system.

Can I go on the record to acknowledge the Hon Anne Tolley, who was the Minister at that time who put through this legislation? It was significant because the initiation of this was probably one of the most significant shifts within about 30 years of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act and also within the whole sector itself, shifting from what was, in a sense, just under the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, to then include Oranga Tamariki in its focus, and refocusing its direction and its purpose, and hence the reason why this technical side of it is important.

One of those, in particular to the scope of this bill that’s before the House, is increasing the age of care. I, like other members, also heard the submissions and actually went to those residential facilities for youth. It was there that they petitioned us, lobbied us, to ensure that we would increase that age of care. Many of these young people in their words would say, “We need at least another year. We need another year so that we can have that support.” But at the same time, in this particular area here, in regard to youth justice and the jurisdiction that is there, it is to also take into account, I suppose, in a sense, for young people, as we would understand and determine in regard to the ages going through the justice system as well. So we all agreed that it was the appropriate thing to raise that age of care, but also from 17-year-olds, in regard to the implications of that into the youth justice system as well. So I want to acknowledge the Hon Anne Tolley and the work that she had completed as well.

The purpose of the changes made in 2017 was to ensure vulnerable children and young people have the best chance to have safe, stable, and loving homes, which will help them grow into successful independent adults as well. A majority of the reforms in the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Act come into force on 1 July, including the reforms relating to those 17-year-olds as well.

Can I just make some remarks to this, which are to the Minister to take notice of as we go through the submission process, because while this is important legislation that we will support, some of the implications that I believe will come through in a submission process from those inside of our communities will be in regard to the residential facilities for youth in our community, especially with youth justice as a concern. I’ve had people talk to me in regard to this piece of legislation as it’s about to come through the House and into select committee. For instance, I’ll give an example: in communities like in Manurewa for instance, where I know that Oranga Tamariki is looking at a re-designation of a care facility and in this regard to extend it to a care facility not only for those in protection but also for those within the youth justice jurisdiction, relating in particular to the scope of this bill. The concerns for them is that, (1) will their safety issues be addressed? Secondly, is it an issue that the fact is that those facilities in regard to the occupancy—do we have enough facilities to care and cater for the needs that will also arise after the 1 July from this piece of legislation, as well?

So I just want to put that on the table, in an open and transparent way, for the Minister to be able to take that into consideration. I know that it will be part of the submissions process heading through, when we discuss this bill in the select committee process as well.

So my remarks are that we, on this side, do support this legislation. We are concerned that, again, we are rushing through a process where there was no need, there was time, and we could have actually had a proper and full process. I do acknowledge that we’ve had a departmental statement that’s here as part of this. We would have felt, though, that with enough time we could have actually had a fuller process of submissions, hearings, and advice that would have come through and then gone through into the House. But it is such that the Government has determined it will come back at the end of May. We will support that because we believe it’s important—that legislation should be completed in the appropriate time. So we support and commend this bill to the House.

This is a very significant piece of legislation. I’m cognisant of a scene I was part of at the downtown Auckland Central Police Station where there was a briefing and the incoming shift were being briefed and an announcement was made by the intelligence officer that a certain local offender was turning 17. All the officers in that room cheered because what that meant, in their mind, was all of a sudden they could deal effectively with this offender.

Now, that’s a very narrow end of the way we deal with our young people, but it is a quite an important end. When we look at any legislation, as the previous speaker has mentioned, it’s very important we get the balance right.

At the other end of the argument, and when the debate around the original legislation was being dealt with at select committee and in the lead-up to that, I know there were those who thought that this provision should actually go through to 21—that, when we were looking at the frontal cortex and the thinking abilities of our young people, in fact, they needed to be under this sort of a system, or some sort of a system, where they could be treated and be able to avail themselves of the necessary care and protection until they were 21. That was, of course, the extreme of the argument, and the legislation was around shifting from 17 to 18.

Looking at the legislation, provided we do have the backstop—again, referring to the previous speaker—ensuring that when people do come into the system, whether it be a care and protection issue or, ultimately, and what this legislation mostly deals with, a youth justice issue, we are actually ensuring the intention of the legislation, which is to make sure we prevent and make it less likely that these young people—and 17-year-olds now will be young people—carry on to offend as adults. The experience of all those involved is that if someone is still offending as a 21-year-old, it is likely they will continue to offend through their 20s, and by that stage, many would argue, they are lost to the system, certainly in the short term. So it is incredibly important we do get it right.

This legislation and, of course, the major legislation it relates to—the decision was made that 17-year-olds would be included in this system, and so, having made that decision, it is really important now that we are consistent. Much of this legislation is about that very thing—ensuring that we then line up that those who are caught within the change are actually fairly treated. For example, if you are standing trial as a 17-year-old for a qualifying offence and you were still 17 at the time of the offence—of course, having been dealt with as an adult—what then happens? Of course, this legislation deals with that situation. You will actually continue to be dealt with. However, where the line is, I suppose, is what happens when the offending happened before when you were 17, when the offending was happening before you were actually charged or came into the system? How are you dealt with then? Again, this legislation is meant to deal with that situation.

So what it really means is that it was quite clear that once the legislation was looked at, there were some drafting errors, and for all the criticism that has been around having to fix drafting errors, this is one: that it didn’t really take into account the fact that there were many other provisions that were going to be affected; it wasn’t simply a matter of moving people from one age group to another.

So when we look at the Acts that actually did need to be amended—Oranga Tamariki Act, obviously; the Bail Act; the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Act 2017; the Children’s Commissioner Act; the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act—that’s quite a good example, because under the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act, with a certain qualifying offence, the offender is required to give their DNA. The question now becomes: if the offending happened while you were still 17years old and you were arrested later, are you then required to still give your bodily sample? Where is that bodily sample stored? Are you then treated as a young person?

So these are all the provisions that are being dealt with in the Act. You might argue they are logical, but if we’re going to do it, we’ve got to do it properly. Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act, Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act—of course, that’s quite an important Act. Where our Australian colleagues are continuing to send people back across the Tasman, and where they come as 17-year-olds, how do we treat them, particularly under legislation? They have certain obligations, as we do as law enforcement and as a Government in New Zealand. The Sentencing Act, Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Act, Victims’ Rights Act, and Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Regulations—so these are all issues that it’s important that we do deal with in this Act.

It’s, again, going back to the substantive provision, if you like, of moving 17-year-olds into—or retaining them as young people. Eighteen, again, is the age where the debate will now take place. It’s taking place because 18 is when young people vote, and that is where the drinking age is, so it does make sense in many ways that 18 is the place that we will actually treat young people as adults. So it does make sense.

Again, I do reiterate the importance of making sure, though, that this is not seen as an easy way out, that we’re making sure that—like in all these provisions, there’s always another lot of people that have to be dealt with. Many times, when we’re dealing with these young people, there are victims, and it is very important that we don’t only look at a system, that we don’t only look at the effect and those who have actually committed the offences; we actually also have to ensure that victims are included in this. That is where the family group conference and the systems that, actually, we employ do give a chance for that restitution, to make sure that the victims do get a say in the system. So it is important, again, that as we go through the system, all these factors that are relevant as we change from young people, as 17-year-olds, now remaining as young people until they’re 18—that all these impacts of the decision are considered.

For that reason, I’ll be on the select committee that will be considering this. I’ll be commending this to the select committee with the intention that we will make sure that this legislation is as good as it can be when it comes back to this House. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Well, that’s a very nice sentiment that Mr O’Connor has just talked about, about the fact that it’s being sent to a select committee to make sure that we get the legislation right. Well, newsflash, Mr O’Connor, if you weren’t listening: this is yet another piece of legislation introduced by this Government that abuses and does not allow a select committee process in its entirety to take place—yet another piece of legislation with a shortened report back: 27 May. The Minister doesn’t even have the courtesy, when there’s a piece of legislation that is supported across this Parliament, to even discuss it with the Opposition. It’s unbelievable that we’re seeing this yet again. So this is a shortened report back to 27 May. Yes, it’s a technical bill. That’s even more reason to ensure that the people who have an interest in this legislation have the ability to pick it apart and to ensure that as a Parliament, we get this legislation right.

So for those that have just tuned in to this, this is the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill. This is a technical bill. This is legislation that, in terms of the significant overhaul of the work that the State does with children, my colleague the Hon Anne Tolley was significantly involved in, with very strong engagement from the public, iwi, from organisations, from the Parliament, and young people sharing their stories to ensure that we got the policy right. The very idea that this Government is then trampling on all of that critical engagement that took place in the earlier versions of the policy design to then jam it through—to jam it through—a select committee process to say 27 May is the report back for legislation that comes into effect on 1 July—what’s the Government been doing? What has the Government been doing? This is a technical omnibus bill—a technical omnibus bill—that covers off how many pieces of legislation? How many pieces of legislation? Twelve, one of my colleagues says. That deserves the full scrutiny of the select committee to ensure a complex bill is delivered properly.

But I want to talk very briefly about the people that are served by this particular bill, because it relates to the procedures and policies relating to 17-year-olds within the youth justice jurisdiction. I think this is a particularly vulnerable group of New Zealanders, and we do have the opportunity to put them on a different path. So it is critical, this legislation. It is critical we get it right. We owe it to them—we owe it to them. We owe it to their victims. But, actually, we owe it to them to ensure that they have a different future. So it is critical that we get this legislation right. Just last week, I met with a number of organisations who are providing services for these children, for these young people. Yes, we are lifting the age so that they can be dealt with in this system, not the adult system. They deserve for us to get it right, and it’s absolutely outrageous to have a shortened report back on yet another piece of Government legislation.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I actually want to begin by addressing a couple of comments made by the member the Hon Louise Upston, who just resumed her seat, who talks about the fact that this Government is “rushing” through this piece of legislation. However, part of what the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill does is make some technical amendments because of drafting errors made by the previous Government, given that this piece of legislation has had a lead-in period of two years. Which brings me to the point that the date of 1 July 2019 was actually set by the previous Government, yet again, and yet they adopt the moral high ground and tell us that we’re pushing this through and absolve themselves of any responsibility for where we are today, which is amending technical drafting errors. Also, this bill was introduced before 15 March, and we’ve actually lost two weeks as a result of the horrific attacks that we’ve seen in Christchurch. So if the members opposite are using that to score political points, that is incredibly disappointing.

Now, on to what the bill actually does. The purpose of the bill falls broadly into two categories. One of them is in relation to the policy to raise the upper age of the youth justice jurisdiction to include 17-year-olds and to ensure that that policy can actually be fully realised and to ensure that these 17-year-olds receive appropriate and consistent treatment, the benefits and the protections that they are entitled to, once that change comes into force on 1 July 2019.

So, once again, we don’t have a huge amount of time to ensure that these errors are corrected and to ensure that 17-year-olds who will be caught up in that piece of legislation when it comes into force are actually treated in a manner that is consistent. So these changes will also allow the police, the judiciary, and other key stakeholders in this space to exercise their functions consistently, and that’s where some of the changes to the Sentencing Act and the Bail Act 2000 will come into play. This is an omnibus bill that will make amendments to 11 Acts and one set of regulations.

The second part, which was the technical amendments that I alluded to, is amendments to those Acts and that set of regulations. They are significant amendments with regard to urgent interim orders, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

If I may, I wanted to just quote from a New Zealand Herald article that lays out quite succinctly and very clearly how the changes to this upper age and the changes to the separate pieces of legislation will actually impact people’s lives. So I quote: “Jamie is 16 and facing Youth Court charges of assault and taking cars. He is also before the Family Court to get help from Oranga Tamariki—the Ministry for Children because of physical and sexual abuse by his father. After pleading guilty, [he’s] assessed by the adolescent mental health team. He is found to be dyslexic with a communication disorder, meaning he needs constant help to understand what’s happening in court. The Youth Court education officer discloses [that] Jamie has not been in school for three years. His situation is discussed at a family group conference, and a plan is drawn up to provide help. During that conference, [he] takes part in restorative justice and apologises to his victims. Rehabilitation and counselling for drug and alcohol issues is organised. The court will monitor his progress for months, keeping in constant contact with Jamie and his guardians in a bid to get his life back on track.

“[Now,] Jamie’s not real—but that’s the way lots of young people are handled when they get in[to] trouble. Things change when they hit 17. Charges of assault and taking cars would land them before the District Court, an adult in the eyes of the law. Jamie would still have the same disabilities and [the same] family history. Without his own legal representation, he would be assigned a duty lawyer who might not spot his communication disorder, impeding his chance of a fair hearing. He could be bailed [at] his father’s address because the court wouldn’t know it’s unsuitable. And if he pleaded guilty, he might be sentenced to 200 hours of community work, spending months of Saturdays with other adult criminals. From July [this year], young people won’t go before the District Court until they’re 18 [years old], [except in some circumstances,] except in serious cases such as murder, manslaughter, sexual assaults, and aggravated robbery.”

So we have people who are experts telling us that this change will allow more interventions at a crucial point in young people’s lives: interventions that can actually help them to change track, I guess, and not go down the path of reoffending—if those interventions are actually successful—but actually make a difference to their lives. At its heart, at the substance of the changes that this bill makes, is really to ensure that 17-year-olds can be treated in a manner that’s consistent with those changes to help them get back on track. So that was a decision that was made, obviously, in the previous Parliament and supported by the majority, from the understanding that young people face complex problems and need interventions at those points to help them.

I just want to make a quick point because it’s been brought up time and again that this is about condoning offending. And I want to make the point that it’s absolutely not. Research suggests that many traits common among adolescents remain prevalent in young adults; so they need to be treated differently. Sending them either to jail or in circumstances where they’re in contact with hardened criminals only sends them down that path of reoffending and offending in more serious ways as well. So that’s what the crux of this bill that we’re debating here today does in terms of the changes.

The other part of it—the second broad category—was about the urgent interim orders. It clarifies the making of those orders that may be required in care or protection proceedings under the Oranga Tamariki Act, and that has to do with custody, restraining orders, and guardianship as well. So, again, some of those drafting areas that I mentioned at the start of my speech—it corrects those, and it corrects them in very important ways. I’m just going to point to two. The amendments will remove the courts’ ability to make interim orders in relation to children or young people on its own motion when there are no relevant care and protection proceedings under the Oranga Tamariki Act under way—and, secondly, the lawyer representing the child or young person’s ability to apply for an interim order outside of care and protection proceedings under the Oranga Tamariki Act in relation to a child or young person, unless they first seek leave of the court.

So while this is a bill that corrects some of the drafting errors made by the previous Government, it also makes some changes that ensure that our young people can be treated in a way that is actually beneficial to them, and so I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I join with my colleagues at this time, to lend my voice also and acknowledge the families and the friends of those who lost their lives on 15 March in Christchurch. I also acknowledge and thank the New Zealand Police, St John, and all the volunteers and, indeed, the community who rushed to the support of those victims’ families.

Back to the bill—the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill. In 2017, as we’ve heard from previous speakers, the then National-led Government introduced and passed the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Act. In terms of this bill, this is an omnibus bill and, simply by its very nature, it is because it impacts several other bills. As the Hon Louise Upston said earlier, it actually impacts on 12 other Acts.

So the purpose of this bill is to bring 17-year-olds—under-18s—into the youth justice system. This is something that’s very non-contentious. In fact, it was strongly recommended by Judge Andrew Becroft, the Children’s Commissioner, and it also aligns us very well with UNCROC—the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child—who referred, in our report back to them in 2016, that this would also be a suitable move. So it’s very good to see this piece of legislation being put into place to ensure that under-18s—our 17-year-olds—are no longer dealt with in the adult criminal justice system but now in the youth justice system. This enables them to also have the wraparound services that provide for their care in terms of, perhaps, changing their direction of travel. It’s very non-contentious, because the impacts on the rights of those under 18—the 17-year-olds—in this piece of legislation are all beneficial. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very pleased to be able to stand and support the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill. This is a bill introduced under the Standing Orders so that it provides for an omnibus bill to amend more than one Act. What I’m going to use my contribution time for today is to pick up on the part of this bill which seeks to ensure that the benefits of the policy to include 17-year-olds in the youth justice jurisdiction are fully realised.

Many years ago, while I was working at the Human Rights Commission, I was fortunate to attend the opening of the marae Youth Court, which at that point was only the second Youth Court in the country; we’ve got a number of them now. One of the things, and why it was to be celebrated back in 2016—and, in fact, I acknowledge the Hon Anne Tolley, who was bringing forward that change, a change that we had long been advocating for, advocacy groups like UNICEF, JustSpeak, the Human Rights Commission, and even the police and courts themselves, realising that a rehabilitative, restorative justice approach was certainly more effective, better for young people, for victims, for community building, and for whānau, and that extending that to 17-year-olds was something that had long been called for and something that actually put us out of kilter with many other countries around the world who had already gone ahead and made sure they had done that.

One of the major changes in this bill is to make sure that we are fully realising that policy announcement that was celebrated some years ago, and I actually did want to properly acknowledge those advocacy groups who had been calling for this change for quite some time. Now we’re at the point where we have to make sure we’ve got our i’s dotted and our t’s crossed and make sure that the law is also up to date, because it’s about to come in on 1 July, as is my understanding. When I was able to attend the opening of the marae Youth Court that day, picking up on what my colleague Ms Radhakrishnan also mentioned about the effectiveness and efficiency of a restorative justice approach and not just a punitive approach, particularly for young, still-developing minds—if I’m being aspirational here, that can actually continue well past 17, well past 18, and that can go right up to, and research is very clear, 23 or 25 years old. So this is a good, useful start.

I just want to be very clear in this contribution that a restorative justice approach is absolutely centred on true accountability—on true accountability directly to victims, to account for and restore the harm and the imbalance that perpetrators have committed to that person, their family, and their own communities. So I’m pleased to see this Government taking some leadership and some moves to understand that the evidence has been very clear for a very long time that putting younger people into the adult court system is a path to reoffending and that the rehabilitative, restorative, counselling focus for the less serious crimes—because, let’s be clear, the young people in the age group up to 17 are included except for when those crimes are of a serious nature; then they still go through the ordinary adult justice system. But the evidence has been very clear that, when we can actually address the root causes—my colleague Ms Radhakrishnan highlighted the example of a young person with a learning disability. That was a made-up young person. I also want to caution against the stigma of young people with learning challenges being the same as criminals. But what we do know in prisons today is that, if we had provided enough proper support in the education system and around a whole host of challenges and social difficulties for that person, we would actually be avoiding terribly high incarceration rates.

And so I did want to say that, while this legislation picks up making sure that we are enabling the proper realisation of that policy to include 17-year-olds in the youth justice jurisdiction, I think my colleague Greg O’Connor also mentioned that we need to make sure the resourcing for that policy is put in place properly, and so we will need those monitoring services, drug and alcohol services, and counselling family group conferences. We will need to, as a Government, make sure that we are resourcing the impacts of this legislation and bringing that 17-year-old policy change into play.

I wanted to make a short contribution but I will also pick up the Minister’s initial address, put here in the House today, to flag some of the wider work that isn’t part of this particular bill. I did want to acknowledge the Minister herself making it clear that she is very cognisant and acutely aware of the need for iwi Māori communities and marae and hapū to be involved with custodial options. This is something that has long been called for, something the Greens have been strong advocates for as well. And the Minister mentioned that community-based custodial options with iwi are part of the plans going forward, which will also help with the capacity of Oranga Tamariki, but more importantly for myself is that this is also about putting over, understanding the value that iwi and Māori communities have to be able to take care, take that responsibility, and us as the Government being able to put over more trust and resourcing and support for them to step up and take that responsibility. They want to know where their mokopuna are, they want to know who’s having trouble and where those whānau need help, and they are willing to step up and help us to do that work.

Of course, others have mentioned that there are other technical legal changes and, in particular fixing up some flaws in previous legislation. So, of course, I’m very happy to support us getting that right, fixing that up, and am looking forward to continuing the discussion and making sure that we are properly resourcing a truly restorative justice approach that, first and foremost, is about proper accountability to victims, their families, and communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call on this first reading, acknowledging the Minister for bringing it to the House. Importantly, as other colleagues have noted, this was part of a National Party approach initially and with mostly support from across the House in passing the original legislation before the end of the last Parliament. It was known then—and, again, that’s why it’s good that the Minister has brought it to the House now—that there would have to be subsequent legislation to incorporate the initial changes around 17-year-olds and how they’ll be treated in the justice system.

I acknowledge too the then Minister, Anne Tolley, for the enormous amount of work that she led in this space to bring about what was one of the fundamental changes—again, that a 17-year-old should be treated in the youth justice sector rather than the adult justice sector. So this is a piece of legislation which, you’ve already anticipated, Mr Assistant Speaker, has our support—I would say from across the House, but certainly from the National Party—first and foremost because it’s a piece of legislation that we were adapting and were prepared to adopt.

Look, fundamentally, as has been mentioned, it’s an omnibus bill, simply because there are a number of pieces of legislation which need changes. The original Act a year ago did not, or could not, effect changes across at least 12 other pieces of legislation. So I think it’s a good bill. I am concerned and surprised that the Minister has indicated this is going to be a truncated process. I’m a little confused about why that has to be the case, and I do want to put on the record again, particularly in this social development space, that there is a continuing theme from this Government of rushing through legislation. We had it around the winter energy payment most recently, we’re having it again here tonight around Oranga Tamariki, and I would counsel, for want of a better word, the Government against that. They’ve often spoken about the need for voices to be heard and that of children’s voices. If they were true to that, they’d be enabling a full amount of time. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

This is a split call—five minutes each.

Kia ora, Te Mana Whakawā. Al salam alaikum. It is an absolute privilege to speak on the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill. It would be remiss of me not to respond to the statement from the previous speaker, Simon O’Connor, talking about rushing this through—we’ve heard from previous speakers that, actually, this had been before the previous Government for two years. I want to respond to what the honourable member Alfred Ngaro has spoken about: that they were listening to children—they were listening to children. I want to talk about the fact that this is changing the definition of “young person” to include 17-year-olds, and that in his speech he said that they listened to children.

I’ve worked for Oranga Tamariki through these changes—when they were going through Child, Youth and Family, and then the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, and then we came in and changed it to Oranga Tamariki, because it is about children. The voices of young people were saying, “Treat us equally in both courts”.

Currently, if these changes don’t go through, you can be picked up for an alleged offence and charged in the Youth Court as an adult—and not in the District Court—as a 17-year-old, but if you’re in need of care and protection you are treated as a young person and you go through the Family Court. If this is not changed, come 1 July we’re actually talking about 23 percent of the population who, according to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, are people under 18. That’s over a million in 18 years’ time; we’re talking about those million children and young people turning 18. So, currently, according to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner 182,940 young people are between the age of 15 and 17. So we’re actually talking about those young people, and if they happen to be arrested on 1 July at 17 we want them to have fair and equal treatment by any court in this country.

So this omnibus bill is actually saying there are 12 Acts that will effect this change. There are 12 Acts. Let’s not wait any longer. Children who will turn seven and who will become a young person at 14 actually cannot wait any longer. In the history of the Oranga Tamariki, changing names, and in terms of the ministry, we started from a white paper, then went to a green paper, then went to the bill, and then we discussed it, and we’ve gone on, and now it’s becoming the Act. It has taken a long time. My point is that it has taken a long time to get to this space and, actually, young people are saying, “Treat us the same whichever court we’re in. Whether we’re in the Family Court, whether our care and protection is needed, or whether we are being held in the youth justice system, accountable for our offending”. Young people have been saying for years, “Treat us as one person, not two different people”.

So in terms of speaking from the voices of experience, if we’re looking at making lasting change for young people, then we really need to provide the full clout of the law in terms of supporting that change. The youth justice system is about accountability and it also is about making lasting change. I heard—I won’t go there, because I don’t have the facts. But I want to strongly urge the members in this House: this cannot wait. This cannot wait any longer. We need to treat our young people the same in the Family Court and the same in the Youth Court.

Members of this House have spoken about examples of what could happen with young people and what could happen in a journey through the court. But as someone who has worked as a Youth Court clerk, as a youth justice social worker, as a youth justice manager, and as—and it was an honour—the project manager for the first Pasifika Youth Court, I want to commend the Minister.

This cannot wait any longer. We need to look at our young people with the same caring lens in terms of supporting their care and protection, and, also, on the same side, holding them accountable and using the same lens as a young person, not an adult. I commend this bill to the House.

It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill, noting as others have, on this side of the House and indeed on the other side, the necessity of aligning various aspects of this legislation with other laws on our statute book. I think it was the previous speaker who noted that there are some 12 Acts of Parliament that need to be amended in a consequential way to ensure that the aims of the original legislation will be met.

Like others on this side of the House, I would like to, perhaps, just strike a note—without over-emphasising it—of caution, I suppose, in relation to the need to give due diligence and proper scrutiny to the legislation. Notwithstanding that it is described as being technical in nature, that’s not to say that it’s unimportant. So I think we need to be careful of not confusing that which is substantive and that which is substantial. It is pretty procedural, it is pretty technical, but that doesn’t mean that it’s unimportant. Its importance, of course, derives from the fact that the subject matter is so important—the way that we treat young people, the way that we deal with young people within the criminal justice system and the health system, and the way that we regard young people as members of our society more generally differs, currently, according to whether they’re 17 or 18 in some particular jurisdictions and not others. So that’s the degree of consistency that others have, rightly, acknowledged does need to be clarified somewhat, does need to be aligned, and does need to be streamlined. These are worthy objectives of the law, worthy objectives of the House’s time, and so I have no hesitation or make further ado in commending it to the House, accordingly.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. This omnibus bill gives full effect to aspects of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Act 2017 by seeking to ensure that the benefits of the policy to include 17-year-olds in the youth justice jurisdiction are fully realised and addressing drafting errors in the 2017 Act. Mr Assistant Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to talk on this important bill, the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill in the name of the Minister for Children, the Hon Tracey Martin.

If I can, I would like to firstly and very quickly commend the work that Minister Martin is doing in this space for our tamariki and young people. As I’ve said before on many, many occasions, I’m really proud of the fact that we are placing children and young people at the heart of policy and decision making in this country. Again, this piece of legislation fine-tunes the definition, procedures, and processes surrounding interactions of young people and the justice system.

This policy aims to give effect to two aspects. The first is seeking to ensure that the benefits of the policy to include 17-year-olds in the youth justice jurisdiction are fully realised, and it does this by amending legislation to ensure the expanded youth justice jurisdiction is applied consistently across the justice system. I think that alludes a little bit to what my colleague mentioned before around listening to the children wanting to be treated the same, as Anahila mentioned. The second is simply addressing some drafting errors in the 2017 Act, including unintentionally broad provisions relating to interim court orders, as well as correcting cross-referencing errors in the Children’s Commissioner Act 2003. It is really important that these drafting errors are fixed up, because often we see things happen within our legislation that have unintended consequences that we do need to look to amend from time to time.

I also want to touch on a couple of points that other people have made. With regard to Mr O’Connor, he talked about victims and that, with this piece of legislation, we’re not wanting to minimise them and their need for justice to be done. It’s quite the opposite, in fact. I think, as the Hon Louise Upston mentioned before, this gives us, also, the opportunity, for these younger people that are 17, to help put them on a different path than what they might otherwise end up on, should they end up in our adult courts.

It’s important that we look to be restorative and not punitive when we deal with our young people of this age group, and I’ll talk a little bit about that a bit further on. But in particular, in relation to youth justice jurisdiction, the policy to include 17-year-olds in the youth justice jurisdiction was developed as a result of recommendations proposed by the modernising Child, Youth and Family expert panel to expand the youth justice jurisdiction. In their report the panel recommended moving the upper age setting for the youth justice system from age 16 to 17 so that only those of 18 years and above would be considered to be adults for justice purposes and become part of the adult justice system. As per the report, New Zealand is also out of step with the international community in excluding 17-year-olds from youth jurisdiction. It was actually really interesting to note that almost all Australian states—excluding Queensland—England, Wales, Canada, and many American states include 17-year-olds in their youth jurisdiction.

It’s also worth, I think, pointing out and acknowledging that there’s an evolving body of evidence about brain development and maturity and new brain science understanding of adolescent development, which actually also supports the notion that we should increase the age at which young people are treated as adults. If we look internationally, Massachusetts does not allow prosecution of children under 14 in adult court, even for murder. However, here in New Zealand we require that such charges proceed in adult court for children as young as 10, but whilst retaining the rebuttal presumption that the child could not form the intent to commit the crime.

One thing that I also want to point out that is highlighted in the report is that evidence suggests that dealing with young people in the youth jurisdiction, rather than dealing with them in the adult system, is likely to reduce reoffending and reduce the number of victims in crime. And again that goes to the point that the Hon Louise Upston made about putting children on a different path, which could potentially be a path to reoffending should they go through the adult court system.

What this legislation also takes into account is the long-term impact that having a criminal record has on our young people’s long-term prospects. So if we’re thinking about restorative justice, giving our youth the opportunity to make amends for the actions that they have undertaken, the crimes that they have undertaken, instead of putting them into the adult system whereby they could be led down a different path—one that enables them to commit further crimes going on into their adult life—and if we’re wanting to give these children, or young people, the opportunity to make amends, then we don’t really want them to be going out into the world after they’ve done this with these long criminal records, because that could potentially also hinder their opportunities for further employment, the ability to even fit into their local communities, and things like that. So we do need to think about those sorts of things, thinking about the long-term prospects for our young people by having them tried as youth as opposed to adults. While there are suggestions that the current system of dealing with 17-year-olds in the criminal justice system is likely doing more harm than good, what we know for sure is that a formal criminal record has long-term consequences, as I said, for employment and social engagement.

I also wanted to bring up a point that Anahila made before about “We can’t wait any longer to make these changes.” We’ve heard that it’s being rushed, but, as she said before, if we wait and extend this out longer and longer, what happens to those young people who are nearly at the age of 17 now, should they commit a crim? We don’t really want them to be doing that, obviously, but should they commit a crime and we wait and we extend this out longer and longer and longer, the chances of those young people, obviously, being tried through our adult court system, and the chances of them ending up in our prisons and our jails is going to be really high. And it could also end up, as we’ve said before, in leading these young people down a different path, one that could involve a lifetime of crime, as opposed to changing the legislation as soon as we can—I think it’s July, someone has mentioned before—so that we’re giving these young people the opportunity to be tried in youth courts, which could provide them an extremely different outcome than what they may otherwise have if they were tried in an adult court. We should be supporting our people on positive pathways so that they can contribute positively to our communities, society, and to the economy.

This is my first call after what has been a very difficult and harrowing time for our country, and so I’d first like to note my condolences to the families and the community affected by the terrible event on 15 March in Christchurch.

It is my pleasure to take this call on the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill. It is good to see that this bill tightens up and strengthens the legislation, which is ultimately about ensuring that working families, whānau, and our young people have access to the care and support they need. The intent of this legislation is to put children and young people’s well-being and safety at the heart of the decisions that are made around them. It’s about acknowledging that young people can be the best ones to ask about what works for them, and hearing their voices throughout the support process. This legislation represented a pivotal transformation programme to build a more child-focused care and protection system which focuses on harm, trauma, and prevention and early intervention. As my colleague Louise Upston has earlier noted and strongly conveyed, let’s not rush this. We owe it to them, to our young people, to get it right.

I’d like to acknowledge the work that was done by the previous National-led Government. In particular I acknowledge the work of the Hon Anne Tolley and her significant contribution, which transformed the outlook for children. This bill is the continuation of that work to ensure that the amendments made by the 2017 Act will be in line with the intention of the policy. The majority of the reforms in the Children, Young Persons, and their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Act come into force on 1 July, including reforms which will ensure that 17-year-olds within the youth justice jurisdiction are realised.

On that note, can I just highlight some of the key features of this bill: updates to the definition of “young person” to align with the definition in the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989, to ensure consistent application of the extension of the youth justice jurisdiction across all relevant legislation; clarification of procedures and processes that will be applied to 17-year-olds with the extension of the youth justice jurisdiction, particularly in relation to bail and the taking and retention of bodily samples; and, finally, the transitional provisions to clarify which jurisdiction, adult or youth, should be applied to a 17-year-old, depending on the date that proceedings are commenced against a 17-year-old. I’ve heard comments about this being a very technical bill. The problem with it is that if technicalities aren’t treated right, we will be tripped up. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker, and thank you very much for this opportunity to speak on the first reading of the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill.

Much of the contribution across the House during the first reading of this bill seems to be in support of what’s being mooted in this particular bill, and while this might be an omnibus bill there are some very technical aspects that do need to be corrected that bring it in line with the focus of what this Government is trying to do in this space, in particular with those of our tamariki who find themselves in a bit of trouble, whether it be with Oranga Tamariki, and, of course, the Ministry of Justice or through the courts. As I travel up and down the country as the Minister for Youth, one of the biggest challenges that is always raised with me is about the transition of our young people, whether it be from school to opportunities, school to school, or school to university.

In this particular instance, what we’re trying to do is create some clarity—in particular, for the legislative side of this particular debate, to make sure that for those who turn 17 it actually does align; that it brings it into line with much of what we’re trying to do in this space for our young people to make sure that they have what seems to be at least a clearer transition, for the minds of the bureaucrats and the Public Service out there, for the legislators in this House, but also for our young people who find themselves caught in the system.

It seeks, as I mentioned around the transition, that the benefits of the policy to include 17-year-olds in the youth justice jurisdiction are fully realised and fully realised in the truest sense. Most of us across the House will know that many of the issues that are raised in our communities are about the siloed approach to the way the Government operates, and to the way bills and legislation actually govern the way we live. What we’re saying here is, actually, that the justice jurisdiction is fully realised to make sure that those, dare I say it, rakiraki are in a row.

Also, I mentioned earlier some of the technical changes that need to occur, and addressing some of those drafting errors to the legislation. It includes unintentionally broad provisions relating to interim court orders, but also makes a consequential amendment to the Children’s Commissioner Act 2003 to correct a cross-referencing error. They seem minor technical amendments, but ones that I think fit more broadly in with where the Government’s going with our young people, and the well-being of our young people. So I think those are all steps in the right direction.

You’ll see by the number of bills that are amended following this particular piece of legislation just how out of sync a lot of our system is when we look at our young people and the way we look after them. Some of them here: the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995, the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act 2015—you’ll see, just by the timeline of those Acts that will be impacted upon once this particular bill is passed, that this has been going on for a long time now. Those piecemeal or bit-piece adjustments to, in particular, legislation that impacts upon our young people are no longer satisfactory.

But I’m confident that the Minister the Hon Tracey Martin and, indeed, this Government, have the longer vision for our young people in place. This is just one of those bills that will achieve that. I notice those Acts that will be changed do span from 1989 all the way to—yeah, to up until more recent times—2017. So they’re all important things. Some of those features will be, I guess, introspective—looking inwards towards Oranga Tamariki and the functions that they have. But just as important, as we share information and our young people pass through the systems of the State, when we look at the way it works with the youth justice jurisdiction, it’s important that those particular pieces line up.

The majority of these amendments and their impacts on rights of interest are beneficial to 17-year-olds—17-year-olds. As I mentioned, as I travel up and down the country as the Minister for Youth, I see issues with transition. One of the other things that they always raise is this rite of passage: at what age do you qualify for something? At what age do you pass into the next system? So I think that’s another one of those good parts of this particular bill. The bill amends too the 2017 amendments that inserted three new sections in relation to interim court orders. These sections would, from 1 July 2019, allow the court to make interim orders on its own motion when there may be no relevant Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 proceedings under way. The amendments also allow a lawyer representing the child to apply for interim custody, restraining, or guardianship orders within the context of non - Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 proceedings.

Now, that’s important because, as our institutions care for our young people who find themselves in this particular position, or predicament, it’s important that they all understand exactly what legislation they operate under, where their powers extend to, and how far, where they cease, and where other organisations come in to play their part to care for our young people.

Look, much of what the House has already said today touches on the benefits of this particular bill, and, while I heard, while I was in my office, some of the dissension from the other side of the House about process and other matters, may I remind the House that this is about our young people. It is about their well-being. It’s about making sure that issues that we have been well aware of for a number of years now can actually be—dare I say it, as I did earlier, that we make sure the rakirakis are in a row, to make sure that we have a piece of legislation that serves our people as best as possible to make sure that, in particular, the 17-year-olds, which I’ve already mentioned, actually have a clearer vision of what the process is when they find themselves in this predicament.

I can’t wait to seize more of the debate that will, no doubt, transpire as the course of this bill goes through the House, to make sure that across the entire House, everybody’s on the same page here. There’s already been a bit of support, but I heard a few niggles, and we want to make sure that by the end of this we can iron out some of those creases, and make sure that our people can receive a bill that’s worthy of the New Zealand public. I want to once again thank the Minister for bringing this bill to the House, and commend it wholeheartedly.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Social Services and Community Committee.

I move, That the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill be reported back to the House by 27 May 2019, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 191, 193 and 194(1)(b) and (c).

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and, I have to say, when I came down to the House at 4.30 today to contribute to the first reading of the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill, I thought it was going to be quite straightforward. I thought it was going to be quite straightforward because this is a bill that is the third part of a suite of legislation that was ostensibly designed under the previous Government, and I thought this was a formality. That was, of course, until the Minister in charge of the bill Tracey Martin issued an instruction to the Social Services and Community Committee that meant the report back was the 27 May 2019, which is less than two months, and, for those that have just tuned in—

💬 Hon Member: Really? How long?

Less than two months. The normal time frame is four to six months. As I said, this is a piece of legislation that is the third in a suite of legislation. We’ve already done two pieces of legislation right through all stages—the second piece of legislation was passed in July 2017. So yes, there’s been a change of Government, and the Government knew that this legislation was required. Omnibus legislation was required, and they’ve known about that the whole time.

I want to, in this debate on the instruction to the select committee, just echo some of the words that Labour and MPs have used in this debate, and the Minister for Children, and the Minister for Youth, because it’s somewhat confusing. There is, first of all, no disagreement about the intent and purpose of this bill. There is no disagreement on the fact that it needs to be in place by 1 July. That’s been known for quite some time. The dispute is over why the Government is bringing it today and why the Government has issued an instruction to the select committee for a shortened report back—less than two months—when the normal process is four to six months.

I want to talk about why that is important. This is a bill about some of our most vulnerable children. It is the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill, and one of the things that was set up and supported by this Government—and I want to applaud them for that—is the inclusion of the young people’s voice. Members on that side said, absolutely, it affects young people, and their voices need to be heard.

So one of the submitters that I’m suggesting will want to have a decent amount of time to prepare a submission to come before the select committee and to ensure that this Parliament gets it right is VOYCE - Whakarongo Mai. They will want to ensure—on behalf of young people in State care; young people who might be before, or have experienced, the youth justice system—that this Parliament gets it right.

We’ve heard from the other side that it’s just a technical piece of legislation. Well, let me explain what that technical piece of legislation does. It amends twelve pieces of legislation—twelve pieces of legislation that are very important in respect of vulnerable young New Zealanders. This is a Government that puts children at the heart of everything they do, and yet this piece of legislation clearly wasn’t sufficient of a priority to make sure that the full process could take place for those young people directly affected by this legislation and the 12 pieces of legislation that it affects: the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989, the Bail Act, the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Act, the Children’s Commissioner Act, the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act, the Criminal Procedure Act, the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act, the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act, the Sentencing Act, the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Act, the Victims’ Rights Act, and the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Regulations 2004. Every single one of those pieces of legislation needs to be amended to ensure it lines up with the intention of this legislation.

But I want to come to that policy intention, because it was interesting—a number of members on that side of the House referred to the fact that a couple of changes were necessary, minor changes were necessary because of corrections needed to the urgent interim orders, and yet several members, including the Minister who took the final call, Peeni Henare, then said it was an opportunity to make sure the legislation fit with the current Government’s direction. So is he telling us that there’s also policy changes in this piece of legislation? Are there policy changes hidden in this legislation that we’re not sure about yet?

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Sounds like it.

Well, it absolutely sounds like it. It sounds like the Government’s taking the opportunity to make policy changes, and that’s their right. That is absolutely their right as the Government, but what is not their right is to strip the ability of New Zealanders, including vulnerable, young New Zealanders, to have their say in the select committee. Those that provide services, provide residential care, provide rehabilitation, provide mental health counselling, and provide a whole range of services to these vulnerable young New Zealanders will have less of an opportunity to scrutinise this legislation and make sure that, collectively, as a Parliament, we get it right, which is our duty. It’s even more of a duty to allow that process to happen when there is unanimous support for the legislation. I’m absolutely staggered that it took until 4.30 today, when Minister Martin first started speaking in this first reading on the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill, for her to drop the minor bomb of yet another shortened report-back instruction to a select committee. It has happened more often than not.

So what’s the reason? Well, the only reason that I can envisage is that the Government hadn’t got organised early enough, hadn’t made Oranga Tamariki and this legislation and the 1 July implementation date sufficient of a priority to enable that to happen. So they clearly don’t care about those young people and their voices and their input or the services of the many thousands of New Zealanders that do incredibly hard work at the front line supporting these young people, assisting them to ensure they get on a different track for the rest of their lives. They’re clearly not interested in hearing what they have to say, and it’ll be particularly interesting if, as suspected, there are policy changes just kind of hidden in this omnibus bill that’s supposedly just technical and because it’s just technical, nobody cares about it, nobody needs to scrutinise it. Well, I have news for the Government: that’s not how Parliament works. Parliament works—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Policy on the hoof.

“Policy on the hoof.”, my colleague says. Well, that’s what we’re about to find out. But, actually, in terms of the public and the scrutiny of the select committee process, that opportunity is cut right back.

I know it’s a sensitive thing to say, but I’m going to put it on the record, because one of the Labour members suggested the only reason that this is a shortened report back was because of the tragedy in Christchurch. That is not true. This change takes effect from 1 July. As I said, the second piece of legislation in this tranche of significant reforms for our young people has already occurred, and that occurred in July 2017. There has been ample time for the Government to deal with this, and I find it absolutely abhorrent that a Labour MP—and I won’t name her because I don’t think that needs to be said. I find it absolutely abhorrent that the suggestion was that the only reason for this delay and the shortened report back was because of Christchurch—I find that abhorrent.

The normal process is four to six weeks. Even with four to six weeks, depending on the number of submitters, that’s a tall order for the select committee to do their scrutiny well and to enable the opportunity for submitters to provide their views. Sometimes the select committee members need to go back to them to ask more questions. The officials have rounds and rounds and rounds of questions, because there is an absolute 110 percent commitment from this side of the House that we get this legislation right—1 July, and it is absolutely critical for those young New Zealanders. There are over 6,000 of them in State care. This particular one is focusing on the policies and procedures of those that are in the youth justice jurisdiction, and as a former Minister of Corrections, I know that is a particularly vulnerable and challenged group of young New Zealanders, and they deserve our support. They deserve that this Parliament takes the time and energy to get it right.

I don’t know if the Government’s made policy changes. Several of the speakers have said that, apparently, the two fixes from the previous legislation that they need to correct were wrong. Actually, then they’ve gone on to say that this is an opportunity in the legislation to ensure alignment with the current Government’s direction and priorities. So that very much sounds to me as if there is policy change in there that we think—and, you know, if we—

Order! The member’s time’s expired.

Mr Assistant Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak. We on this side, as has already been reiterated—and I was the first to indicate the support that we have for this bill—do not have any opposition to this bill. Why? Because much of the work that was completed on this bill actually came in the time of a National-led Government. The concern that we have on this side of the House, again, is another rushed process. That is the issue. So we’re taking this moment to inform the Government that you can’t just keep rushing the process through.

I come from a trade background, and we have a saying which is called “R, S, and B”: I sort of hate to say it; it’s called “Rip, shite, and bust”, and that’s what happens when people rush things through without consideration, without thought. What happens? There are consequences to a rushed action. Here we are again in a process that did not need to be rushed. There was plenty of time; there was plenty of opportunity. We on this side of the House were not going to oppose this, but what we do oppose is, again, that we have an opportunity where it’s been rushed.

The speakers on the other side in the Government, especially on the backbench, have talked about the fact that we should consider the children here. But we are considering the children and the young people in particular in this regard for this bill. If the Government of the day is considering young children or young people in this regard, then why did it not give it consideration and priority? If it did, then we wouldn’t be here in this situation. We would’ve completed our speeches—first reading, straight into select committee. However, we are here today and we’re here now, before the dinner break, arguing and debating over the fact that you need to do due process. It’s not appropriate.

There are many examples where this current Government has continued to rush legislation through without giving due process. So that’s why we’re debating here, and I want to give some examples of that that we’ve seen over a period of time when this current Government has been in place where they have not done due process as well. This bill around Oranga Tamariki is a bill which we know needs to be given effect to on 1 July. If the two-month process had been considered, then why wasn’t it then given consideration at the beginning of the—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Sorry to interrupt the member, but it’s come time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Just prior to going to the break, my comments were, in particular, again, around the concern that we have that we have another form of legislation by the current coalition Government that is being rushed through for no particular reason. We know that on the other side the speeches that were made in the first reading debate were particularly concerned about youth and young people—that there should be adequate time, that we should pursue this and support this piece of legislation into select committee and out, and also, too, with the closure date.

It’s the report-back date that has raised our concern—in particular, because it’s less than two months for what would normally be a four- to six-month process; hence the reason why we are debating this around the concern about that report-back date. There’s also the concern—and I have raised this in the House with the Minister for Children, when the Minister was here—in regards to the fact that she made the comment that the majority of the House voted for the first tranche of the bill, the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill. What she didn’t say, and what I have gone on record to say, is that New Zealand First actually opposed that bill, and they opposed it vociferously.

So the focus is on the fact of timing and on the narrow scope that we have in this particular area here, but it is that concern about the way that this bill has been rushed through the House. This is not uncommon. There are a number of bills, and I want to just highlight that, for instance. Let’s talk about the Crown Minerals (Petroleum) Amendment Bill—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Let’s not—let’s not.

Well, we won’t mention it—you’re right, Madam Deputy Speaker. We won’t mention it because it was such a painful process. But I want to use that—and I won’t mention it again, Madam Deputy Speaker. As you say, we won’t talk about it, but just mentioning it that once was enough—it was enough. Even the Hon David Clark was choking away there because he realised how painful that process was. Why? Again, it was a rushed process, and there are actions to the consequences when you rush a process through, like it is doing at this point in time with this form of legislation.

Again, there is no opposition to the intent or this legislation. The opposition that we have in our debate at present is because of process. This bill is about procedure and process in particular, and we know that the actions and consequences have—and I won’t mention that bill. But we know that reports and the regulatory impact statements have talked about the impact of that to that community—in particular, $7.9 billion of impact to that community—and we know that this could have the same type of impact in there, in particular, as well.

There was the winter energy payments. I won’t mention that bill—sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker—but that’s another example of a rushed process. Again, the impacts of that are to the point where we will see, again, communities of concern, communities where they have roles and a responsibility to provide a service to those communities. In particular, this process has been rushed when we compare it to—and I want to acknowledge the Hon Anne Tolley, who was the Minister in charge at that point in time, who put this process through. In 2015, we see a process in which we had the expert advisory panel that was put in place to seek advice for the whole of the stakeholders involved in regards to the social sector. Then, in 2016, there was legislation that was put through—in fact, I was the chairperson of that select committee. Again, it was an appropriate process that allowed for submissions to be submitted, for submitters to come through—NGOs.

More importantly, this bill is about the voice of young people—whakarongo mai—where, again, debates on the other side, comments from the other side, were “Let the voices of the young people be heard.” Yet, because of this process being rushed through, the voices of those young people won’t be heard. We’re talking about a process that is something like six to seven weeks before it gets back into the House again for its second reading, the committee stage, and then the third reading, as well.

Again, what we contest is the impact of that. We talked about the fact that we know that the bill, in order to get to whakarongo mai, the voices of young people that have been significant to the Oranga Tamariki piece of legislation, the policy platform that’s been used by our Oranga Tamariki social workers that’s in place at the moment, has been because we had an appropriate process that had due diligence to it, that ensured that we engaged appropriately with those communities, those key stakeholders, so that we ensured that their voice, their concerns, but also, too, the comments that they could make, which was appropriate to this piece of legislation, was put in place. Again, we’re back at this place where it’s a rushed process, where we’re not going to be able to hear the voices of those people of concern that have been raised by the members of the Government side, and again we won’t have that being told to us.

This bill has 12 different areas. It’s an omnibus bill that has 12 specific areas where it talks about the changes that we made, again, for our young people in the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Act. The bill amends the following legislation: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Regulations 2004, Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act 2015, Criminal Procedure Act 2011, Sentencing Act 2002, Bail Act 2000, Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Act 2017, Oranga Tamariki Act 1989, Victims’ Rights Act 2002, Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005, Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Act 2014, and Children’s Commissioner Act 2003.

The reason why I wanted to work through that list is so that not only members in this House but members of the public could hear. It is a substantive piece of legislation. It’s omnibus, it’s technical, but it requires that the due diligence of the House should proceed. So what I would like to hear from the other side is, again, why did they not—they had adequate time to introduce this into the House, where on this side you would have had the full support. You have the support for the intent of this bill. What you do not have the support for is this process that it, again, is being rushed through.

Our concern, as we’ve continually said, is that when we think of the 12 specific areas of the Acts that have to be changed and the amendments to them—some small, some technical, but all important to ensure that we have the intent of this bill, which is seeking to ensure that the benefits of the policy to include 17-year-olds in the youth justice jurisdiction is fully realised—we believe that that’s really important. Those are the points that we want to make on this side of the House.

We are concerned. Again, this is not just a one off. We’ve seen many examples, which I will not name in this House, but the winter energy payments bill was one of those. It’s coming to the House, and we know the concern—again, a rushed process. Why? When it was first introduced, what happened? A mistake was made—$3.4 million—in which payments were not made to those who were due those payments. Again, it’s a rushed process. We’re now having to fast-track that into the current select committee, which is the Social Services and Community Committee.

At the present, at this time, all we would ask is that this Government take consideration that if they have time to introduce legislation that’s important, they do that so that due diligence can take place inside the select committee and inside Parliament. We believe those aspects are really important. So while we commend this bill to the House and into select committee, we want to note our concerns in the House.

I think it was the Standing Orders Committee of the 50th Parliament—2011 to 2014—that introduced the Standing Order that provided for the referral motion debate that we’re having right now. My recollection of the advice of the Standing Orders Committee to Parliament is very clear: it was to dissuade the sorts of things that are happening far too often in this Parliament.

If there are two clear themes to emerge from the fact that we are debating the report-back date of 27 May on this bill, it is one of utter contempt for the public and the stakeholders who are going to submit on this bill, and, frankly, utter incompetence in the fact that one of the reasons that we are considering this shortened report-back date is that some of the amendments that are being made to this, to correct drafting errors, need to be made by 1 July 2019.

Now, I want to touch on the first one of those things. There’s contempt for the process, and I want to make two key comments about it. Firstly, one of the really important changes to this bill is in respect of the youth justice jurisdiction, and there’s no doubt that just about every member of the previous Parliament would have heard from the Children’s Commissioner about the importance of making that change. There’s no doubt, certainly in my mind, that that was contested and controversial. Therefore, as many reasons as there were for increasing the youth jurisdiction age, there were just as many arguments against doing so, and even though we have come to a point that I personally think is sensible, there are a number of people in the community who will want to be heard on this very important change to our judicial system. The fact that we are going to refer to the committee, open the batting for submissions in an obscenely short time frame, hear from those people, and then give some kind of impression that we are carefully considering what they have to say is an absolute nonsense.

That is the second part of the sheer contempt that this Parliament shows for those submitters. It is the inconsistency amongst some of the parties that support the Government in respect of motions like this, and I had the rallying cries of members of the Green Party ringing in my ears on the one or two occasions in my five years as a Minister when it was necessary and appropriate to do that. A rare and reasonable approach was, nevertheless, absolutely panned by the Green Party members, and yet what have we seen in the 52nd Parliament? Time and time and time again, the contempt for the public submission process by the use of the early report-back motion, and I’d like to hear why the Green Party think that’s a good idea.

We are standing up and talking about why we think this is a very bad idea—a very bad step in the lawmaking process. The thing that we are here to do is to legislate and, hopefully, legislate for the public good and not make a mistake. I understand that one of the things that this bill is going to do is to correct an error. Errors are made, and they’re made despite the best efforts of officials, of lawyers, and of politicians to get it right. Sometimes we don’t, and it’s necessary to go back and correct and improve bills. I have no issue with that—nobody’s perfect. But the fact that much of this legislation had its genesis years and years ago is the second part of my submission, and that’s the incompetency around the current Government in not bringing this to the House before today, forcing the House to consider whether or not the select committee should report back to the House on 27 May. It simply should not have been here now; it should have been here weeks or months ago.

The policy effort was done mostly under the previous Government in the 51st Parliament, and, actually, in the one before that. This was a long time being carefully considered and, having carefully considered it, we should have acted decisively, and yet we are now, what, April—18 months. We are in the 18th month of this Government with barely eight weeks to go before some of the provisions in this bill need to be enacted, and somehow that’s a reason to curtail the public submissions and to pay lip-service to the very important contributions that they will want to make to some significant policy changes, not the least of which are changes to youth justice jurisdictions and age. They deserve better.

They actually deserve a longer period of time in order to be able to be heard and to at least enable the select committee to carefully consider the aspects of the bill, because, as a couple of the Labour members said in the first reading, this is a technical bill—as if that somehow lets the Government off the hook. By saying “Well, it’s only a technical bill, so we can just rush it through.”—actually, that is the very reason to slow it down and to at least take, if not the six months that’s provided for in the Standing Orders as the default position for legislation being considered, the four months and two days. That would be the bare minimum that this House should consider without an unlimited-time debate on that issue.

At least give them that much time to be able to tell us what they think about this and not have members of the select committee pretend that that’s going to make a blind bit of difference, because they want to know that the committee is listening to them and that Cabinet, if they come up with some material changes that will improve the bill, will have an opportunity to consider those. Although the objective process, as we know, is that it’s Parliament that passes laws, there’s no doubt that the Government of the day has a considerable influence over whether or not changes being recommended by the select committee actually get through, and that takes time as well. I know that from experience.

So the idea that all of that can be done in the time that we are setting ourselves—what, something like 6½ weeks it’s going to take for the Clerk’s Office to firstly advertise, set a closing date, receive submissions, arrange for oral submissions for those who want to come and hear it, get officials convened, provide initial advice, do all of the things that are necessary in order to give good support to the select committee in the consideration of this bill, and then enable the select committee to report back to this House a meaningful report—and all of that’s going to take place in 6½ weeks. That, frankly, is not only contempt for the public but it’s contempt for this House, because this process started about six or seven years ago.

The Government gives itself—both Governments—six to seven years to think about what this bill should say, but it gives the select committee six to seven weeks. So for every year that they have had to think about this, the select committee and the public get one week. I think that metric says it all about the contempt that this Government has for a process of passing legislation that I, for one, think is very sound, has stood the test of time, and is robust enough that while there are occasions where we do need to hasten the passage of legislation, it behoves us not to do that.

The default position has to be that the length of time required to give best consideration to a piece of legislation is at least six months, and it’s not unusual for the Business Committee to hear from a select committee that says “We didn’t have enough time.”, even then, and for it to request an extension because they take that process seriously. Unfortunately, this will not be a serious process. This will be a rushed process, it will be a flawed process, it’s a contemptable process when it comes to the treatment of the public and this House, and it is wrong. It should not be happening, and I very strongly oppose it.

I move, That the question be now put.

I’m not going to accept a closure motion at this stage, partly because the Minister who moved the motion for a shortened period has not given the House a reason. She merely moved it and sat down. There might be another Minister in the House who might like to give the House a reason for the motion, but I’m going to call Simon O’Connor.

Madam Deputy Speaker, it may be some consolation to Kieran McAnulty, the member who has just resumed his seat from that closure motion, which is more appropriate for a committee stage, that you may have used one of the first arguments I was going to put forward—and I hope it’s not presuming to bring you into the debate, which it’s not. Unfortunately, the Minister has not given this House—I was going to say “adequate reason”, but that, in fact, would be misleading. No reason was given to us, and I’m disappointed in two ways.

First and foremost, there is comity in this House around this bill. No member during the first reading indicated any opposition to the bill whatsoever. There were some questions on technical issues that were being raised, but all of us, I would say, were looking forward to engaging in a select committee process to discuss and robustly draw those out, and then, effectively, a bombshell was dropped where all of a sudden we found that the process was to be expurgated or truncated down, as my colleague Michael Woodhouse has said, to two months.

It’s confusing in the first instance and I think it is contemptible in the second. And the second reason I am very concerned and very happy to take this call is, as has been noted, the Minister has given no particular reason. I think that would help this side of the House at least process and understand why this has happened. The silence, unfortunately, is—well, for me personally—somewhat galling because we’ve gone through a series of speeches indicating that we need to hear people’s voices; in fact, a number of the first reading speeches, when addressing the bill, spoke about the voices of people to be heard. And yet we have a contradiction, and I think it needs to be drawn out here and now, that those voices maybe—maybe—will get to be heard but I think it’ll be very, very difficult.

The first reason for that is we are dealing with an omnibus bill here. I have no intention of going through all 12 bills. I think that would be a waste of this House’s time and a waste of this speech. But there are 12 bills which are to be affected here. That is almost, if you will, 12 very distinct groups who will be affected. And so it doesn’t matter if it’s from the Department of Corrections through to police, to those who work in the probationary space through to—because of course we’re primarily talking here about 17-year-olds who are going to be dealt with now in a very different way within our justice system. Those groups, even in the first instance within Government ministries, will want to speak; in fact, I suspect many of them will want to have advisory roles and, as other speakers have just touched on but not really in much depth, that takes time. For those advisers to be brought together to discuss, to engage with any feedback that’s been produced, they need time.

We’ve seen a process now that is truncated, and if we are to take the sitting calendar between now and the end of May we find we don’t have an enormous amount of sitting. We’re about to move into Easter soon. That actually takes out a number of weeks. The House is, I think, rightly distracted—rightly distracted—by the arms legislation going through. That’s going to take an enormous amount of time. It won’t immediately affect the Social Services and Community Committee but it is occupying a lot of the MPs’ time. And it’s illustrative of a process that’s been started that in and of itself it is not a long period to the end of May, but, again, when we look at how many days the House is sitting, how many hours the select committee will be sitting during that time, it’s incredibly, incredibly short. I think the other factor we need to bring in, of course, is we’re approaching the Budget. As we move into May, that’s going to be a much further distraction putting a lot of MPs’ time away. So I’m very concerned—very concerned—about how much time MPs will have to engage with those who are fortunate enough to get in front of the committee. As I say, 12 pieces of legislation are going to be affected.

We heard, in the first reading speeches, a number of people saying the voice of children is incredibly important. And, as I say, there was comity and agreement in this House that that’s true. There’s a funny symbolism, a contradiction if you will, that we are now actively, as a House, discussing how we can silence or reduce the amount of noise, if you will, that young people can make around us. I suspect they would come to this House, or rather to the select committee, and by and large agree with what’s happening. But you cannot propose—or the Government cannot propose—a bill which purports to support and empower young people to have a voice and then set about a parliamentary process which reduces that. That is an inherent contradiction and one of the reasons why I’m standing to take a call here in the House.

We had some suggest this bill is simply changing drafting errors. That is not the case. In fact, we’ve had a hint from a speaker on the other side who’s indicated there are policy changes. That’s setting off a red light, if you will, in my mind and with others. If there are policy changes here that we have not seen or understood, it’s in a select committee process that we’ll be able to draw them out and understand them much, much better. But if we pick up on that drafting errors question—drafting errors come in because processes are rushed, and you can, I suppose, mount the argument that even if a full process was used last time and errors have occurred, one is not going to actually reduce the number of errors by making that even smaller. So I think that’s incredibly worrying.

Look, of the last couple of points I’d like to make, first and foremost is perhaps one around motive. There is concern from my side that the Government is very, very keen to get legislation out of select committee as fast as possible because there isn’t sufficient work for them on the Order Paper. Hard to prove this, but it is a real concern in the dynamic of this House that the Government does appear to be struggling to get its legislation or get enough legislation on the Order Paper to keep the House busy. And we’re seeing a slightly growing trend of moving things into select committee and then wanting them out of select committee as quickly as possible in order to continue the functions of the House, and I think that’s very, very concerning.

What adds to my suspicions there is that most of the legislation on the Order Paper is actually legislation proposed by the National Party—by the previous Government. There are some minor tweaks and changes but by and large they are bills which the Government knows will be well supported by both sides of the House, and so rushing them through select committee means that they can come back to a committee stage, which, of course, will take up a lot more time in the House backwards and forwards. But what I think it’s important to note too—because it’s been brought up often and, unfortunately, not in this case because no Minister has found it fit to take a call in the House—is, “Well, we’ll just use a committee stage to debate the issues.”

There are two problems with that: one, committee of the whole House stage is not the appropriate time to do that; it is select committee. Secondly, the committee of the whole House is a whole lot of MPs talking to one another. And while I rate all members in this House, what we are asking for is the appropriate time to allow the public of New Zealand to have their say. I’d put it particularly to those members opposite that have made a big, big call about young people’s voices that those members cannot make that statement—cannot make that statement—if young people do not get the opportunity.

The last two points—first and foremost, there is no need to rush this bill. I know that there is a starting date. I’m sure if a Minister takes a call they will do so. But fundamentally—fundamentally—they had an opportunity right from when they became Government to put this much, much higher up the Order Paper. In other words, if there is any blame or cause or reason why this has to be rushed, it sits at the Government’s feet. There was no need for us to be having to debate this today. I’d love to hear from the Minister, if the Minister chooses to take a call—any of the Ministers to take a call—why this bill was not introduced months ago. It would have saved us having to rush up against the start date. It’s possible that the Government didn’t realise that the changes proposed were going to start midway through the year and they’ve been caught a bit short, but I don’t think that’s the case. But I’d welcome the Minister, if they have a chance, to speak to address that.

The final thing I’d like to add fits within this social development space. I think this is at least the third time in almost as many months that I’ve had to stand in this House and ask why we are truncating social development bills. We had it a few weeks ago around the winter energy payment, and we had it a few weeks before that around a social rewrite bill. But I don’t intend to relitigate those.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Good.

They are two further examples and, unfortunately, in the social services space where we are truncating processes, and I said then and I’ll say it again now, that is what leads to errors and that is what leads us to have to return to this House and do more and more amendment bills. So I’ll put on the table now that I think that if we as a House agree—or rather this House agrees by majority—to truncate this process to force it through, we will end up having to come back in one way, shape, or form to amend Oranga Tamariki, to amend this Act, to amend these changes. It is too broad a bill. It’s an omnibus bill affecting 12 pieces of legislation. Errors will occur, but it is, unfortunately, a trend which is developing here. So I cannot speak in support of this motion. I would ask the Minister to reconsider and to allow a full time so that particularly the young people in New Zealand can have their say.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also rise to oppose this motion of a shortened report-back date for this bill, and I wish to canvass this in terms of the significance, the importance, of the select committee process, not only to the legislative process in New Zealand, but, fundamentally, to our democracy. I’ll seek to do that in part, by contrasting with our parent system, where our own parliamentary system derives. I’ll talk a little bit about what the implications are in New Zealand when we shorten our select committee process and also touch upon the conditions where Parliament and the people of New Zealand, in the context of supporting our democracy, might hold that it is applicable to shorten a select committee process in New Zealand.

Now, as all parliamentarians will know, but perhaps people watching or listening might wish to be refreshed, our system does derive from the Westminster parliamentary system. And while we see so much of that—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s very interesting but—

The select committee process, Madam Deputy Speaker, is key to this. So while we see many similarities, there are key differences of which the select committee process in New Zealand is a bulwark against a lack of scrutiny of bills.

In the Westminster system they have an Upper House. The House of Lords scrutinises legislation, sends suggestions back to the House of Commons, and they can go backwards and forwards several times. The Westminster system does have select committees and bills select committees but it is more the exception than the rule that a piece of legislation will have a select committee formed for it to scrutinise it in select committee the way we do in New Zealand. Rather instead, in the Westminster system, they tend to spend a great deal more time in the committee of the whole House going through that legislation clause by clause, and then it will still go back between its upper and lower chambers.

We are unicameral, and so the select committee process in New Zealand has been developed specifically to ensure that legislation here can get the sort of democratic scrutiny that multi-cameral parliaments in other jurisdictions get from the nature of their structural differences. So to change the select committee process here—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I just want to say to the member, I understand the argument you’re putting but you do have to relate it to the motion. So you need to tie it in to the motion because it’s quite a tight debate. It’s not a history lesson or a parliamentary lesson. Tie it in to the motion.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The point on the motion is that shortening the select committee process shortens the scrutiny of a piece of legislation. It fundamentally reshapes the application of our democracy to the specific piece of legislation. By default, under Standing Orders, with no motion, a bill introduced and passed first reading will have a report-back date of six months following its first reading. That is designed to allow ample time for not only a notice and advertising of the bill to be sent out but for interested parties, many of who tend to be organisations but also any member of the public who has some level of interest in the piece of legislation, it allows them ample time to consider the legislation, to construct an articulate position, and to position that into the select committee to put across whatever considerations they have, including, quite possibly, objections or proposed amendments. It then gives, of course, the committee sufficient time to hear from those submitters in person, if that’s what they wish to consider, and reflect on what they have heard, along with officials, and to potentially make amendments. It is a deeply considered process that gives ample opportunity for a bill to be properly scrutinised.

When Parliament passes a motion to shorten that report-back date, we give New Zealanders less time to respond to the legislation we are seeking to pass, less time to construct their arguments. And while they might still get an opportunity of some minutes in front of the committee, they will be submitting on ideas or arguments that they’ve had to form in less allowable time. That risks the possibility that a piece of legislation simply won’t get the scrutiny that it deserves.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: But we’re talking about this piece of legislation. This piece.

And in this particular legislation we’re talking about two months, six weeks—six weeks instead of six months. The difference between the two is almost extreme. It is certainly enormous in terms of the opportunity for New Zealanders to adequately consider a bill, which means 12 Acts, and to construct their arguments or the considerations they may have around that, including amendments, or opposition, or support that they may wish to put forward.

The implications of that are that we risk passing legislation through successive stages, certainly through select committee, that is not as properly formed or articulated as it should be. The consequence which we have already seen in this term of Parliament, as admittedly we’ve also seen in the past, is legislation that comes back to the House during the term to be amended because errors were omitted or overlooked or consequences were not uncovered through that scrutiny, and so the legislation went through and was enacted with either issues with fully enacting their political intent behind it or, in fact, just simply with drafting errors. And we’ve seen this recently. I’m not going to—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, you’re not.

We’ve seen it and members have canvassed instances—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: You’ve had six minutes of a parliamentary lesson. I need you to talk about this particular bill. All those things you’ve talked about, you must relate to this motion in front of the House, not the general principle but this particular motion.

What the governing parties are seeking to have this Parliament agree to is a motion that simply risks a poorly drafted bill being returned to second reading, one that could well lead to further legislation coming back to this House before the end of this term. The bill does not require an early report back, apart from, perhaps, a desire from the Government, because of a lack of management on their part, to undertake this bill, these amendments, earlier in this term. They’ve had 18 months, or the best part of it. This bill could have been introduced pretty much any time after they formed a Government. They have chosen to delay it until now. They may have a desire, they may even think there’s some level of justification because of certain start dates, that it might pass a little earlier than the default would otherwise be. But that lack of planning doesn’t constitute a crisis for this Parliament to respond to. It’s simply bad management on their part. I would contend that if we are going to, therefore, shorten the select committee process because of their poor management, we just risk a poor outcome. And that’s not good for Parliament. It’s certainly not good for the people of New Zealand.

So I just simply call on the Government to reconsider their motion, to realise that the public deserve the full, at least, four months, as one of my colleagues has suggested. But I would argue and contend the standard six months to adequately make their submissions on this, to be heard, and to have proper consideration of what they want to submit to Parliament on this particular bill.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Look, it’s a pleasure to get up in the House and, I guess, as one of the, perhaps, longest serving MPs in the House to offer some views on the situation we have before us.

The usual reference by an Opposition in such a situation would be constitutional outrage. The Opposition hasn’t even got to that point, because, indeed, it is not. This is a piece of legislation that was passed by the previous Government that put in place some deadlines that this Government now is moving to, firstly, fix to, that is to adhere to, the deadlines laid in the previous legislation to fix up some drafting errors from the previous Government’s mistakes.

Now, the arguments put to this House are that we need a long period of time to ensure that we don’t make mistakes. Well the previous Government had a long period of time, and they made mistakes. What we are saying, and the Minister’s putting before the House, is a move and a proposition to address these mistakes in the wisdom that we’ve gained from the mistakes from the previous Government and say “We’ll rectify these.”, move on, offer protection for those people under 17, which I believe the current piece of legislation doesn’t properly cover.

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: Under 18.

Under 18, sorry. Those are 17-year-olds. So we’re just moving to put in place what we kindly would say is the intent of the previous Government. Although, in my view that would be too kind because I haven’t seen much wisdom and never did for nine years. But understanding that perhaps they had good intent with the legislation but, in fact, got it wrong in a number of areas, then we, as a responsible Government, have come in and are saying we will make the changes needed.

Now, the 1 July deadline means that we have to have this passed by the 27 May and so—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Why’s it only come into the House today?

They’re very wise in Opposition. It’s a shame they didn’t have that wisdom in Government when they were managing the legislation because we wouldn’t have had to come and fix it up.

The reality is now that we are responsibly changing the legislation to, what I say kindly, is put in place the intent. If they didn’t intend to do this, maybe they should own up to it. It seems like they might have intended to do the things that we’re intending to do, they just mucked it up—they mucked it up. So we are making the changes necessary and the fast-track requirement is, in fact, to meet the 27 May deadline that enables us to put in place the legislative requirements of it by 1 July. It’s quite simple really. And the difference between their Opposition, which is leaderless, and us, who are showing leadership, is that we will get on and do what is necessary in the timelines required.

We’ve shown that earlier on today, that we’re prepared to do that, where, clearly, the collective wisdom of most of New Zealand and most of Parliament—except for the Opposition, of course—is that these are changes that are necessary. So the filibustering that we see—not a constitutional outrage at all; just the filibustering—which is the Opposition’s jumping up and down on the same spot, saying that we should take longer to do this—well, the previous Government, the National Government, had all the time in the world to do this and get it right, and they didn’t. They stuffed it up. So we are now working through—and I acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Tracey Martin, who’s working through all these areas of her responsibility to tidy up things that the previous Government had ignored.

So the Oranga Tamariki Legislation Bill is something that we believe is absolutely essential to protect, I guess, the rights of those under 18 to ensure they have a fair go at justice in particular. We’re going to do what we’ve got to do, because the previous Government mucked it up. So I suggest that they sit down, stop filibustering, stop wasting the time of Parliament, and allow us to get on and put in place the changes to legislation that are required. That’s what we’re here for, and that’s what we will do, and as soon as the Opposition sits down and shuts up, then we’ll get on and do it more quickly.