VOYCE – Whakarongo Mai was proud to have three care experienced rangatahi (Hamish Falekaono, Tupua Urlich and Jennifer Thonrithi) represent the care community at the Government Select Committee Hearing in March 2021, to strongly oppose the proposed Youth Demerits Bill.
Following submissions, the Select Committee released a report recommending to scrap this Bill while calling for “Oranga Tamariki to continue to pursue improvement” (p.9) of the current youth justice system. It got officially scrapped when withdrawn by the National MP, Hon. Mark Mitchell, who had submitted it for consideration.
The report acknowledged Select Committee members receiving a re-education on the Youth Justice system through the submissions presented to them, noting the value in tailored, holistic approaches versus simply punitive in youth justice. Hon. Mark Mitchell withdrew the Bill himself following the submissions process, noting to media “I think that the justice officials went away with some new ideas in terms of how you could trigger earlier intervention support for a young person coming into the youth justice system, as parliamentarians, I think we’ve been given some very good ideas in terms of further policy development as well.”
If you haven’t watched the VOYCE – Whakarongo Mai submission, you can catch it here at the 2hrs 02mins mark.