‘Children’s civil rights changed’

Press, 5 March 1982, Page 23

‘Children’s civil rights changed’

Wellington reporter

The Children and Young Persons Bill gave the police new powers while it drastically changed the civil rights of children and young persons, the University Students Association told the Health and Welfare Select Committee this week.

Spokesmen for the association said the bill allowed the harassment of young people legitimately following their own business. Mr M. Waghorne told the committee that the legislation would allow the police to use force to pick up a 16-year-old who might be engaging in legal activities.

The bill allows the police to deliver to parents, guardians, or any other person having care of a person aged between five years and 16. that person, if he or she is found unaccompanied in “an environment which is detrimental to his physical or moral well-being.” This allowed the police to make a subjective judgment that the child or young person would be harmed by the company he was keeping, Mr Waghorne said. He could also be picked up

by the police if he was associating with “known criminals or drug addicts.” Again the assumption was that this association would corrupt the young person into a criminal or a drug addict, and this was not proved. Persons over the age of 16 could keep the same associations and not be forcibly separated by the police, he said. How would the police define a “known criminal” unless the bill more clearly defined him as a person having a record of convictions? he asked. “You’re talking rubbish,” said Mr D. M. Jones (Nat., Invercargill). “Obviously a known criminal would have to have convictions before the police would act.” Mr Waghorne replied that the legal difference was important, and that he objected to the “hectoring” nature of Mr Jones’s comments. “At least some of the young persons to whom this legislation applies are people who have every legal right to be living independently in their own household, or being hetersexually active, or if female, homosexually active, and working outside of nor-

mal hours and therefore of having their leisure hours at typical times,” Mr Waghorne said. “Do you mean that young people mixing in all this homosexual idiocy are having their best interests looked after?” asked Mr P. S. Tapsell (Lab., Eastern Maori). “You may think it is idiocy,” said Mr Waghorne. Mr Tapsell said the association’s submission was provocative, and that it must expect some straight questioning. The committee’s chairman (Mr M. E. Cox) said that members of the committee should desist from an in appropriate line of questioning. Mr Tapsell asked if the association’s submission represented all its' 51,000 member students. Mr Waghorne said presidents of all university associations had been asked to make comments on the submission, and none had proposed any alterations. It being the vacation when submissions were being compiled, the submission was essentially the view of the national executive.