Drive helps teens get licence

Emma Pewhairangi is paying off a new birth certificate to replace one lost in the Christchurch earthquake. Photo / Nick Reed

Absence of the right identity documents can be a problem for the 41,000 18-year-olds who are still unlicensed.

Emma Pewhairangi could have used her $20 "student of the month" prize to top up her cellphone or get free lunches for a week. Instead she put it towards paying off her birth certificate.

Ms Pewhairangi is one of 41,000 18-year-olds - almost two-thirds of Kiwis of her age - who do not have a restricted or full driver's licence, which they can get from age 16.

A project being launched today aims to overcome the barriers to youths getting their licences, including a lack of identity documents.

Ms Pewhairangi's birth certificate was destroyed in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. She could not ask her parents for another one because she had fallen out with them and moved to Auckland in January.

"I was naughty," she said frankly.

"I thought moving away from my old friends would be a good idea, so me and my partner moved up here with his parents and I started a course in Mangere."

She applied for a youth benefit but it did not come through until April.

"They needed proof that my parents didn't want to support me," she said. "My partner's parents, they would pay my rent, food and everything."

But her course at Strive Community Trust included getting a driver's licence, which requires a birth certificate or similar document. When they found she did not have one, they loaned her the fee of $26.50.

"We just pay for it," said the trust's chief executive, Sharon Wilson-Davis. "But we don't just give it to them, they have to work for it."

Ms Pewhairangi paid the first $20 back with her prize.

"If you have 100 per cent attendance you can get Student of the Month, and you get to choose a [cellphone] top-up or lunch for the week," she said.

"I just asked them if I could use that money to pay them back for getting my birth certificate. Now I only owe them $6.50."

Next she needs to save $93.90 for a learner licence and $134.80 for a restricted licence. Next year she hopes to train as an early childhood education teacher at Christian-based Vision College in East Tamaki.

A new cross-government Auckland Co-Design Lab, set up to brainstorm ways to solve social problems, has put a team into Otara's Crosspower youth centre to work from today on ways to "motivate and empower" young people to get their licences.

Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Michael Barnett said the chamber's Cadet Max work preparation course in Manukau had turned away 50 job offers this year because it did not have enough trainees with driver's licences.

Ministry of Education head of student achievement Dr Graham Stoop said the ministry hoped to recognise a driver's licence as part of the National Qualifications Framework later this year.