Shaneel Lal: Boot camps vs financial help - Luxon is on the wrong track

Ōtāhuhu College, a decile one school separated by a thin fence from King’s College, a decile 10 school. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

OPINION

I have lived in South Auckland for 10 years and spent five years at Ōtāhuhu College, a decile one school separated by a thin fence from King’s College, a decile 10 school. It never made sense to me how a fence could mean that my school had millions of dollars less than King’s College. I started Year 9 in 2014 with six close friends, and by the time I reached Year 12, three of my closest friends had dropped out and taken up a job to support their families. I went on to become Dux in Year 13. My friends had the same potential but did not have the money to pursue education.

Many of my peers came from poor homes where parents suffered from substance addiction and struggled to provide for their children. My peers were surrounded by drugs and crime, not a healthy diet and home, prosocial behaviour, and education. I watched others drop out of school and get trapped into dangerous cycles of offending to make ends meet.

I have no tolerance for National Party leader Christopher Luxon’s newfound habit of what I believe is contempt for poor people. Luxon’s proposal to bring back military-style boot camps for young offenders demonstrates his lack of understanding of the livelihoods of young poor people.

Last month, Luxon disputed a Ministry of Education report that found parents taking their kids out of school for family holidays is a major reason for low attendance rates. He said: “Go see some decile one and two schools, see how families are dealing with the cost-of-living crisis.”

And when asked last week by Chris Lynch Media why he thought young people were turning to gangs, Luxon claimed, “If you’re sitting in a garage in South Auckland with your two brothers and you’re thinking about life and where you’re going, consciously or unconsciously, the gang life looks pretty attractive ... it does come back to family dynamics often as well, an emotional need to be part of a unit or a family.”

Luxon later said he was “sorry if anyone is offended”. He was asked to clarify if he was sorry but avoided giving a clear answer: “The bottom line is I’m not apologising for having serious, substantive conversations about what causes crime.”

South Auckland is well known for its richness of Pacific and Māori people. Many Māori and Pacific students are clustered in low-decile schools, while many Pākehā students are clustered in high-decile schools. Luxon’s comments create an image that young Māori and Pacific people are no-good dropouts ready to become criminals. That is simply not the case.

Young people do not wake up on a random Sunday morning and become criminals because they have sat in the garage with their siblings in South Auckland. It is a downward spiral triggered by social deprivation, inequity and structural racism that has forced young Māori and Pacific people into criminal activity.

The National Party’s policy document calculates the total cost for their Young Offender Military Academy for 60 young people per year to be 15 million. That is $250,000 per young person per year. An average family of four needs a household income of $162,600 before tax to live comfortably in Auckland. If Luxon is willing to throw $250,000 per young person to lock them in military academies every year, why won’t he support families struggling with the cost of living crisis so that young people in those families won’t feel compelled to offend?

Young people struggling to keep their heads above the debilitating web of the cost-of-living crisis, dysfunctional families, substance abuse and lack of prosocial behaviour role models do not need punishment. Luxon can ensure that young people have safe homes, education and a pathway to becoming happy adults.

Instead, it seems his motto is “thousands in tax cuts for me and military boot camps for thee”. Military-style boot camps did not work under John Key. Bill English proposed to reintroduce them before losing the election. There is little evidence to suggest it will work under Luxon.

Shaneel Shavneel Lal (they/them) was instrumental in the bill to ban conversion therapy in New Zealand. They are a law and psychology student, model and influencer.