Release of review into absconding bootcamp youths more than a month late

Oranga Tamariki’s review into two military-style bootcamp participants absconding is yet to see the light of day, despite being close to release about mid-February.

The agency, which is leading the Government’s military-style academy pilot programme, launched a review into the circumstances surrounding two youths from the pilot who absconded and went missing for days before allegedly becoming involved in an attempted armed carjacking.

The incident was sparked by the tragic death of another pilot participant in a car crash near Tirau in November. One of the youths who absconded did so from the boy’s funeral.

During an interview on February 14 about the release of the independent evaluation of the pilot’s in-residence phase, Oranga Tamariki deputy chief executive and pilot lead Iain Chapman told the Herald the review into the absconding incidents was “near-finalised”.

“The minister [Karen Chhour] has been kept informed, but the finalised review, it’s within days, I believe, of being released,” he said.

Children's Minister Karen Chhour and Oranga Tamariki leaders appear before a Parliament select committee. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Six weeks on, the review hadn’t been publicly released. An Oranga Tamariki spokesperson said an update would be provided when the review was ready for release.

Children’s Minister Karen Chhour couldn’t provide a comment before publication.

In December, Chhour told the Herald she would receive reports on the incidents at the “very beginning” of 2025.

Delays in the review being published followed Oranga Tamariki’s continued refusal for months to release details about its pilot on the basis the increased scrutiny in light of the boy’s death and the absconding events would have a detrimental impact on the participants’ wellbeing and compromise their privacy.

Chhour and the agency decided updates would be provided alongside significant milestones in the pilot. A timeline of those milestones had not been specified.

One piece of information that also hadn’t been released was the level of participant reoffending. The pilot was promised by National and Act during the 2023 election campaign as seeking to reduce youth offending.

The latest update was in December, when Chhour confirmed three of the nine participants had reoffended. She had since declined to provide further updates, refusing to confirm or deny claims by Labour MP Willow-Jean Prime that several more had returned to youth justice facilities after reoffending.

This week, Prime continued her line of questioning by asking Chhour in the House whether her office had directed Oranga Tamariki to withhold the reoffending rate, which Chhour denied.

Labour MP Willow-Jean Prime questioned Minister Karen Chhour about the bootcamp pilot programme in the House this week. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Chhour later said she would “applaud” any of her staff if they had “reiterated to Oranga Tamariki my expectation that the privacy, safety, and wellbeing of these young people comes first”.

When asked about the delays to the review’s release, Prime said she believed Chhour and the agency were withholding information that would damage the perception of the pilot.

“They never planned to be open with us, I don’t think, right from the beginning.

“None of us know when those milestone dates are, so it just waiting, waiting, waiting.”

Among Prime’s main concerns was that details such as the reoffending rate would not be made public until after the legislation proposing to make such programmes permanent was passed into law.

Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.