Speech to Launch Video - "Pleased To Be Me"

Ponsonby Intermediate School, Auckland

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

It's great to be here to launch "Pleased to be me".

Resources such as this video are really good, and I find it heartening to see organisations, such as the Family Planning Association, backing this type of work.

Over recent months, I have been supporting this type of approach in a variety of fields. I've been promoting better education programmes and earlier intervention in the areas of alcohol, drugs, smoking, sexuality and crime.

When in place, the programmes seem to work, and I hope that this will be the case with this video. I watched the video last week, and it certainly seems to convey all the right messages.

Only the other day, I was talking to a journalist about youth crime. He was doing a feature on the rising crime levels in the Waikato area, and wanted my thoughts on how to deal with it. Now, I'm no crime expert, but I'd like to think I know a little about young people.

I told him about a programme that is aimed at early intervention with young offenders, and of its amazing success. In Dunedin, there has been a 62% drop, in the last year, of youth arrests. Police there, are claiming that this is due to an early intervention programme for teenagers. The Police have been working in partnership with other stakeholders, they've targeted young people, involved them in activities, education and work programmes.

What they did was to help young people believe in themselves again. The young people set themselves some targets, they had something to aim for in their life, and, with some caring intervention, could again become, "pleased to be me".

Similarly, you've probably heard me talking about lowering the legal age to purchase alcohol.

There are many reasons behind this push, but primarily, I want to recognise that young people are drinking, we shouldn't just ignore it. We need to take a risk management approach to alcohol - not just hide the problem in the bottom drawer.

Already there are several drug and alcohol programmes aimed at young people, and they seem to be relatively successful, but we need to start ensuring that we target every single young person, and provide them with all the facts, so that they can make an informed choice about drinking.

An example of success is the drink drive programme. Young people are less likely to drink and drive than their adult counterparts, the drink drive message has hit home with them. Indeed it's a peer pressure thing, it just isn't cool to drink and drive.

What we need to do is to start putting that message across about alcohol. If we can get young people to start saying, "it isn't cool to be out of control, sick, making a pratt of yourself", then we're on to a winner.

Being young isn't easy, but I'm pleased to be me! I'm young, and it sure doesn't always help me in politics. I constantly get quoted in papers and the media, and that's fine, but they always seem to put Deborah Morris, comma, aged 26. Why? Do you ever read Jim Bolger, age 62, Winston Peters, age 52 or Jenny Shipley, age 45?

No.

The media have made a thing about my age, and in some ways that's good, as it shows young people that I'm here for them. But, you need to ask, why do they say this? Is it because they think I'm too young?

Well, if they do think I am too young for the job, they're in for a shocker of a time. Yes I am young, that doesn't mean I'm stupid, naive or unable to do my job. Actually in my job, I believe that youthfulness is an asset.

So even when you get to the grand age of 26, it's still tough being young - but hey, it can also be fun!

But sometimes, that having fun gets us into a bit of trouble. I'm sure you will have all seen the headlines recently. There have been many news stories about drunken youths on the rampage, youth crime, drugs in schools, bullying, and I could go on.

These stories are a bit depressing.

I need to ask you all - when did you last see a good news story in the newspaper, on the radio, or on TV, about young people?

There aren't many good news stories about young people published. This annoys me greatly. All we hear is the young people did this, and that, and that this is terrible... but we never hear the positive stuff. There is positive stuff out there, in fact there is much to celebrate, but it just doesn't get published.

I see one of my main roles as Minister of Youth Affairs, not only to represent young people in Parliament and at Cabinet, but to also put across their views to the media and the public as a whole. It's not going to be easy, but I'm going to try and tell them that young people are the good guys!

However, there is only so much I can do, so I'm going to be going round the country and issuing a challenge to young people.

I'm challenging all young people to start to get together and talk about the issues that are important to them. I want them to spread the word themselves. Spread the word about what they want, what they feel, what they like, what they don't like and how they want to do things.

I'm telling them to go out and do a bit of shouting, ranting and raving to their MPs, councillors, to the media, their teachers and their youth organisations.

I want young people to become much more participative and involved in decision making structures, actually I am making it one of my main objectives for this Parliament.

Already, there is lots happening out there for young people. But I still here the constant cry of "there is nothing to do here". This is sometimes true, and when it is, go out and rant and rave about it. However, sometimes, it's just difficult to find out what is happening, what you can do, where you can go to do it, and what support is already out there.

In order to help tackle this, I've decided to call a Youth Summit, to take place within the next twelve months. I will invite to this Summit, politicians, councillors, youth workers, officials, policy analysts and, most importantly, young people.

The Summit will focus on young people, and how Government can work with them, and what needs to be done to coordinate services for young people.

We'll look at policies, legislation and practices. We'll look at what's available for young people. We'll look at the support services that are available, and we'll try to create much better networks within the youth field, to ensure better coverage and awareness of what's available.

My final aim of the Youth Summit is to create a vision for youth. A vision for the year 2020. That vision will belong to young people, and will not only guide Government work through the next millennium, but will also guide what is happening at a local level. This will be about a partnership, because Government can't do it on its own. It will be about a partnership between Government, business, local government, community groups, youth organisations and young people.

Well, I hope that I've shared with you a little of my vision for the next three years. It will be challenging, we've a lot to do, but a lot to celebrate as well.

I can't do it all on my own. I need your support and the support of young people too.

"Pleased to be me" is one further step in the right direction. Congratulations on the production of the video, and my thanks to you all for your input.

I wish you all the best in promoting the video, and look forward to hearing your success stories.

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