Shane Taurima Interviews Judge Neil Maclean

Chief Coroner speaks out: Coronial recommendations too often “die in the ditch, because they go out there, they sit there, they’re never actioned”.
 
Coroners want it made mandatory for government and government agencies to respond to recommendations, “naming and shaming” those who don’t act.

“I think coroners are feeling a sense of frustration that what they’re saying seems not to be making any difference”
Shane: “So do you believe that lives are being lost because recommendations are being ignored?”
Neil: “Yes.”

Alcohol and drugs the number one risk to New Zealand youth: “They are very vulnerable to all this risky stuff.”
 
Increasing price on alcohol is “tricky territory”, however “because the more expensive you make it, the harder you make it to get to, kids will find another way of getting that high, getting that buzz with much more dangerous material”.
 
28 youths have died from butane huffing over the past four years: “It’s very worrying because these kids, I don’t think, realise the permanent damage they’re doing to themselves, even if they don’t kill themselves.”
 
“I think life’s more dangerous now. There are more opportunities to harm yourself permanently than perhaps there were 50 years ago.”
 
Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE. Repeats of Q&A will screen on TVNZ7 at 9pm Sundays and 9am and 1pm on Mondays.       
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Q+A
SHANE TAURIMA INTERVIEWS JUDGE NEIL MACLEAN
 
SHANE TAURIMA
Thank you, Judge MacLean, for joining us this morning. We have the second-highest overall death rate of young people in the developed world. As Chief Coroner, tell us what you’re seeing and why so many of our young people are dying.
 
JUDGE NEIL MACLEAN - Chief Coroner
If I knew the answer to that question, I think I’d get the Nobel Prize. We call it as we see it. The coroners who work with me, we speak out when we see what’s happening, when we think that something needs to be done, where there are lessons to be learned. And cyber bullying and youth suicide and drug abuse are areas where we’re seeing a constant theme.
 
SHANE           How much of this is down to the risks that our young people are taking these days? We think about 50 years ago when a risk was teasing a mate in the school yard or sneaking a puff of a cigarette. These days, a risk is sniffing something out of a container which can result in death.
 
NEIL                Yes, I think life’s more dangerous now. There are more opportunities to harm yourself permanently than perhaps there were 50 years ago.
 
SHANE           And that’s what you’re seeing?
 
NEIL                Yes.
 
SHANE           Last weekend, a 12-year-old Christchurch boy, he died after huffing, or inhaling, butane from a canister. How serious is the abuse of butane these days?
 
NEIL                Quite serious. There’s been a period in which there hasn’t been too much of a problem. We saw it in the past, and it’s often a variation. Currently it’s the butane canisters that are seen to be the preferred method. But it’s very worrying because these kids, I don’t think, realise the permanent damage they’re doing to themselves, even if they don’t kill themselves. Basically, they’re not really going to succeed in life if they’re getting this sort of stuff into their system.
 
SHANE           We’re told that 28 kids have died over the past three to four years.
 
NEIL                Yes.
 
SHANE           Serious.
 
NEIL                It is. 28 too many.
 
SHANE           Coroners have made many recommendations about this, but nothing seems to have happened. Are you disappointed with that?
 
NEIL                It’s probably not fair to say nothing’s happened. We do get responses to recommendations, but in a number of areas, I think coroners are feeling a sense of frustration that what they’re saying seems not to be making any difference.
 
SHANE           One of your own coroners this morning, Dr Bain in Rotorua, has vented his frustration as well, saying that recommendations are being ignored. He says that if his recommendations in a particular case - I think it was the jet ski case - had have been followed, it would have saved someone’s life.
 
NEIL                Yes, I think most coroners with any years of experience have had that, have seen that happening, and it is frustrating.
 
SHANE           So do you believe that lives are being lost because recommendations are being ignored?
 
NEIL                Yes.
 
SHANE           And what can be done?
 
NEIL                Well, um, at the end of the day, coroners are a bit like the canary in the mine. We call out when we see a problem. We don’t have, and probably never should have, any kind of enforcement power. What we do is we say, ‘Look, this is what’s happening. This is based on the evidence we’ve seen. Here are some recommendations.’ But it’s actually over to the community, to the government, to the leaders to actually implement it.
 
SHANE           So how do you get the government’s attention?
 
NEIL                By just plugging away, I guess. By making sure that our recommendations are sound, that they’re evidence-based, that they’re targeted at the right people, that they’re not just pious platitudes, but that we actually do what we can to say, ‘Look, we’ve got some suggestions here. This is not our own personal ideas. This is what we’ve seen coming though in a particular case or cases in front of me.’
 
SHANE           Can we take a look at a recommendation made recently by Coroner Garry Evans in March? He recommended to the CEO of Youth Affairs which stated the government take a fresh look at supply reduction strategies - we’re talking about huffing here - and the policing of volatile substance abuse in light of the evidence contained in these findings. Now, we rang Youth Affairs. They said it wasn’t really their thing, and they referred us on to the Ministry of Health. They were surprised that Youth Affairs had referred us to the Ministry of Health. They dug a bit deeper, and they found it had been sent to the Child & Youth Mortality Review Committee, and they weren’t sure why it had been passed to them. Are you happy with that?
 
NEIL                Well, you could say it’s a form of buck passing, couldn’t you? Um, part of the trick of making the system work is to make sure that you target your recommendations at the right people. But sometimes it’s very difficult to know who is the right person. Now, I’ve seen the response that came from the ministry on that. To be fair, they have referred the matter to the Child &Youth Mortality Review Committee, and I am aware that that committee - a national committee under Dr Nick Baker - is proposing to do some work. Now, that’s good, because it means that some people with expertise and training can start to have a look at this problem, shake it out a bit - not just on the basis of one case, but looking at the bigger picture. And hopefully they may come up with some suggestions.
 
SHANE           But you want more from the government?
 
NEIL                Um, it’s not just the government. It’s all the various agencies, because often recommendations aren’t just pitched at government or even quasi-government. They’re at DHBs or particular organisations or people in the farming community, that sort of thing. Yeah, sure, from a job satisfaction point of view and for the benefit of the community, we’d like to see more happen.
 
SHANE           When we talk about huffing, we talk about alcohol, we talk about cyber bullying, in your experience now, what’s proving to be the most harmful for our young people?
 
NEIL                Well, I think it’s the drugs, the solvents, the alcohol. Young people are particularly vulnerable. As Sir Peter Gluckman points out, probably young people’s brains don’t mature until they’re into their 20s. They are very vulnerable to all this risky stuff that’s out there. They don’t have the skills, the training, the support to be able to handle all the stuff that life flings at you.
 
SHANE           Can we talk more about alcohol, because the drinking age of 18 has been blamed in part, in a recent report, for our high youth-death rate. Should it be raised to 20?
 
NEIL                I think I’d duck that one. I don’t have a particular view, and I don’t think a chief coroner or coroner should allow themselves to advance hobby horses. But certainly abusive alcohol is a problem in society, but it particularly impacts on young people simply because they don’t know how to handle it, and they aren’t aware of the risks.
 
SHANE           So if they don’t know how to handle it, where does parental responsibility come into this? Because when we’re told up to 70% of our young kids get their alcohol from their parents, is the hard truth that parents actually have to take more responsibility?
 
NEIL                It’s easy to bash parents and to bash the schools. The reality is many of our young people that get into problems - not all - you look at their family support, their family networks, and you think they never had a chance. The support wasn’t there. The family is often dysfunctional, and they rely very much on their peers who may well not being the best influence on them.
 
SHANE           Parents obviously would have the best influence on kids, wouldn’t they?
 
NEIL                Yes, if they know what’s going on. It’s tough being a parent. I know that. And it’s just hard to be able to keep tabs on what your children are doing, and particularly the insidious influence now of the late-night texting, access to the internet, all that social network stuff. Parents haven’t a hope of knowing what’s going on.
 
SHANE           Do parents these days have the expertise, do they have the support to be able to manage these issues, especially when we’re talking about these different risks and the greater risks that our young people are taking these days?
 
NEIL                I don’t think they do, and it’s a generation thing. Even the 30-year, 25-year gap. The world that the parent grew up in is so different to what our young people are growing up in. I don’t think we do understand. Most adults wouldn’t even know about the dangers of butane, wouldn’t even dream of sniffing petrol and that sort of thing. And they don’t know and understand what’s going on in cyber space
 
SHANE           So what do we do about it?
 
NEIL                I guess learn more, talk about it, get it out in the open. And that’s where the coroner role and I think my role comes in, because I have a statutory responsibility to ‘educate the public’. Unusual thing for a judge to have to do. So that’s all we can do - just keep talking about it. Be it suicide, be it solvent abuse, be it cyber bullying, whatever.
 
SHANE           So more dialogue?
 
NEIL                More dialogue, yeah. More opening it up. Getting rid of the concept that there’s some taboo topics that it’s wise not to talk about because it might encourage people to do things. Let’s face up to it. People need to know what’s really going on in our society.
 
SHANE           We can also change the laws, though, can’t we? We can make it tougher.
 
NEIL                We can do, but law’s a very blunt instrument to change particularly young people’s behaviour. And some of the young people we’re having problems with, they’re not even of the age where the law is going to apply to them anyway.
 
SHANE           Because I look at, for example, the price of tobacco. The government’s trying to put that up. There’s a whole big debate around alcohol at the moment. Do you think that having a minimum price around alcohol could deter young ones, or are we beating up the wrong track here?
 
NEIL                Tricky territory, because the more expensive you make it, the harder you make it to get to, kids will find another way of getting that high, getting that buzz with much more dangerous material.
 
SHANE           Like what we’re seeing with huffing.
 
NEIL                Huffing, yeah.
 
SHANE           Cyber bullying - the government has come out saying they want to fast-track it, and it’s being made as a priority. They’ve got a few law changes proposed. Do they go far enough, in your opinion?
 
NEIL                I think it’s a very good step forward. I’m very pleased to see that they’ve picked it up. The credit for it, of course, should be given to the Law Commission who identified the changes needed, and I’ll imagine they’ll be pleased to see their recommendations are now being looked at seriously by the government.
 
SHANE           Again, if I can make the point to you, several coroners have linked cyber bullying to our high youth-suicide rate over many years. Are you disappointed that it’s taken so long for recommendations, for something to happen?
 
NEIL                Yes, um, you know in a perfect world, we’d like to think that we’d make a serious recommendation and something gets done about it. But we’ve got to live in the real world. There’s so many demands on government and people and society to try and rectify lots of wrongs.
 
SHANE           Does government need to be more accountable? Do we need a new system? Do we need to be looking at how we deal with recommendations to ensure that they are followed up?
 
NEIL                Well, one step that I have cautiously pushed is to follow what the Brits do, what some of the Australian jurisdictions now do, and actually make it mandatory, compulsory, to respond to a coroner’s recommendation. And the Brits have 56 days. I think Victoria has much the same thing. And then have to have a system of monitoring it. Because, at the moment, our recommendations sort of can easily, so to speak, die in the ditch, because they go out there, they sit there, they’re never actioned. We’re taking some steps to put them on an internet site, a summary of recommendations. We also now summarise the responses. So there’s a body of work building up there which will be useful to researchers, to everybody, to see what have we been saying, what has been the response. I think we may be ready to move on to having a look at making it mandatory to respond, and if you don’t have a, as it were, a sort of a name and shaming, as the Brits do - ‘These are the organisations which have not responded.’ Sometimes an organisation will respond and say, ‘You completely misconceived. If you had asked us this, you wouldn’t have recommended that.’ ‘Ok, we’ll post it.’
 
SHANE           Judge MacLean, we have to leave it there, but thank you very much for coming in. Thank you for your time.
 
NEIL                Pleasure.

ENDS

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