Barry Ward
speaker
554 appearances
6 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 7 Sep
Barry Ward’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 6 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 2.
Appearances
responsibility like that, there should be a sanction and there should be consequences for that parent.
But I also think that we need to be putting in place measures to help those parents and if they consistently ignore or refuse those assist those th that help or the that guidance or whatever it might be, then it's reasonable to say to them, Well, okay, if you're not willing to accept responsibility, there has to be a consequence.
Yeah, exactly, which is why the youth justice strategy needs to include a suite of measures that are there to support communities, but also to support parents, which is why I make the differentiation between parents who are doing their level best are faced with impossible circumstances who maybe don't have the skills or don't have the resources to do what they need to do, and we need to provide them with what they need.
But on the other hand, I know myself um and every politician around the country will
be aware of this.
There are kids out at all hours of the day and night misbehaving.
Their parents either don't know or don't care where they are.
And if you have a situation where the possibility of a fine from a court or or some other sanction is there, and if that brought the parents into a situation where they were being more conscientious
then that is a good thing because if you have parents who who are simply not engaging in that parental responsibility, then that is a major problem for everyone, particularly the child, because the child is the person who loses out.
And I don't either want to have a situation where uh parents who have limited means are saddled with huge fines from courts, that is totally counterproductive.
But what I'm talking about is some kind of sanction that brings home to them that they cannot just sit back and say, I don't know where my child
I know it's one o'clock in the morning.
I don't know and I don't care, that's their business.
That is not parenting.
And unfortunately the impact of that non parenting is on everybody else in society and if there's a way we can step in to intervene with that then we should.
Yeah, I think so.
I mean I I I think it's important to note that the Children Act, as I said, was very progressive, still is very progressive.
One of the principles in it is that prison is a last resort for young people and the courts are told the last thing you should be doing, any other way to deal with this is the last thing is prison.
But the oh the other thing is that there is a certain power there already and there are p powers for family conferences and for restorative justice and the law recognises the fact as that children are not fully developed in terms of their appreciation of what's right and wrong and what criminal responsibility is, which is why
They're treated differently by the courts.
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