Children's Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft urges more than 100 University of Otago family law students to become advocates for young people once they took on ''powerful'' positions as lawyers.
Judge Becroft gave a hard-hitting talk on campus yesterday, titled ''Too Little Care and Too Little Protection'', and said he had been staggered to learn that many young people from troubled backgrounds who later got into trouble with the law had had dozens of state care arrangements over the years.
New Zealand did a fine job with 70% of its young people, but had major social problems, including an internationally high youth suicide rate.
More needed to be done to reduce child poverty as there was a ''crystal-clear association'' between child poverty and adverse outcomes for young people, he said.
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My experience with law students is that they care for nobody but themselves. They come to Dunedin get drunk and offensive, trash the place and go away to make lots of money for themselves. I'd like to be proved otherwise but their general reputation is shot. Sad to see.