Mazengarb Report

The Mazengarb Report of 1954, formally titled the Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents (AJHR 1954, H-47), resulted from a ministerial inquiry (the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents) sparked primarily by two infamous and well-publicised events in New Zealand's history: the 22 June 1954 Parker-Hulme murder (subject of the 1994 Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures) and the 20 June 1954 'Petone incident'. The report gained its name from the inquiry chairperson, Queen's Counsel Oswald Mazengarb.

The committee, appointed on 23 July 1954, convened and operated rapidly — it reported on 20 September, barely 10 days after it completed hearing evidence, 59 days after its appointment, and 55 days after hearings began. Sociologically speaking, it exemplified a case of New Zealand moral panic.

The Petone incident

On 20 June 1954, shortly after her mother and stepfather had reported her as missing, a 15½-year-old girl turned up at the local police station in the Hutt Valley borough of Petone (since October 1989, a suburb of the city of Lower Hutt). The report details from page 11:

She stated that, being unhappy at home with her stepfather, she had[…] been a member of what she called a "Milk Bar Gang", which […] met "mostly for sex purposes"; she […] was worried about the future of its younger members, and desired the police to break up the gang.

Shortly after, following a police roundup of some of those named, a moral panic ensued in New Zealand, in which the above incident played no small part among several others, including a milk bar murder in Auckland (which resulted in one of the last executions in New Zealand.)

The inquiry

An review of New Zealand newspapers of the time, such as the Evening Post, will reveal reports of "youths charged with indecent assault upon, or carnal knowledge of" underage females. Indeed, the inquiry's report notes this occurred "[in] the second week of July 1954".

After a wave of moral panic among the public and newspaper media, the Crown appointed the Special Committee on 23 July, and it started its work only four days later, on 27 July. With what some contemporary commentators considered unreasonable alacrity, the Committee began hearing evidence on 3 August in Wellington, completing its hearings in Auckland on 10 September. Barely ten days later, on 20 September, the Committee had reported; Hansard records that the responsible cabinet minister had already sent the report to the Government Printer for printing before its actual tabling in Parliament.

Unusually for an inquiry report of that era, the report became, according to Yska (1993) one of the biggest jobs for the Government Printer at the time. Yska even notes that posties complained of the weight when doing something also unusual: distributing the report to every household in the country.

Conclusions and recommendations

The report came up with 27 conclusions and around 20 recommendations. Among the conclusions, in summary:

1 to 4 and 26 dealt with sexual immorality, noting that "immorality has been [organised]", and the unfairness that the authorities could charge boys for indecent conduct, but not girls.
5 to 9 urged a tightening of censorship laws.
10 urged a "closer bond between school and home."
11 discounted the contribution that co-educational schools had made to "sexual delinquency".
12 urged tighter administration of a school leaving-age of 15.
13 recommended notifying school principals of students under government care.
14 and 21: "The school is not the proper place for fully instructing children about sex." However, the report characterised schools as good places to "listen to addresses or see appropriate films." It also claimed (21) that police found in many incidents that many youths were either "too ignorant" about sex, or knew too much about it.
15 appears to attack the previous Labour government's state housing scheme, believing that "the new housing developments" contained large numbers of young children without the good modelling of older people and organisations. Similarly, 16 says that while community groups were doing their best, "facilities for recreation and entertainment will not cure juvenile delinquency".
17 placed some blame on parents' allowing consumption of alcohol at "young people's parties", without specifying the age of the said young people.
18 and 19 thought parental neglect left children feeling unloved, something the Committee believed conducive to delinquent acts.
20 appears to blame high wages of the time for discouraging the careful use of money (and thus, the Committee concluded, self-reliance).
22 and 23 addressed the state of religion and of family life: the "present state of morals in the community has indicated the value of a religious faith" and stated that a decline in family life resulted from a lack of respect for the "worth" of religious and social boundaries.
24 blamed "new concepts" coming about due to the destabilising effects of world wars, contraceptives, divorce liberalisation and increasing popularity of sexual relations before marriage.
25 conveyed the unanimous recommendation that minors should not be allowed contraceptives.
27 urged that the Government take more preventive measures in the field of child welfare.

Follow-up

Parliament responded to the Mazengarb Report with a special select committee appointed on September 28 1954. Its report (AJHR 1955, I-15) was due to be issued on October 1 1955.

The Petone incident

The inquiry

Conclusions and recommendations

Follow-up

Further reading and references