The programme was pioneered and developed with Hastings, Napier and Flaxmere Probation officers and has now spread to West Auckland and to Northland.
The Whangarei programme is built on the experience the Howard League benefited from in Hawke's Bay and, although we set a target of 100 successes in the first year, we reached that target in less than six months and, in that period, had just two failures.
Last Friday's event was essentially a party to celebrate a real and tangible success story in Northland.
This is a region that is a notorious black hole for NEETs with many thousand, mainly young, Maori seemingly trapped on the dole.
Two young Maori who had got their licences through the programme and gone on to get jobs spoke at the function.
It was clear that they had undergone a life-changing experience and they spoke of the boost in self confidence that having a licence meant.
With their newly minted licences, both had found work and their employers, one from a construction company and the other from an insulation firm, spoke highly of them and their commitment to their work.
I was fascinated to chat with one of the newly licenced drivers after the formal proceedings were over and to learn that before he got his job, he had no idea of the yawing chasm between the amount of money he was getting on the dole and real wages.
The basic dole for a single person aged 18 to 19 years, according to the Winz website, pays $140 a week, compared with a 40-hour week on the minimum wage at $630 before tax.
This young bloke was surprised and delighted to get "four times as much" in his first pay packet, and it led me to think that publicising just this fact might be a good start in Shane Jones' campaign to get these people "off the couch" as he elaborated on his "work for the dole" firebomb by saying the work he envisaged would be paid at least at the minimum wage.
I have known Shane Jones for 15 years and I first met him with former Prime Minister Helen Clark when we were shoulder-tapping promising potential candidates.
He entered Parliament in 2005 as a Labour MP, but, after a stint as a Special Ambassador, has re-emerged as a New Zealand First MP and Minister of Regional Development in Jacinda Ardern's Labour-led coalition government.
He's highly intelligent and will have been well aware of the impact of what he said, but if anyone can make a difference to the thousands of lives that are wasting away under the NEET statistic, it's Shane Jones. He has already revealed the sad fact that a Steven Joyce $50 million fund aimed at the NEET problem was never spent.
The Howard League's driving offenders programme clearly demonstrates that these people are by no means a lost cause.
They just need one-on-one attention, guidance, driver's licences and community support.
The latter is crucial; you won't find the jobs unless you have local support from people with good links into the job market.
Dale Williams, the former Mayor of Otorohanga, spent his time in office tightly focused on the problem of youth unemployment in his district. It was said that Dale knew each of these unemployed kids personally and regarded their plight as a personal test.
However, he conceptualised his challenge, it worked, and as a result Otorohanga has consistently achieved the lowest registered youth unemployment rate in New Zealand since 2006.
Thus, models on how to attack the NEET calamity are on show, and Shane Jones has the resources, intellect and support from his colleagues to make a real difference.
Fingers crossed!
Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is CEO of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
