However, being inspired by somebody else’s brainchild, and using it as the basis for one’s own bright idea, is quite a different thing to copying it too closely. Adopting something seemingly verbatim, and trying to make it fit when it doesn’t, paves the way towards difficulties and heartache.
When news broke on Monday that the New Zealand Defence Force had warned the government at the start of the year that military training does not always turn around the bad behaviour of young people with complex problems, it immediately cast doubts on the likely usefulness of the much-vaunted 12-month youth offender military academies, or boot camps.
The documents released revealed that the defence force told Defence Minister Judith Collins it was wrong to compare the boot camps with the six-week Limited Service Volunteer programme.
More alarmingly, the percentage of those with mental health issues and "complex" needs on LSV courses had crept up towards 60%. As a result, 10 defence force staff suffered serious mental harm themselves, along with several instances of suicidal ideation, as well as an increase in the number of physical assaults they experienced.
It is likely that all of those who attend the government’s boot camps will have complex needs, and the fear is that may up the ante for the instructors.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell is standing behind both the value of having boot camps and the LSV programme. He disagreed with suggestions that the camps would be even harder on defence force personnel.
The crackdown on crime and disorder is one of the government’s major policy planks, so it is hardly surprising Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is not having a bar of any criticism, even if the revelations may have caused ripples of consternation behind the scenes in the Beehive.
He told RNZ the government had learnt from LSV that not having any community support from day one was a "major, major problem". The boot camps were much more of a "nuanced, layered, programme" with "a lot more sophistication going on behind the scenes".
This was a much more measured prime minister than last week’s one, who said then he didn’t care what critics thought about whether the scheme would or would not work.
"We are, dammit, going to try something different, because we cannot carry on getting the results that we’ve been getting," Mr Luxon said then.
Labour has, naturally, been quick to leap on the serious issues uncovered in the Official Information Act request. In a release, children’s spokeswoman Willow-Jean Prime said boot camps had not worked in the past and sending troubled youth, many of whom had experienced trauma and abuse, to them could cause them more harm.
If there is one thing this government could never be accused of, it is sitting around and twiddling its thumbs.
On the other hand, it has been caught out several times careening into something too quickly when a little more caution, of putting brain into gear before engaging mouth, may have avoided unnecessary downstream vexation.
We all know that smart people still make mistakes But when you get something wrong, the trick is to learn from that rather than blunder on regardless.
History would suggest that such military-style behaviour camps have had limited success in the past.
Some young people who have lived in homes with little love and caring may well thrive with the attention and discipline they receive, and the boost in self-esteem from achieving results. Others, however, may see military control over them as just another form of punishment, and rebel further.
It is too early yet to say if the government has this wrong, though naturally Labour will be watching like a hawk. But it would be good to be able to trust the government to do the right thing and not pursue the camps idea if the pilot shows they will do more harm than good.
