Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill

Thank you very much, Mr Chair, and I know that my colleagues will be very happy about that. I am very grateful that the Committee accepted the leave application from the Minister, because how we would have heard any sensible speeches on a clause that provides that “This Act is the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Act 2010.” is a question that is probably not worth pondering.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: I don’t know. I’ve done it before.

The member next to me says she has done it before. That was clearly in the bad old days.

As I was saying, the original purpose of the bill was to provide that it would be expressly a duty on the court in sentencing somebody who assaulted a police officer or a prison officer in the course of their duties to regard the occupation of the person who suffered the assault as an aggravating factor. As I said, we were fully supportive of the policy and intent behind that, but we were concerned that there are members of other professions, just like police officers and prison officers, who have no choice in the course of their duties but to put themselves in harm’s way. It did not seem logical to us that members of those professions should not receive the fullest protection of the law as well. That is why Supplementary Order Paper 14 in my name would provide that emergency health or fire services providers acting in the course of their duties at the scene of an emergency would also, if assaulted, have the fact of their professions and the fact that they were carrying out those duties when they were assaulted regarded as aggravating factors in the event that the matter came to trial and sentencing.

I want to acknowledge the Minister for her cooperative approach when I first put the suggestion to her. We did have some to-ing and fro-ing about the exact wording of the Supplementary Order Paper, but in the end the principle was agreed. My understanding is that that Supplementary Order Paper, along with the principal Act, will receive support at least from the two major parties and one or two other parties that have written to me to express support for the approach in my Supplementary Order Paper.

The instruction from the Deputy Leader of the House, by leave, also applies to Supplementary Order Paper 9 in the name of Asenati Lole-Taylor. That Supplementary Order Paper would also make it an aggravating factor in sentencing the fact that the assault occurred against a corrections officer conducting enforcement duties, which would be defined as “the exercise of any statutory enforcement power, and for the purposes of the Corrections Act 2004 includes performing non-custodial services:”. I do not know what the position of the Government is concerning that particular Supplementary Order Paper, but I can signal that the Labour Opposition will give that Supplementary Order Paper its support on a substantive basis.

To summarise, as far as the position on this side of the Chamber is concerned, yes we agree that prison officers and the police do deserve the fullest protection of the law if it can be afforded to them through making an assault on them an aggravating factor at sentencing—that is, magnifying the effect in law of the sentence because of the identity of the person assaulted. But it should also happen to fire service responders and to emergency medical responders who are in a similar position at accident scenes. It seems to us that the further extension in respect of prison officers that is moved by Asenati Lole-Taylor is logical as well, because, again, you have people who put themselves, through their job, through no choice of their own, into the path of danger in order to preserve and protect public safety, and we ought to support everybody in that position.

The Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill is just a small bill. It really makes one change, and that is to require judges to make an assault on a police officer or a corrections officer an aggravating factor in the sentencing of that person who has been accused. But I think it is a bill that yet again highlights this Government’s approach to the police, to the corrections service, and indeed to their personnel, because Minister Judith Collins, when she was the Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections, very firmly said that she valued the police and she backed the police as Minister, and backed corrections. I think that in the last 4 years, and I have been associated with the Law and Order Committee for perhaps only two of those years, I have noticed the police and corrections responding to that backing. There have been a number of pieces of legislation that have gone through this House, and this is one of them—this is another one of those—that expressly confirm this Government’s backing of our police and of our corrections service.

Further to that, I would say that the Law and Order Committee has had the privilege so far this year of visiting several corrections facilities and seeing for ourselves the work and the challenges that our corrections officers face in facilities all around New Zealand. It is hard work. They are dealing with people who do not necessarily wish to be confined, who do not necessarily wish to be confined for a period of months or years, and they have to deal with those people on a daily, ongoing basis—and so, too, for the police. When the Law and Order Committee, which is a cross-party committee with colleagues from around the House, visited the Counties-Manukau community policing initiative, we could see for ourselves that our police are highly motivated, as are our corrections staff, to do the best job they can for our community.

So it is the responsibility of us in Parliament to return the favour, if you like, and say that we back the police and corrections. When, as happens, there is an assault on a corrections officer, as there was within the last couple of weeks—a serious assault, I believe—and there are frequent assaults on our police personnel as well, if the District Court judge can say to the alleged offender, in sentencing, that this assault is an aggravating factor, that shows that this Parliament and this country do back the police and do back corrections.

I was very pleased to be part of the consideration of this bill. It is really interesting, and regrettable, that the number of assaults against police officers and corrections officers has been increasing quite alarmingly over the last few years. For example, in 2008-09 there was a total of 2,481 recorded assaults on police officers, and of those, 412 were serious assaults. This is something that our police officers and corrections officers have to deal with all the time. In this bill this Government—and I do hope it enjoys wide support through the House—and this Parliament are saying to those officers “We back you. We have your back.” Those officers are doing a great job. Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill, the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill. This is a very short bill, but it has had a lot of consideration put into it. It was really brought about by the fact that, certainly when I was Minister of Police, several police officers had spoken to me about the fact that when they were assaulted by offenders and charges were laid about that assault, quite often comments were made, even in court, to the extent that they were police officers and should be able to put up with it. That is completely unacceptable. Our Government decided that that was not going to be something that we would stand by and let happen, and that we would make it very clear to judges that, in fact, it is important that they view the work of the police, and corrections officers placed in similar positions, as positions of extreme importance. They help keep the country safe. They are certainly the first who will be criticised if they do not take action in dangerous situations, and they are expected to go into situations that the rest of us can flee, or choose not to go into. They do not get the choices the rest of us do.

On the matter that has been raised in Supplementary Order Paper 14 from Charles Chauvel, Mr Chauvel came to me and spoke to me about what he would like to add to the bill. We looked at that, and I acknowledge the fact that he came and spoke to me about that. I would also like to acknowledge the work done by the Ministry of Justice in being able to assist with that Supplementary Order Paper along with the bill, and in making sure that the Supplementary Order Paper and the bill itself would, in fact, be able to work well together. The ministry has done a lot of work on that, as has my office, with Mr Chauvel.

Supplementary Order Paper 9 was tabled by Mrs Lole-Taylor. Unfortunately, Mrs Lole-Taylor has not raised this matter with me at all, which I was quite surprised to see. That is not really the way we would normally get changes to a bill. I am always happy to discuss changes to a bill, as I think the Green Party and Mr Clendon should know. I am happy to take an issue on board, as Mr Chauvel knows, as long as we discuss it. So it was disappointing to see that Mrs Lole-Taylor did not come and see me about it or want to discuss it. If I had not been a previous Minister of Corrections—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Nobody needs to come and see you about anything. It wouldn’t be a good idea.

Sorry, what was that, Mr O’Rourke?

💬 Denis O’Rourke: I said nobody needs to come and see you about anything.

Actually, Mr O’Rourke, it is really helpful, so we can get matters sorted out. Unfortunately, Mr O’Rourke thinks you should get changes to bills by not coming to see the Minister about it. I think that is somewhat naive, and I think he should take a move from the—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: It’s actually a good idea not to do that.

It was very naive. However, fortunately for Mrs Lole-Taylor and what she is trying to do, I am a former Minister of Corrections and therefore have been into the prisons—as has Mrs Lole-Taylor when she used to work for the Department of Corrections—so I am aware of the situation. There are many non-uniform staff who are often put in quite dangerous situations if an offender wants to behave in a violent manner towards them, so I have a great deal of sympathy for what Mrs Lole-Taylor is trying to do.

I understand from Mr O’Rourke that they did not want to talk to me about it, but I think it is quite a good thing for us to look at. I am sure he will want to convince me about why we should be supporting the Supplementary Order Paper. So far, they have treated us with some arrogance, frankly. This Parliament has been very good at looking at this bill and looking at how we can actually make the bill better. Mr Chauvel has been able to do that, and I am looking forward to the contribution from Mr O’Rourke. On the face of it, I think it is probably quite a good provision, but I am sure he will want to fully convince me on it.

The Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill has a similar history to the bill we were previously debating. It was introduced on 13 October 2010. It had its first reading on 12 April 2011. It was referred to the Law and Order Committee. Submissions were obviously called for in a relatively short period of time. It had a mission. On 26 May 2011 the submissions closed. The select committee report was referred back to this House on 7 July 2011. We had the second reading earlier on this year, on 8 February 2012, and now, today, we are at the end of July; tomorrow is 1 August. So this bill has been around for some time, but I do appreciate what the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Justice, has just said about the importance of having conversations with each other about particular elements of legislation, if we do want to see change.

Can I repeat in the House the plea that I have made outside the House to have some conversation about the Alcohol Reform Bill, because my colleague’s amendment—[Interruption] No, it is absolutely relevant to the amendment that is going to be accepted by the Government, the Supplementary Order Paper moved by my colleague Charles Chauvel relating to our emergency front-line first responders, particularly those in the ambulance service. They face alcohol-fuelled attacks every single day, and that is one of the huge motivating factors for the amendment that the Minister has agreed to. One of my colleagues, Louisa Wall, who has a Supplementary Order Paper on the Alcohol Reform Bill, would like to be able to put to the Minister directly the concerns she has. There are a number of amendments that we would make, and I do want to meet with the Minister personally to go through those, because I believe that if we actually sat down and had a conversation about some of these issues, we would find a meeting of the minds on some of them—not all of them. I do not have unrealistic expectations, but I do believe that—

💬 Andrew Little: You might have to be a liquor baron to get a meeting.

No—the same as me. I think the Minister and I both agree that there are some issues that are more important than some of the positions that may be adopted from time to time, and alcohol is such a fuel of the type of violence that we are seeking to address with this particular measure that we are debating here tonight. It would seem to me to be one of those ones. Because one of my colleagues came and tapped me on the shoulder and said that she would like to take up the challenge that the Minister had just made about speaking directly on the matter, I informed her that I have made the same request and I would like to formalise that request in the House.

I want to congratulate Charles Chauvel on making this an issue and on dealing with it in the way he has, because I think it is important that we do set aside party political positions when there are issues where we can find common ground, and this has been one where we have found common ground. The common ground does relate to how important all of our first responders are, whether they are in the prison setting, whether they are our police, or whether they are our emergency services at the front line. They will find themselves in challenging circumstances, and I know that I have personally spoken to ambulance officers, and, on occasion, to volunteer firefighters who found themselves in the position of seeking to save somebody who did not feel like they wanted to be saved at that particular moment, whether they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or whether they were, in fact, quite disturbed for a variety of different reasons. The person who goes to save another can find themselves on the receiving end of a vicious attack. All of us in this House would want to join together to find ways of resolving that. I have never particularly found that deterrent sentences deter behaviour such as that, but I do think that having sentencing around aggravating factors is the right way to go. So I am very supportive of the particular measure as introduced by the Government, then also as improved by the amendment that has been put up by my colleague Charles Chauvel.

I do hope that the Committee of the whole House takes notes of, I think, the goodwill that is being expressed on both sides of this House as we deal with these difficult issues, but, I think, important issues, for the sake of all those who are affected by them.

I am pleased to take a brief call on this bill, the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill, firstly, to affirm the Greens continuing support. We have supported this bill through previous readings and will continue to do so. Indeed, we will certainly support the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Mr Chauvel. Support for this bill was initially somewhat diffident, I have to say, a couple of years ago when it first surfaced, simply because we could not see that it would change a great deal. On our experience and observation the evidence was that courts, the judiciary, actually did consider an aggravating factor—that is, if the victim of an assault was a uniformed officer, a police officer, then, certainly, that was deemed to be an aggravating factor, albeit it was not written into the law. But, nevertheless, it certainly did no harm, and we are pleased to support it. As it has evolved, and particularly with reference to Supplementary Order Paper 14, we think that is a particularly useful addition. It does extend the protection offered or the acknowledged seriousness.

Like other speakers, I have personally witnessed ambulance officers being assaulted by people so drunk—when they had usually suffered some injury as a result of getting involved in a punch-up in a pub—that they thought to lash out at that ambulance officer, a person endeavouring to mend them. I had up until recently a family member who was also a volunteer ambulance person. That is clearly a matter we have to take really seriously.

I am intrigued by the chair of the Law and Order Committee, who commented earlier that when a number of assaults on police is measured in thousands, clearly we do have a problem here. It does seem to me that the problem seemed to have peaked in around 2010. My understanding is that, in fact, in assaults on police the trend is downward. That is something, of course, that we all could only be pleased about. The latest version of Ten One—the police journal, its monthly magazine—talks about a more strategic approach to risk minimisation. Clearly, I consider that to be an extremely intelligent approach to policing. Not wishing to sound patronising, but I will say that just having this very, very structured framework of minimising risk to serving police officers means, as I understand it—not to pick a fight or argue numbers—the assaults are diminishing and that has got to be a good thing. And to the extent that the judiciary can send messages by treating the status of victims as an aggravating factor has got to be a good thing.

I have already said that we will very happily support Mr Chauvel’s Supplementary Order Paper. I have just one question, and I hope that New Zealand First, or some other person, might be able to enlighten me. Supplementary Order Paper 9 talks about extending this protection, if you like, or these provisions, to people working in the Department of Corrections, essentially police officers. It is very specific about employees of the Crown. I just wonder in that context what this means for employees of private contractors, such as in respect of Auckland Central Remand Prison, and people who are not employed by the Crown but by Serco, a private contractor. Does that exclude those prison officers from the provisions of this bill? Does it mean that for a prison office in Rimutaka, an employee of the Crown, an assault on that person would then be an aggravating factor, but not if that person happens to be employed by Serco, albeit that they are obviously working in a very similar environment and in an environment of equal risk? In fact, I would argue that in a private contract prison the likelihood is that there would be a greater risk of a prison officer being assaulted, given the characteristics of private providers and private contractors.

So we are very happy to support this bill and to support the two Supplementary Order Papers under discussion, but I do pose that question about whether this is intended and whether it would cover those who are employed by private contractors in our prison service. Kia ora.

New Zealand First will always put the safety of our police and corrections officers as a high priority, but New Zealand First also recognises the need for the safety of all other law enforcement officers or staff. With an increase in severity of assaults on police and corrections officers in recent years, we acknowledge the need for prevention of assaults on them all. We do support the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill, but we question the scope of coverage of it. It was documented by the Law and Order Committee in its report dated 7 July last year that the aggravating factors be considered for other groups and public sector workers, too. It was then noted that the amendment was constructed specifically to address an increase in assault cases against only police and prison officers.

Asenati Lole-Taylor has therefore proposed an amendment in Supplementary Order Paper 9. As a past employee of the Department of Corrections in the role of a regional adviser for the northern region, she tells me that she would not have been covered by this bill if she had been subjected to an assault or harmed intentionally by a prison officer or offender. She did not come within the title “prison officer” for the purposes of this bill, but her position still held a duty of carrying out similar responsibilities to prison officers. Non-uniformed staff also work with prison officers and offenders whenever and wherever necessary. The ratio of corrections staff, she tells me, is one prison officer to 20 prisoners; non-uniformed staff could be working with up to 30 and sometimes 50 prisoners without a prison officer present. Mrs Lole-Taylor tells me that she was often called upon to defuse situations amongst some of the prisoners where corrections officers could not resolve the prisoners’ behaviour. In these roles she would do exactly the same, if not more, than a corrections officer would have done, and this bill does not take this into account.

Other public sector workers also play a big part in the rehabilitation of offenders and prisoners. Facilitators of many other programmes, medical people, community probation officers, and psychologists who work within the corrections department are not covered, yet they are exposed to the same risk factors as the prison officers themselves. The non-uniformed and all other Crown law enforcement staff serve an equally important role in sustaining the safety and rehabilitation of inmates in our prisons throughout the country. In fact, the bill could be perceived, perhaps, as discriminating against other staff within the corrections and police force, as well as those of the Customs Service and fisheries officers. I believe that it is vital that the bill includes non-uniformed staff of police and corrections services for these reasons. The bill falls short of protection for other Crown law enforcement roles such as, in particular, fisheries officers and customs officers.

New Zealand First supports the bill, but are we giving real solutions to this very real problem? We ask whether the training programmes within the police and the prison force are adequate in the prevention of assaults on officers, why there has not been a review of the processes and procedures in regards to this, and why there has not been more investment in resources to improve that situation.

New Zealand First, as I have said, supports the bill, and it is good to see that the Government has gotten something right in identifying a problem of this nature, but it does not go far enough. Other parties have shared the view that they do not feel that this bill would give weight to effectively changing these statistics, or making a significant difference in assault cases regarding the country’s enforcement employees and ancillary staff, whether uniformed or not. I therefore encourage members to support Mrs Lole-Taylor’s Supplementary Order Paper, in order to also include other employees of the Crown lawfully engaged in enforcement duties and acting in the course of those duties.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 9 in the name of Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor be agreed to.

Given that the next item on the Order Paper is another Committee stage and that the House cannot convene in Committee within 5 minutes of the hour of rising, it remains for me to announce that the House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.