Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill

I move, That the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill be now read a second time.

Firstly what I’d like to do is just very briefly outline what the bill intends to do. There are two main things. The first is to create a new offence of injuring a first responder or a prison officer with intent, which has a mandatory minimum sentence of six months’ imprisonment, and also to include emergency, health, and fire service staff in the offence of assault on police, prison, or traffic officers, currently provided for in the Summary Offences Act. I have tabled already three Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that we will be discussing in the next phase of the bill going through the House. The first is to ensure we change the term “prison officers” to “corrections officers”. That might sound like a small issue but, to the corrections officers, it is quite a large deal and very important for them. The second SOP deals with, and ensures that, any sentence that is handed out to a prisoner who is found guilty of this charge actually is cumulative and not concurrent. And the third would, basically, include or ensure that nurses and doctors that work in emergency departments are included under this legislation. So that, hopefully, will be discussed in the next phase.

First of all, before I get into some of the submissions from the select committee, I would just like to say that I am utterly disappointed in the Justice Committee and the fact that they, after nearly 6½ months of deliberating this very important piece of legislation—and they know that it’s very important legislation, due not only to the number of submissions that we’ve had but to the backing of the most important ones of those submissions, which were the stakeholders and the victims which this bill tries to protect; the St John paramedics, the Corrections Association, the Police Association, and the nurses and doctors themselves. What I find not only astonishing but utterly disappointing and frustrating is that there is no report from the select committee to be debated here today, and I hope that those organisations are watching and can get some sort of explanation from those members of the Justice Committee.

The only thing that anybody needs to do to understand why we need this legislation, why we need legislation for a minimum mandatory sentence, why we need to create a different law that identifies and protects our first responders, our men and women who put a uniform on every day and who put their life on the line, their safety on the line to protect us and the community—all we have to do to understand why is read and listen to their submissions. Every single one of them—and this is what’s quite telling: we had a number of bureaucrats that came in and gave submissions, a number of people who are involved with the creation of laws in this country and give commentary on the creation of laws in this country; we had a number of submissions from victims’ advocates and the offenders’ advocates—groups that advocate for offenders—and then we had the stakeholders give their submissions, the ones that are the actual victims of the crimes that this legislation aims to protect.

We’ve had all those bureaucrats on the one side, and most, if not all, submitted against this legislation and gave varying degrees of reasons why. But if you look at all of those, if you look at all of the submissions from St John, from the Corrections Association, from the Police Association, from the nurses and the doctors who work in emergency departments, they all submitted in favour of this bill. And it wasn’t just in favour; it was in strong favour of this bill. What that highlighted to me, and it should have highlighted to the entirety of the Justice Committee, was that this not only is a bill that they backed and that they need, that they know that they need right now, but whatever the current law is isn’t working, isn’t helping them, and isn’t protecting them. During the select committee phase and listening to the submissions, it became quite clear to me that there were a number of arguments—and I know that there are some parties in this House today that will vote against this bill moving to the next stage. And those arguments against putting through this legislation simply do not stack up and do not make sense and do not compare to the submissions from our first responders.

I’d like to quickly go through the reasons why, in their own submissions, our first responders want this bill to pass. The submission from St John: every year, approximately 3,000 instances of abuse and assault for our St John paramedics—every single year. And approximately 80 of those physical assaults reported every month—around 10 of them are very serious. We actually had a submission from a paramedic come through who was assaulted and the sentence that that offender got was a fine—was just a fine. We heard issues recently of a paramedic in Warkworth who was pulled from her vehicle, punched until she got to the ground, and stomped on the face until she was unconscious. What we’ve got here is a current situation and an environment where not only do people think that it’s acceptable that our first responders are assaulted but there is no deterrent, and the current law is simply not working, not only to deter but to draw a line in the sand as a society and say that this isn’t acceptable, that we do take assaults on our first responders seriously. That’s what this legislation is trying to address.

For our corrections officers, between 2016 and 2019, the total number of days lost as a result of assaults on prison staff went from 770 to over 1,500 hours lost. They note that the number of assaults on prison officers increased, from 2013, from just over 300 to over 650 in that time period until 2019—with the same ratio for serious offences. And, as a union, the Corrections Association noticed that there are far more pack attacks on staff and the use of weapons, especially stabbing weapons, focusing on the face, head, and neck area.

The most important submission was actually from our Police Association. These are the guys and girls in uniform that stand in between us and the people that we don’t want to deal with, that protect the community and have to deal with the people that we don’t want to deal with. The Police Association note in their submission that there is an underestimation of the frequency and seriousness of attacks on our first responders and, while the risks are acknowledged, there should not be an expectation of being assaulted. That’s a common theme: that there’s an unwritten expectation that our first responders should just have to put up with it; that our corrections officers should just have to put up with it.

I’d note a couple of cases of how this current legislation is not working, how the current sentencing regime is not working. In April 2019, an offender punched a police officer in the head, knocked him to the ground, and got 140 hours’ community service. In May 2017, an offender caught in the midst of a burglary threw acidic white powder in the constable’s face—first charged with aggravated wounding, with a maximum of 14 years’ imprisonment; at trial, it was downgraded to injuring with intent and carried a maximum of seven years, and the offender was finally convicted and sentenced to four months in prison, which served concurrently with a four-month sentence for burglary.

There are countless numbers of examples of our legislation, our current law and the way that it’s applied, failing our first responders, our corrections officers, and our nurses and doctors in our emergency departments. We have seen an increase not only in assaults across the board but also, most astonishingly, in serious assaults. Whatever is happening now, whatever legislation we have in place now, whatever sentencing regime we have in place now is not working. We need to draw a line in the sand and say this is unacceptable, and we need to protect our protectors. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill in this, its second reading. Now, National supports a tough approach on those who cause harm to our first responders. We’ve all seen, just recently, just how perilous life can be for our first responders, and what harm can mean—in the extreme. There are also so many occasions when our first responders—and indeed, in cases, corrections officers—are placed in harm’s way and do suffer less harm, but harm none the less. We do agree that that is wrong.

We supported this bill at first reading going to the Justice Committee, with some reservations, which I’ll touch on in a minute or two. I actually share one view of Mr Ball on this bill, or the Justice Committee, and that is that it’s deeply disappointing that the Justice Committee could not reach a position on the bill, driven in part, at least, because Government members on that committee refused an extension of time to properly consider the bill. Why was the extra time required? Well, because of the impact of COVID, the impact of COVID and the impact that that had—quite rightly, actually—on the work that was to be undertaken by parliamentarians. The Leader of the House, going into lockdown, told us that we wouldn’t be meeting to take care of non - COVID-19-related legislation.

In the case of this member’s bill, he was true to his word; it wasn’t true in the case that the committee’s time was spent dealing with prisoner voting. The voting record in the Hansard shows that New Zealand First supported that decision. But a consequence of that was that this bill didn’t get consideration over that time. When members on this side sought an extension for the Justice Committee to be able to have the time to seek a resolution on that, the Government members refused. What is more, I understand the member in charge of the bill was invited to present his Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) to that select committee and refused that invitation. So, as a result, we have a bill—

💬 Darroch Ball: I’d be very careful about getting the facts straight.

—in front of the House—now, that member, his party, has voted down every “tough on crime” member’s bill that this Opposition has put forward. They have put their closeness to their coalition partner, their cuddling up with them, above “tough on crime” for the public every time this term. So if he thinks we will stand here and worry about how he might vote on a bill later on the Order Paper, he’s got another think coming. He may not actually get a chance to speak on that bill when it does come up, because what I heard tonight, what I heard this evening, I think, was a valedictory speech from Mr Ball. It’s just a shame there was no public audience to witness it.

But, none the less, on this bill, we do support a tough approach on those that harm our first responders. They do so much good for New Zealanders; they should not be in harm’s way. Regrettably, they are. It is a wrong thing that they are put in that position to begin with, and it does warrant a seriousness in the way that those that do assault and injure our first responders should suffer a consequence for that.

In the first reading, we said that we had reservations around a minimum sentence. Regrettably, that wasn’t resolved in select committee. Because of that, the committee of the whole House becomes the stage where such matters should be and would need to be debated and resolved. So we will support this bill making it to that stage at least, because we think it’s a matter that needs to be resolved. But we’ll reserve our ultimate position to see just how the member in charge, and indeed members opposite, are open to constructive discussion in that stage, and—very possibly—possibly some amendments. We also want the opportunity there to scrutinise the member in charge of the SOPs because, as I say, he refused to present them to the select committee during the period that it was in front of that committee.

So, look, with those reservations, and with much to come yet—should there be enough votes to pass this bill tonight; it looks promising from the member’s perspective at the moment—with that in mind, at this stage we will commend the bill to the House.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. Otirā, e ngā mema katoa, tēnā tātou katoa. I’m pleased to take a call on the members’ bill, the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill, in the name of the member Darroch Ball. The bill proposes three things. It creates a new offence of injuring a first respondent or prison officer—and I want to acknowledge the Supplementary Order Paper that the member has mentioned in his first contribution tonight—under the Crimes Act 1961. It amends the Sentencing Act 2002 to require a minimum sentence of imprisonment of six months for those convicted of the new offence, unless the court considers that would be manifestly unjust. And thirdly, it expands the existing offence of assaulting a police, prison, or traffic officer in the Summary Offences Act 1981 to apply to first respondents. Can I just, from the outset, recognise the incredible job our first respondents do in this country: our ambulance drivers, our police officers, our prison officers. A day doesn’t go by that we don’t acknowledge the hard work that they themselves do and the risk to their safety they put themselves and their colleagues at.

The Justice Committee received 74 submissions on this bill: 53 submissions from individuals, and 21 from groups and organisations. Of those submissions, 41 supported the bill and 30 opposed it. I want to take the time for the House to just highlight some of the submitters that came before the Justice Committee and what they submitted to the Justice Committee. I guess the one I want to reference firstly is the New Zealand Law Society, which came before the Justice Committee and made the following recommendation: that they themselves consider the bill to be unnecessary and recommend that it not proceed, and if it did proceed, “we recommend the select committee seeks advice from officials and drafting assistance to ensure it is fit-for-purpose”. So the Law Society, in their submission to the Justice Committee, raised some really important concerns they had around this bill.

I want to summarise where I’ve come to in terms of being a Government member on this particular bill. The other submitter I want to draw the House’s attention to is the Howard League, who we all know do some amazing work in our prisons with prisoners, to help them in their reintegration. Their written submission to the select committee said, “We do not support this Bill. We believe that New Zealand cannot continue to invest in what may, in practice, amount to systemic vindictiveness. Our prisons are a glaringly dysfunctional foundation to our criminal justice system and continue to be moral and fiscal failures. Passing this bill will be an ill-placed step [forward].”

Labour won’t be supporting this bill for two clear reasons. It does introduce a minimum mandatory sentence, a piece of law that we don’t currently have in this land. The member himself also raised the running of the extra sentencing for injuring prison officers or corrections officers over and above, as opposed to concurrent. For Labour, I want to say, on behalf of the Justice Committee, we really took the effort and time to understand the bill and invited the member himself to attend the Justice Committee to seek some clarification around what part of the legislation or law is broken and doesn’t address protecting our first respondents, which I believe is at the heart of this bill, and which I totally support. But, unfortunately, this bill introduces, like I said, a mandatory minimum sentence, and there is also the second issue around compulsory cumulative sentences. So on that basis, Labour will not be supporting this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to start by acknowledging all of the first responders across this great nation of ours. These people do wonderful work in very selfless and sacrificial ways, supported often by friends and whānau who themselves make sacrifices and themselves serve through their loved ones being on the front line in the call of duty and, all too often, being injured in that line of service. I’d be remiss if I were not to acknowledge in particular those within my own electorate who do that. It’s somewhat an emotional point for those in West Auckland to be considering the subject of first responders and the protection thereof, in the light of the incident of a week or so ago in Massey involving Constable Hunt.

I’d like to acknowledge, as others have done, those who submitted to the Justice Committee. The chair has acknowledged them, and she’s right to do so. We heard from a range of different categories of those who serve us in that way, and it was appropriate for them to be heard in a very respectful manner, and I believe that that is the experience that they will have come away from the select committee with—again, entirely appropriately. The proximity of the word “Protection” and the phrase “First Responders and Prison Officers” in the name of the legislation itself indicates that serious consideration is due to the proposal of Mr Ball. I congratulate him for the intent underlying the bill. I think it’s a worthy aim that he brings forward to this House to protect, better than we currently do, those who put themselves in the line of fire, even literally, for the benefit of all fellow Kiwis.

If the question were simply whether we should do everything reasonable and possible within our power to protect first responders, of course the answer would be yes. This is important for a number of reasons. One is, simply, that it is the right thing to do. Another is that we can think about the effect of the danger in which we place first responders and prison officers in terms of recruitment and retention of women and men within those services. Actually, as the member points out in his explanatory note, we also impede the ability of such people to help others if they themselves are injured in the act of violence against them when they’re responding.

Of course, there are issues to be worked through in terms of the extent to which a bill such as this will provide effective deterrence or if it’s another aim, perhaps, of criminal justice that would be served. Suffice to note at this point, ahead of the committee stage, I think a couple of issues do deserve serious attention. One is the question of who is a first responder. That was a subject of some debate at select committee, and I note that the member has placed at least one Supplementary Order Paper on the Table that will provide a bit more guidance in that. We’re talking about particular services that would be affected or, potentially, the principle at stake of what kind of person, what kind of action, might represent first response such that the bill should capture it.

The chair of the select committee, wearing her hat as a Labour Party member of this House, has talked about the difficulties that were raised in relation to mandatory minimum sentences, and that’s, again, probably detail that we will look to get into at the committee stage and beyond. Actually, I’d also like to mention in that connection the distinction between concurrent versus consecutive sentences—an important one as well.

So, with that, I join with others in this House in expressing support for the aims of the bill. I’m looking forward to discussing the detail further. I will leave my contribution at this point, for now, on that note. Thank you.

I stand to speak on this bill as someone who’s just completed 41 years’ service in the New Zealand Police—the last 20 of it, I was the spokesperson for police officers in the form of the president of the Police Association. During that time, much of my work was concentrated in this area, with ensuring that those who are out there on a daily and nightly basis, protecting their fellow New Zealanders, do get sufficient protection. Of course, I do so standing here very proudly with the Huia pin, which I also proudly say that I was responsible for instituting; I didn’t design it, but it became quite apparent that there were various ways in which police officers and members of the public did commemorate fallen colleagues and fallen police officers, and bringing it all together. I see all members of the House proudly wearing this Huia pin over the last few days to commemorate the death of Constable Matthew Hunt and to remember him and just acknowledge his, and that of those who went before him, ultimate contribution made to New Zealand.

I also recall my own experience of, I suppose we’d call it, the best hiding I ever got in the job, just showing how quickly these things can come about. It was actually during an afternoon shift. I was called out from when we were at line-up. Myself and my colleague Constable Ross Lane were called to what was then called a “domestic” on Mount Victoria. When we arrived, there was a very drunk gentleman and two of his friends who had turned up to try and get hold of their child. I was thrown the child, and as I was holding the child, they set about attacking me, and I couldn’t do anything because I was standing, holding the child. I do remember lying there and thinking, “I wonder how this is going to end”, because I couldn’t defend myself. It was just one of those moments that, I suppose, anyone who’s been through it will actually understand that there are times when you don’t have control.

Relating that to what we’re here about today—on that occasion, the offender was arrested, charged, and spent some time in Her Majesty’s custody as a result. Generally, in my time, I found that where there were serious assaults on police—and I made a point of following up with the victims in that case—there was generally satisfaction with the sentence that the offender received. So it wasn’t something that, I have to say, was necessarily a major issue. Saying that, I echo those sentiments in the New Zealand Police Association’s submission that an assault on a police officer is actually an assault on something larger: on society itself.

Of course, this bill goes further than that. This bill goes forward to prison officers—or I see it’s going to be corrected to “corrections officers”. Also, I understand that there is going to be another Supplementary Order Paper to also include those who are working in hospitals—nurses, etc. This, sort of, really does increase the scope of the bill considerably. I think we need to go back to, I suppose, first principles. Really, what the difference with this bill is is a minimum sentence—it actually introduces a minimum six-month sentence. I think that’s what I’d like to focus the rest of my speech on, because minimum sentences have really brought about some of the most unfair decisions in courts. Like all these things, you have to be very careful that you don’t end up with a perverse outcome. The more you mess with sentencing, the more perverse an outcome you can get.

There was a member’s bill brought by one of the opposite members, Matt King, recently. It was to introduce another sentencing option around, I think it was, the one hit, the single hit, or the king-hit bill. Again, as I spoke then, all that was going to do was going to confuse things more. I reminded that member, Detective Matt King—a very good detective he was—that when he arrived at the Police College, as a young detective constable, having to learn the different sentences for wounding with intent, injuring with intent—there was a whole layer of different offences that, really, didn’t mean a great deal; they were, as it turned out, various offences that had been brought in at different times, similar to now, in an attempt to show outrage, usually following an event, and particularly with charges, you could find out what the event was that brought it about.

The reality of it is that the facts do remain the same. What’s important is that, when the judge sentencing is doing so, they have all the facts available. That’s really what the job of those bringing these cases before the court is; it’s to ensure that all the facts are known and the degree of the injury—because the reality of it is that for many of the injuries that are caused as a result of these, in my experience in the police, some of the more long-lasting ones didn’t really relate to the severity of the offending or the severity of the beating or the severity of the injury; it was the circumstances, often, around it. For many of my ex-colleagues who were forced to leave the police, often it was relatively minor incidents that actually brought it about. So just taking a simplistic approach to think that we’re going to solve it all is actually not the way that we really need to attack this. The important thing is that those making the decisions have all those facts in front of them. This is why I’m quite comfortable that we’re not going to support this bill any further.

I compliment the member Darroch Ball, who has brought this bill. I know the member means well. I know he’s doing this for all the right reasons. But, again, it may be somewhat a little arrogant to stand here and say that, having seen these things evolve over years, from being a young police officer, where our real protection was the uniform—the fact that we came from a society where people didn’t take on not only police officers but any authority figures, whether it be doctors, teachers, or judges. A lot of the protection came from the status of the position that you have. That has certainly changed as society has changed; so we do have to be a little bit more definitive. But the reality of it, again, is that I again commend what the member is trying to achieve with this. We all want to make a difference.

I do commend those members opposite. I think that the two speeches we’ve heard have been very sensible ones. It shows that they have been considered. I know that, although the Justice Committee didn’t report back, there were some very good conversations that did take place, and I think all those conversations came, really, back to that one point, which was that minimum sentence. We do not have minimum sentences anywhere else. I think that, if we’re going to cross that barrier, I’d like to see work done by the Law Commission and I’d like to see a lot more thought before this is done. We actually have what is going to be a whole new part of criminal offending. We’ve seen it happen.

I’ll tell you—minimum sentences. I know that our colleagues in the Northern Territory brought in a minimum sentence for any property crime, where you went to, basically, prison if you got convicted of a property crime. What they didn’t anticipate was a school teacher who was on her first weekend—she came up from up the south; I think Victoria—went out, got a bit drunk, and stole a bottle of whiskey from a bar. It was as much an act of bravado as it was anything else. As a result, she was going to be forced to spend a minimum amount of time in prison. They slowly revoked that.

So, again, let’s focus this on why we’re really opposing this. A minimum sentence—it shouldn’t be done. If we’re going to go down that path, which other countries have, it shouldn’t be done through a member’s bill; it should be done with far more thought, far more research than is possible in a member’s bill. Again, I compliment the member on bringing this, but I’m very comfortable that our party will not be able to support this bill beyond second reading. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s good to speak on this bill. I was a member of the committee for some time on this bill, with the Justice Committee—sadly, no longer a member—and I see that the committee has continued on when I left it in the last few months and has been unable to agree on—

💬 Greg O’Connor: One common denominator, Mr Bishop.

Mr O’Connor says, “One common denominator” and I will spare the House my comments and thoughts on that. That’s a bit of a shame, but it’s a split committee and often the committee engages in some robust, shall we say, debates. So it’s good to speak on this bill.

I want to congratulate the member Darroch Ball for advancing it—first drawn in May 2018; so quite some time ago now, just over two years. And as the member’s bill process winds on—and, of course, we had that interregnum of a year or so while Parliament was embroiled in—

💬 Chris Penk: Those were the days.

Chris Penk says, “Those were the days.” Well, I think you sort of get those opportunities for those moral issues maybe once in a parliamentary career, and some of us have gone through about two or three in the space of about three or four years. So it’s all very interesting. But we find ourselves just on the cusp of an election, finally considering the second reading of this bill. I want to signal that we think it’s a worthy bill and the approach of toughening the penalties for first responders who are quite literally in the front line of our fight against crime and mayhem is worthy of support.

We can’t help but comment on the sad death a couple of weeks ago of the constable in West Auckland, Matthew Hunt. I think all of us in the House will be reflecting on him and the police as we consider this bill, and I just want to put that on the record. It is true, of course, that there has been an increase in assaults against first responders, like the police and prison officers, which I know Mr Ball is concerned about, with more serious injuries occurring as a result. I want to signal that I’m supportive of the extension of the bill through Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 487 to insert definitions around emergency services workers and scene of emergency and my understanding, from talking to the member in charge of the bill, is that this SOP will extend the penalties to include our nurses. I’ve had some correspondence from constituents in the Hutt Valley supporting that extension, and I think it’s a worthy idea. I think, you know, so often our nurses are at the front line of dealing with some pretty tricky situations and there’s no real distinction, really, between a prison officer and a police officer and a nurse and those who work in our emergency services. So I think that’s a good step forward.

Like Mr O’Connor, I want to signal that I’m pretty cautious about the mandatory minimum sentence, which is SOP 219. I think we do need to be cautious about that in Parliament. We do need to be cautious about mandatory minimums. They can produce perverse outcomes. They can produce what we would regard as invidious outcomes in the justice sector. So we will consider that one, but I think we should be a little bit cautious on it.

But generally, it’s a shame the committee couldn’t agree on the bill with a report because it would have been good, actually, to see the report of the committee and see what the members on the committee thought about it. Because, actually, I know from my time on the committee there are some members with real expertise in the justice system—Ginny Andersen, who has worked for Police; Greg O’Connor, obviously, as well from the former Police Association and former police officer, some way back, to be fair, but still got that experience; and other quite experienced members on the committee. So it would have been quite good to see the report, but we will be backing it at second reading with those cautious notes, as I said, about SOP 219 about mandatory minimums. And we’ll wait and see and invigilate those issues in the committee stage of the bill when it comes up. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to begin by acknowledging and congratulating the member Darroch Ball, in whose name this bill comes before us today. I think it’s incredibly admirable, as everyone has said in the House today, his care and effort to protect first responders against violence and to protect their safety as they carry out some of the most important work in our communities—whether it’s policing, whether it’s working in our grossly overpopulated prisons, whether it’s as nurses and paramedics. I think we have seen across the House that there’s consensus across every political party, every member who’s spoken, and I’m sure every member of the apparently hung Justice Committee, that we do care and we do want to protect our first responders. There’s no place for violence anywhere, in any of our sectors, but particularly for those in those care industries or professions, rather. So it is it is an admirable job that this bill attempts to do.

But the Green Party, and we’ve said this before—we’ve said it so many times—we do want to protect our communities against violence; that is an important kaupapa to us. But we want to do that in a way that works and in a way that the evidence tells us will work. That is to say that deterrents from violent crime via increased sentences of imprisonment do not work. We had the Prime Minister’s chief scientist, the previous chief scientist, Dr Gluckman, undertake this as an area of focus and come out with that conclusion: imprisonment has failed. That’s what the evidence tells us.

So if we do care, we do want to take care of our communities, and we do want to take care of our first responders, we have to accept that we can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing while violent crime in particular remains steady. We know reoffending rates remain steady. So we’ve got to look at the evidence, and, as part of the Green Party, we do want to look at the evidence. We know that the majority of people we lock up in our prisons suffer from previously undiagnosed mental illness, serious mental illness, including a lifetime diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. We know that a vast number of those we lock up in our prisons suffer from head injury with really serious consequences as to the way they process risk, they process stress, and that contributes grossly to the level of violence that a person with that type of injury is likely to undertake in stressful situations like being arrested, like being taken into an ambulance while they’re stressed and injured. This is the kind of situation that our first responders are facing. This is what’s making them unsafe.

We know that, for young people who come through our justice system, 90 percent suffer from what’s called a serious learning disability. They’ve fallen through every crack; so they are frustrated. They are also likely to carry some of the mental illness that shows up in the later stats of those in our prisons.

Knowing those things, we know that we need to invest in the types of solutions that address those causes of offending. We need to invest in drug dependency rehabilitation. We need to invest in mental health care, in healthcare generally. There’s no reason for us to have people in our communities suffering serious brain injury that’s gone undiagnosed and untreated and for us to rely constantly, persistently, on the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, which is imprisonment.

We also know that our justice system is broken in a different way and that it targets disproportionately Māori and Pacific men. We know that that’s a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi and we know that we need to address that by supporting those communities in all sorts of different ways to prevent them from harm and from crime. That is, in housing, in education that’s inclusive, and in investing in jobs that are sustainable and meaningful.

This Government is committed to addressing crime and to addressing violence. We want to do it in a way that’s effective. We want to be brave as leaders of this nation to do things that aren’t all about politicians looking tough on crime. And I’m not saying that that’s what this member is doing, but we have had a history of that, where successive Governments and politicians have wanted to use the rhetoric of being tough on crime while our stats of actual crime, violence—whether that’s drug offending, whether that’s sexual assaults, whether that’s domestic violence—have remained steady. So we want to invest in rehabilitation. We want to invest in drug treatment. We want to invest in mental health care and in our communities to thrive so that levels of violence do come down, so that we actually protect our first responders. It is for that reason that the Green Party will not be supporting this bill at this reading. Thank you.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I didn’t want to interrupt my colleague, but I have a question of order in the House. We’re talking about quite a sensitive matter here, and I noticed the member Chris Bishop had his back turned to the Chamber for four minutes, had an incredibly loud conversation, and I found it quite disrespectful and disorderly.

The responsibility for what goes on in the Chamber is the presiding officer’s. I did notice the heightened level of conversation on both sides, to be frank. One of the other things that you’ve pointed out is—gosh, I’m trying to think of the correct word—more tradition than actual rule. However, it’s noted, and thank you for waiting until the end of your colleague’s speech. But, members, have a bit of respect for other members while they’re delivering their speeches, I guess.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill. I just want to acknowledge Darroch Ball for bringing this piece of legislation to this House—a piece of legislation which will create a new offence of injuring a first responder or prison officer with intent which has a mandatory minimum sentence of six months in prison, including emergency health and fire service staff and the offence of assault on police, prison, or traffic offences.

I just want to acknowledge that the issue that this member is bringing to the House is a very important one and, I think, particularly pertinent as we all remember Constable Matt Hunt, who was tragically killed in the line of duty only a few days ago. It reminds the public, and it reminds members of this House, and it reminds me, as National’s spokesperson for corrections, of the work that our first responders do, our corrections officers do, those on the front line in our hospitals, in our ambulance services, and how they go into situations that we would rather not go into and put their lives on the line for our safety and for our health and for our security.

So supporting the intent of this piece of legislation is what the National Party is doing here in saying that we back our first responders, we back our corrections officers, we back them in the work that they do, and when they face these circumstances of being assaulted on the job, that the law is there to support them and to say that there will be an offence. But, as has been highlighted by colleagues of mine and members on the other side of the House, the concern that we have over this piece of legislation is the fact that it puts in place a mandatory minimum sentence of six months’ imprisonment. There’s something of significant concern over that, due to the fact that this could be used in a variety of circumstances, whereby an assault takes place and the circumstances may not be one which would warrant such a sentence of six months minimum to be given.

There have been many examples of people who may assault somebody in a moment of rage or a moment of frustration, or a moment when they may be in difficult circumstances whereby a six-month sentence would not normally be applied by the courts. I do note that it is an aggravated factor already in sentencing that, where someone does assault a police officer or a corrections officer, that has to be taken into account already at sentencing. So we do have significant concerns over how this could be used and how it could impact on people in those circumstances. I do note the bill does talk about circumstances where, if a sentence of imprisonment would be manifestly unjust, it would not be applied, but that is a very high threshold. So we will be raising questions on this piece of legislation as it goes to the committee of the whole House, but, as I said, we do support the legislation in its intent. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

This is a split call. I call Ginny Andersen—5 minutes.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity for speaking on this member’s bill today. I’d like to acknowledge the member Darroch Ball for bringing this bill to the House. I know that in doing that, by bringing this bill, there was the good intent of really representing the best interests of our first responders in New Zealand. That was incredibly apparent to the Justice Committee when he appeared before us and spelt out the reasons why this bill had been drafted.

I know that there are ongoing issues that our first responders continue to have to deal with, and, in the most simple of ways, I think it riles human feeling and response, because it is someone trying to help another person, who is then, in turn, injured or hurt. That very sense in itself makes us feel that that is unacceptable. So I would like to acknowledge that, yes, there have been significant instances where first responders have been confronted with situations that are horrific and unacceptable. In my own family, I can say that we have had that. My husband, as a former police officer, was stabbed in the line of duty at the time before stab-proof vests were worn by members of police. He had to undergo surgery, and he survived, obviously. But what I would like to say is that, while this is a significant problem for New Zealand, the reservation I have is the method that is being offered to address this problem. I’ve always, in this House, stood and stated that simply increasing a prison sentence does not address the underlying factors that are causing the problem. In particular, a mandatory minimum sentence for such offending does not address the underlying problems that are causing this type of offending to continue to occur in New Zealand.

What does address this is increased funding and accessibility to mental health services. We know for a fact, when we look through the statistics, that the vast majority of offending against first responders is tied into mental health and drug and addiction and alcohol issues. It is people who are not receiving the support and help early on enough that are presenting in these situations of violence and harm to our first responders. So, by investing in better quality mental health, drug, and addiction services, not just in our prisons but also at our GPs—by rolling out the services available that David Clark has done—so that when you go and see your doctor there will be someone who you can speak to regarding mental health issues in your life, co-located in every GP, that is a step towards addressing this problem.

Also, by having better quality mental health facilities—and that is being done right across New Zealand, by increasing funding to DHBs to have better resourced mental health facilities in order for people to get help when they need it. It will also be achieved by increasing the drug and addiction treatment in every single prison right across New Zealand—instead of building a mega-prison, having that downsized to make sure we have specialist drug and addiction services on site that people can access easily and have the opportunity of making life-changing decisions when those opportunities are placed before them.

So I would like to acknowledge the member. I would like to acknowledge the good intent behind this bill and acknowledge all of the daily work that first responders continue to do in New Zealand. However, I cannot support this bill, for the very reason that it is not addressing the underlying issues that we discussed today.

It’s a pleasure to speak at the second reading of the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill, and we’ve traversed a lot of issues today, but one thing we can all agree on is the importance of first responders. And, again, on this side of the House, there’s been a lot of acknowledgments, and I want to echo that and thank all of our first responders, whether they’re front-line police officers, emergency services staff, members of the public, volunteers—whoever you are. First responders do a fantastic job and an important job in our community.

This bill, of course, we’re supporting at this stage. We have supported it up until this stage, and I won’t take too much of the House’s time other than to say that National’s position has always been clear, which is, look, if you do a crime, you seek the punishment for that, and all this bill seeks to do is to create a new offence for those that injure or have the intent to injure a first responder.

The specifics of the bill are around, of course, the minimum mandatory sentencing requirements, and that’s something that we do have an issue with on this side of the House and will be seeking some amendments, possibly in the committee of the whole House. And then, of course, there’s a maximum of up to 10 years’ imprisonment based on that offence. As I said, we’ve supported all the Supplementary Order Papers to this bill—the amendments to this bill—in select committee.

I do want to acknowledge Darroch Ball, the member who has raised this issue. It’s an important issue; so thank you to Darroch Ball, but also to the Justice Committee, of course. It’s a pretty entertaining select committee to be on, and there’s a lot of passion in that select committee. That’s it, from my perspective, at this stage. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

💬 Hon David Bennett: God, the Speaker is as bad as the Labour Party.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Hon David Bennett will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 Hon David Bennett: Withdraw and apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Did you do that properly?

💬 Hon David Bennett: Yes.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I don’t think so. Stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 Hon David Bennett: Withdraw and apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Thank you.