Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill — Consideration of the Report of the Justice Committee

I move, That the House take note of the report of the Justice Committee on the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill.

I would like to take the first call on this particular debate.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order. Is this a second reading?

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No.

It’s right that the member points it out that this is a somewhat unusual situation, because as this bill has already had a second reading—the debate today is technically the consideration of the select committee report, rather than a second reading as such.

So as members will remember, this was initially a member’s bill in the name of Darroch Ball, which was voted on in support by National and New Zealand First, and I think ACT as well at the last Parliament, and that was then referred to the Justice Committee. That bill has subsequently been taken under the name of Mark Mitchell, and there have been some proposed changes suggested at select committee.

I would like to speak on behalf of the Labour members and as chair of the Justice Committee. First of all, I think it’s important to state to this House that every assault on a first responder or corrections officer is unacceptable. We support measures that will actually work in order to keep them safe in these important roles that they provide for our communities. We know, though, the way that this bill has been drafted is seriously flawed. In particular, we would like to point to the case in point of mandatory minimum sentences. And it’s good to have agreement by those members opposite who also agree that mandatory minimum sentences don’t work for a number of reasons. And members from the National Party spoke at length at select committee as to why they did not support mandatory minimum sentences—Dr Smith, I remember, was one proponent in particular.

So what was suggested by those National members in committee was to remove the provision in this bill that suggested that there should be a mandatory minimum sentence. The problem this struck was it didn’t leave much of the bill behind. So there were some proposed changes, but the majority of the committee felt that there was not really much left to the bill. So of the changes proposed, there was not enough left for it to carry forward, and that is why Government members did not agree to those proposed changes.

It’s also important to note that as the Justice Committee identified, our men and women in uniform are already provided for and given additional protection through sentencing law. And I’ll give credit to those members opposite, because I do believe, if I read my books right, that that change was actually passed under a National Government, and it currently lists assaulting a first responder or prison officer as an aggravating factor in sentencing. And so that already exists in law.

So the question is: what is this bill actually attempting to achieve? As the law currently stands, as stated, committing an offence against a police, prison officer, and emergency health or fire service personnel at emergency scenes is already an aggravating factor in section 9 of the Sentencing Act. So that means in current law the punishment for assaulting a prison officer or first responder in that instance would already be more severe than an assault in the same circumstances against any other member of the public. And I know that there were some issues raised about that in itself at select committee in submissions. Some of the personal ones I received as well were instances such as those in a convenience store or a 24-hour liquor store who are also put into great harm.

This bill therefore proposes to introduce a new, narrower offence—one for a kind of assault on first responders and prison officers when there are already ways the law can deal with a whole range of potential offending against these important people who protect our community. The established framework of an aggravating factor in the Sentencing Act also is a better way of addressing this issue, and it’s good that on that point there was agreement across the House—there was agreement that imposing that a judge must have a sentence would not work in that particular instance.

The other problem that Government members had had, particularly with what was initially proposed in this bill, was that the bill puts out of step the existing hierarchy of offending, and that is really problematic in terms of making sure there’s a weighting to the seriousness of offences in how they are, I guess, punished or provided for in the courts. So currently sections 188 and 189 of the Crimes Act are carefully formulated to provide a hierarchy of offending in cases of wounding or injuring people to take into account the offender’s intent, how much harm they intended to cause, and how much harm they actually did cause.

So I’ll provide an example to illustrate the point I’m trying to make. For example, an offender who intended to cause someone grievous bodily harm and injured them would then be charged with injuring with intent under section 189(1), which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Had the injury been caused by reckless behaviour or with intent to injure rather than grievously injure, however, they would be charged with injuring with intent under 189(2), which carries a maximum sentence of just five years in prison to reflect the lesser harm meant to be caused. However—and I’m sorry this is complicated, but once it’s unpacked, hopefully it’ll be clear—had the act caused grievous bodily harm rather than merely injury, they would be charged with wounding with intent under section 188(1), which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment to reflect that they intended more harm to be caused to the victim.

So this bill inserts a new offence into the Crimes Act, which is wildly, I guess, in lay terms, out of whack with that hierarchy that I have just outlaid. It disproportionately weights offending, so it causes a problem in the wider scheme of how we are weighing up offending. This bill inserts into the Crimes Act—and it would lead to, I guess, bizarre sentencing outcomes. Firstly, the new offence makes no distinction between recklessly causing injury and deliberately causing an injury—the maximum minimum mandatory sentences are exactly the same. So this could lead to quite strange scenarios where someone who recklessly injured a first responder could be imprisoned for 10 years—double the sentence for recklessly injuring anyone else, and massively out of step with the current sentencing and clearly unjust.

Secondly, the new offence has no regard to the level of injury caused, which could lead to even more bizarre outcomes. For example, if someone had injured a police officer with an intent, they could face a maximum minimum penalty of 10 years. If they caused grievous bodily harm to a police officer with intent, which is worse, they’ll be charged with the extent of wounding with intent, which carries seven years. So what has been done—the members opposite who are complaining about what they’ve agreed to have agreed that mandatory minimum sentences don’t work, yet they’ve come up with no viable alternative—no viable alternative. And so, in order to address the problems that were initially raised, this is not able to be completed.

So when we heard the submissions from those people who came forward before the committee—we received 74 in total. And one of the ones that were of particular interest is that they saw the reoccurring theme that we often get from the National Party that we just want to use increased penalties as a deterrent. This comes time and time again, and it’s deep in the National psychology, that if you increase a penalty that will somehow change the way people think and how they behave. And we know for a fact that that’s flawed ideology—it’s a deeply flawed ideology. So those who oppose the bill—and there were a fair few of them—generally regarded it as too punitive. They questioned whether the desired effect—which was agreed that we want to reduce the assaults on first responders—would be done by imposing a mandatory minimum sentence.

So the problem we have with this bill is that we agree with the intent of keeping our first responders and respecting them and supporting them, we do that wholeheartedly, but we question the fact that this bill is fundamentally flawed. There is now no core crux of what this bill was going to deliver, which we disagreed with, which was a mandatory minimum sentence. Now that that’s gone there’s nothing left. So therefore, the Government members and the members of the Justice Committee will not be supporting this bill to proceed.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s my pleasure to take a call on this Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill and the second report of the Justice Committee. I’ll address some of the points that were raised by the chair of the committee, Ginny Andersen, but, firstly, I just want to acknowledge Darroch Ball. Darroch Ball, of course, was a member of Parliament with the New Zealand First Party and part of the coalition that was formed between Labour and the Green Party in the last Government. Although Darroch and I sparred often across the House, particularly on justice bills, when I held the justice portfolio, I never for one minute doubted his commitment—

💬 Greg O’Connor: You call that sparring?

—his genuine commitment, to making New Zealand—

💬 Greg O’Connor: Open hatred—come on. Open hatred.

—and his community safer. When I hear the barracking coming from Greg O’Connor against one of his own colleagues that now is no longer in this House, it just probably reminds him and it could be a reminder to him that maybe they made the wrong decision in terms of who they went into coalition Government with, because Darroch has received no support from his former colleagues at all with either of his two bills that have come into this House. So I want to acknowledge him, and I want to acknowledge the policy intent that he always has, which is, fundamentally, to make New Zealand a safer place, and the community a safer place, and just acknowledge the fact that he has now taken up a deputy chief executive role with the Sensible Sentencing Trust and Jess McVicar, who in my view do tremendous work around advocacy for victims and their families and continue to work in that justice space.

I don’t understand the argument that the chair of the committee was trying to put up around disrupting the hierarchy of offending, because, ultimately, in our criminal justice system, the people that decide what charges to lay are the police. The police will do the investigation. The police will look at the ingredients that go towards the type of offending and the offence that’s been committed, and they’ll take all those issues into account before they make a very clinical decision around what charges will actually be laid and what charges are most appropriate and what charges they feel will have the most success or are most appropriate when they go into our court system. So I think that the argument around disrupting the hierarchy of offending is a moot one and doesn’t have any standing at all.

I want to acknowledge my colleagues who have done all the work on this bill: the Hon Simon Bridges, Simeon Brown, and the Hon Nick Smith, who sit on the Justice Committee. Around mandatory sentencing, we actually feel that there is a place for that at times, but the reason why we compromised on this—and we had a lot of discussion on this side of the House. It went back to the caucus. The reason why we made a compromise around mandatory sentencing is because we were committed and trying to do the best that we could in passing a bill that we think sends a very positive message from this, our House of Representatives, back to our corrections officers, our first responders, our nurses and emergency department (ED) staff, in saying that we recognise and we support you. Because the Labour Party and the members of the committee took a very strong stance against mandatory sentencing, we felt that if we moved on that, we made a compromise, and instead we put forward and made some changes around cumulative sentences, then, actually, it would take away the barrier, it would take away the argument from them around why they couldn’t support the bill, and they’d come in behind the bill.

But as you’ve heard with the chair’s speech tonight in the House, they still haven’t done that. Instead of getting on their feet and saying, “Yes, the mandatory sentencing now has gone, so, actually, it’s a bill now that we could support.”, they’ve got up and said, “No, the mandatory sentencing now has gone, so now we don’t see that there’s any value in the bill.”

💬 Simeon Brown: It’s a shocker.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Shocker.

And I’ll tell you why that’s a shocker—I’ll tell you why it’s a shocker. Because she was right: as of today, an assault on a first responder or prison officer is actually treated as an aggravating factor at sentencing. But this bill goes a lot further. This bill actually makes it an offence to assault a first responder or a corrections officer. That is a big change. That is a significant change, this House saying, “Yes, it’s good to have it as an aggravating factor—there’s no doubt about that. We’re going to take a step further. We’re actually going to make it an offence now, something that someone can be charged with.” I just find it very, very puzzling, when I hear my colleague and friend Simeon Brown on his feet just about every day in his role as our police spokesperson and corrections spokesperson, highlighting the disturbing increase of assaults on our police, on our corrections officers. I’ll tell you what: it’s not always immediately visible, and it is actually hidden away, to a certain extent. It’s probably even under-reported.

But you know what, I do want to talk about our nurses and doctors and the medical staff that work in our emergency departments, because if you go and visit an ED on probably, sadly, now just about any day of the week, but certainly on a Friday or Saturday night, you’ll see them dealing with people that are under the influence of drugs. You’ll see them, the people that have been involved in assaults and domestic violence, that have often injured themselves—they end up in the ED. In my own time as a front-line police officer, I grew to have a very deep respect and admiration for them and the way that they were continuing to try and help and treat and do the best for someone that often was hurling verbal abuse at them, was assaulting them, whether they be minor or whether they were serious and major assaults.

Actually, this bill was sending a really positive message to them from this Parliament. It was saying that we recognise what you do for us. We recognise what you have to put up with, what you have to deal with. When most of us leave home to go to work, we like to think that we’re going to go to a safe environment, an environment where we feel safe. Actually, a lot of these nurses, they don’t. They leave home, when they’re working on the ED—and even some of them working in the wards now, sadly, because even if you go to North Shore Hospital, you’ll see a very strong gang presence in a lot of those wards. They aren’t always safe.

Actually, us representatives—and this puzzles me every single time, when Labour take a position against these types of bills, that we have an opportunity as representatives of this House to say that we ask those corrections officers to go out there and do a job for us as a country. We ask those police officers to work at night to keep our communities safe. We need those ED nurses and doctors and medical staff in there, caring for and looking after people when they come through. Even our fire and emergency personnel, the volunteers in my own electorate—often they’re faced with the same situation: they’re put in situations where they’re dealing with aggressive, violent, drunk, and drugged individuals. The one thing that we could have done as a Parliament—the opportunity that we were given by Darroch Ball with this bill—was to turn our minds to it, was to put it into the select committee process, was to make some changes to it. The changes have been made—the changes, actually, that the Labour Party and the Labour Government asked to be made. They’ve been made. There is no excuse now not to support this bill. You know that they’re waffling.

💬 Hon Louise Upston: Why aren’t they supporting it?

They aren’t supporting it because it’s disrupting the hierarchy of offending, which—I don’t know if anyone back home even knows what that means. I’ve got no idea how that applies to this bill. Because I’ll go right back to the start. In terms of disrupting the hierarchy of offending, I’ll tell you—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I think it’s the hierarchy of the Labour Party.

Well, that’s very true. They’ve obviously been told what they’re going to do with it. The reality of it is this: when the charges are laid, the police decide what the appropriate charge is—not the judges, not us as parliamentarians or legislators. It’s the police that decide what charge is going to be applied. So to stand in this House—and I feel sorry for the other Labour speakers that are going to stand and respond to this, because they’ve got their speaking notes and they’re going to get up and say the same thing. They’re going to say, “Oh yes, we didn’t like the mandatory part of the bill.” We’ve taken that out. Simeon’s put a very good Supplementary Order Paper in around cumulative sentencing, which we think goes a long way to actually sending that very positive message out there to our first responders. But they’re going to get up and they’re going to say, “The mandatory piece has been taken out, but, actually, now there’s no substance to the bill.” Yes, it’s true. We are creating an offence, and, actually, that’s substantive. That’s important—that is important. But they’re going to say it’s disrupting the hierarchy of offending. Define that for this House and explain it to—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

I stand not as a member of the Justice Committee but as a huge fan of first responders, and also as a lawyer with high regard for jurisprudence and the integrity—and also as somebody who has experienced firsthand the impacts of extremely violent crime, and yet I refuse to take the stance of lock them up and throw away the key.

I recently attended the St John Ambulance awards with my colleague Dr David Clark from the Dunedin electorate, also with the Mayor of Dunedin, Aaron Hawkins, and myself—it showed the regard that we have for St John as an organisation. We were watching people receive awards for five years, for 10 years, for up to 45 years of service, and I have stood in this House to tautoko them and to advocate for more funding for the incredible work that they do. For first responders, the work they do is not just work; it is a vocation, and we leave our lives in their hands. I have the highest respect for them, and that is for all first responders—the police, fire, prison officers, and the ambulance. But I do take offence to the minimum sentence of six months’ imprisonment. It is seductive, simplistic, us-and-them politics, it is populist, and what it does is it seeks to differentiate between categories of people. It doesn’t address why these assaults happen and, importantly, it won’t prevent them happening in the future.

I have experienced the fallout from very violent crime. I shared a very personal story of my own on Facebook last night, and I want to thank all the people who have given me their support for that. As I was leaving the building, I saw a van with the words “Grouse Lighting” on it, and it brought to mind an event that I haven’t thought of for quite a while. My ex-boyfriend, Paul Anderson, was violently stabbed to death by the killer Graeme Burton. Graeme Burton was locked up, and when he was out on parole, within months he went out and he killed again. As much as the hurt is there for the family of the other person that Graeme Burton killed, and for all of the victims of Graeme Burton, I know firsthand that locking him away and throwing away the key with no rehabilitation, and creating us-and-them categories through our corrections and through imprisonment and our justice system, simply does not work. If it did work, I would support this motion, but it doesn’t work and I won’t go over the reasons why we believe it doesn’t—it’s already been traversed very capably by my colleague, Ginny Andersen.

What I will do is just really support the police, tell them what we have done, to reassure them that we are supporting them, that we are supporting first responders, and there are many things. We have a strong record in supporting them, we’ve invested $450 million into the police since we came into office. As a result, the total workforce for the police is the largest it has ever been, it has surpassed 14,000 officers. We’ve already delivered on our commitments of 1,800 new police officers, and we are well on our way to meet our growth target of 1,800 over five years.

Last year, the police launched the Frontline Safety Improvement Programme, and that has six work streams to boost safety. These are training, valuing front-line responders and their whānau, equipment and capability, command and control framework response models, and operational safety systems. May I also, at this point, commend the St John Ambulance for resisting pressure to not introduce double-crewing. Double-crewing was going to be an expensive option, but they chose to do it because it is the right thing to do for their workers, around worker safety but also around first response incidents, so tautoko to them. The programme that the police have launched with front-line skills will give 1,200 constables with at least two years’ experience an extra week of training this year, and it will aim to improve their tactical and operational skills. They have also had other work being delivered, including safety reminder videos, increased tactical training at the recruit level, and greater scenario-based cognitive training and de-escalation techniques.

De-escalation is what we must be looking to for all of these incidents involving first responders. I know that I have family members who have been assaulted in the course of their work as medics, as doctors, and as nurses. They do not agree with this offence, because of the way it creates an us-and-them scenario. Ginny Andersen has pointed out the hierarchy of aggravated factors in offending, and she has also pointed out the fact that aggravation can be taken into account in sentencing. We don’t want to become a society that just slaps mandated sentences on to groups of people because we think that’s an easy sticking plaster for the conditions that create these situations in the first place. The conditions that lead to offending are complex, they involve lots of whys, they involve lots of equity issues, and there is a mechanism for the judges to look at all of those facts and take all of those facts into accounts when sentencing. That is the correct approach.

When we start to create categories of offences like this, even with the changes around cumulative sentencing that have been proposed by National members, it doesn’t allow the judiciary to do its job in terms of taking into account the full set of circumstances in that particular case. It forces us to lump groups of offending together, and to start to make assumptions about members of society that fit populist politics and that make for easy solutions. There are no easy solutions when it comes to criminal justice. They are complex situations that we need to look at, both in terms of how we respond with the criminal justice system but also the preventative measures that stop people from doing assaults in the first place and getting themselves into those situations.

So as tempting as it could be for people to think that this is a nod to our first responders, this proposed legislation, it really isn’t. It is a way for the Opposition to continue to create a divisive society, a society that creates gangs of us and them, they even use the word “gangs”—the last speaker did in his presentation—and it doesn’t lead to inclusion, it doesn’t lead to social cohesion. We know that societies that are not inclusive ultimately end up with more crime, less security, less productivity. We, in the Labour Party, are about an inclusive society. When we look at people, we look at them as individuals with equal rights, and we then look at their behaviours. We don’t lump them into categories, which is what the Opposition is trying to do. The fact that the Sensible Sentencing Trust has earned the participation of the member that previously supported this bill makes me even more secure in the fact that I would not want to support it. The Sensible Sentencing Trust themselves take a very punitive approach to the justice system. So, for these reasons, we cannot support a bill that is divisive, that plays into populist politics, that tries to create an us-and-them mentality, that doesn’t have merit, that has not been able to be corrected despite two processes through the select committee, and that when you take out the mandatory sentencing element of it, really, doesn’t have anything left to offer this House. I cannot support this bill.

It’s good to take a call on this bill. I just want to start firstly, though, by acknowledging that the parliamentary cricket team played a game of cricket in Hamilton, I think it was. And I just want to acknowledge the member for Hamilton West over there. I wasn’t on the field, I wasn’t there, but I understand that he was instrumental in the team winning in the weekend—and I just wanted to say that.

I do want to talk about this bill, though. It is an interesting bill. I want to start by saying that the member for Taieri, I think it is, gave possibly the most namby-pamby, soft-on-crime speech I’ve heard in a decade. She fundamentally said, “No, look, if someone injures an ambulance officer, we actually just need to kind of understand them and be nice to them and that is somehow going to solve it.” Look, I’m all for rehabilitation and reintegration, but that kind of namby-pamby, soft-on-crime approach does not work.

We support this bill with amendments, Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) which we would, at the committee of the whole House, put forward to make this, I think, a good bill—and that is our proposal.

I just want to make four or five points in the eight or nine minutes I’ve got. The first is that it is—despite the namby-pamby, soft-on-crime speech that we’ve heard on the other side of the House—right to create an offence for injury of first responders and prison officers. I think the best point the other side could make is, “Well, actually, it’s already an aggravating factor at sentencing.” So if you are sentenced for assault, for assault with intent to injure, for assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, or what have you, well, in those instances that it was a first responder would be an aggravating factor at sentencing—and it might be an uplift, a relatively small one at that.

But I want to say this to the other side as to why this offence is not only desirable, actually it is necessary: because signalling in criminal law really matters. We have another bill before the Justice Committee in relation to insane offenders—that is the legal terminology—who are not guilty by reason of insanity. Well, what we heard from, I think, in the end, actually, hundreds of submitters in that case, was that that nomenclature, that naming of the verdict in that: well, it was offensive to them. It was, effectively a revictimisation for them—not guilty by reason of insanity—and they want a name change. The signalling matters, and it matters here, as well, because first responders and prison officers deserve—for their loyal, hard service in our country—formal recognition by Parliament of that critical public service. Yes, we can thank them, but, actually, we should do better than that; we should try and help keep them safe with deterrent sentences in the courts. We have that opportunity to do that in this bill.

I would also say, look, as an element of an offence—which we are doing: we are creating an offence here where it is an element of the offence that it is a first responder or a prison officer; in fact, it is wider than that, but I’ll come to that point—it will mean that offenders in these situations, and I make no apology for this to the soft-on-crime people on the other side of this House, do receive higher, more condign, deterrent sentences. And that is actually right because what they are doing is wrong. We need to see harder sentences in this area because it is getting harder and harder, worse and worse, for first responders—whether they be prison officers, policemen and policewomen, you name it.

If you don’t think I’m right, Simeon Brown told me a remarkable series of facts that he has worked out through his work as a member of Parliament: 92 percent; there has been an increase of 92 percent of prisoner assaults on corrections officers in the last three years. Right? In the last three years, it has gone up 92 percent. And those requiring medical treatment in our prisons—that is the prison officers who have been assaulted—it is not as high as the 93 percent; it is up 33 percent, and all the while, Stuart Nash, the prison population has dropped 15 percent. So the numbers have dropped, but the assaults and the harm on officers is worse. Who would want to be a corrections officer in this country today? And, actually, the union is making that point clear with their vote of no confidence in the Minister of Corrections.

That’s not the point of this bill. But I simply make the point: actually, it is right to have this offence; the symbolism of it matters; these are people, great New Zealanders working hard for our country; it is dangerous; it is getting worse for them on their ground, as I’ve demonstrated, and we need this offence.

The second point I want to make is that we support extending cover to a wider group of public services. And if we have the opportunity, we’ll have an SOP that does that so that it is not just first responders of a certain kind, a strict kind, and prison officers; we would extend this to police officers, to general practitioners, and the hospital staff that work in critical Public Service roles. I know from long experience that for so many of these people, it is dangerous.

I remember a jury trial in Pukehina, I think it was, it was a murder trial, the ambulance officers were the first people on the scene, they turned up, there was a bit of a crowd, it had been a party, someone had been stabbed to death. As the ambulance officers got out to try and assist, they were spat at and kicked and punched. And by the way, that is not uncommon. That is happening as a matter of course around New Zealand—I’m not exaggerating to say—every single day. First responders are treated like crap by scumbags in the country, when they are trying to save people’s lives and do the right things.

So I say—quite clearly, actually—we should extend coverage in this bill. That is the right thing to do here. We have that opportunity if this bill were to pass.

Thirdly, it was New Zealand First and Darroch Ball, as we’ve heard, who proposed a mandatory minimum sentence. We don’t support that. Most of National are against that in principal, full stop. I’d say judges, if I can put it this way, are squiffy, as a general rule of thumb when it comes to mandatory minimums. They think that and say that it gets in the way of their discretion when it comes to sentencing. I do just want to say this: I think, on occasion, mandatory minimum prison sentences are appropriate. I think that constitutionally it is entirely within Parliament’s remit to pass them on occasion. Sentencing and what prisoners receive in court is constitutionally the right of Parliament, not just the courts. And if I can name-drop, for a second, at Oxford, the foremost expert in the area of sentencing around the common law world, Professor Andrew Ashworth was quite clear on that. I do think there are occasions—not in this bill—where mandatory minimums are the right thing to do.

Finally, we do support cumulative sentencing for this new offence. As I say, the good New Zealanders who work so hard in this area in dangerous, difficult jobs, seeing people at their worst, turning up to crimes, in our emergency departments, in our prisons with the most dangerous New Zealanders—sadly there are, and, sadly, these days, a lot of Aussies, as well—they deserve deterrent sentences in this area.

In the last minute or so, I do want to say—I haven’t prepared this; listening to the speeches of the Labour Party members, I feel somewhat obliged to do it—why on earth would the Labour Party vote against this bill? Well, is it because they don’t value first responders? Is that why they do it? They sneer on the other side, but, actually, when they’ve got a good bill before them that would help protect first responders, result in more deterrent sentences, I just wonder. I think the ultimate reason is this: the Labour Party of New Zealand is soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime. They actually think, like the member for Taieri, that if they sort of hug a hoodie, if they go along and have hui with patched gang members, that somehow is going to make things better. Well, we know that rehabilitation, reintegration, and setting people up in the prison system for success on the way out is the right thing to do. But you also have to sentence them and make sure they realise—and are punished for what are terrible crimes that make Kiwis less safe.

I rise to speak, unfortunately, against this bill. As a member of the Justice Committee, I can’t support this. I want to start by saying I have been a prosecutor. I have spent my life working to improve the efficacy of the criminal justice system, and particularly to make it more possible for the police to bring difficult sex offence cases through the court successfully. But I can’t support this bill. I want to start by taking a moment to just think about the range of services that our first responders do give us. Recently in Whangārei, in our office Kelvin Davis and I were just starting our first meetings when the tsunami warning sirens started, and we all had to evacuate. And out along the street were our police, out in our communities were our voluntary fire brigades, were our civil defence emergency responders, our hospitals geared up. The response was instantaneous and it was, frankly, magnificent. I would particularly like to call out the wonderful services that were done by our volunteer fire brigades in Onerahi and in Waipū who not only helped to evacuate many, many schoolchildren, but then fired up the barbie and actually cooked the sausages donated by local businesses that made it possible for the teachers and the early childhood educators to keep those many, many little kids calm and happy. Our first responders do an extraordinary job. We all know it. We all honour them for it. But this is not the way we protect them.

I am actually really disappointed because it seems to me that my first few months in the House have involved a series of bills coming from National where they are, essentially, the criminal justice equivalent of a sugar hit. They are empty calories of a response. We are talking about bills that again and again and again propose a solution in search of a problem when the criminal justice system already provides a more than adequate response to the problem. They are sound and fury signifying nothing, and I, frankly, find it difficult that the House is asked to spend its time on things that don’t need fixing, because we already have a solution. There is so much more to be done in the criminal justice sphere, and we are busy talking about creating an offence where, as a prosecutor I know perfectly well, the courts are already capable of taking into account this offence and this behaviour and making proper judgments as to how to weight it.

So I want to turn first to the question of just what is already out there. What is it that makes me say we just don’t need a separate offence? And I want to take you to section 9 of the Sentencing Act, because it is section 9(fa) that states that if the victim is a constable or a police officer acting in the course of their duty, that is an aggravating feature. And then section 9(fb) states that if the victim was an emergency health worker or fire service worker acting in the course of their duty that is also an aggravating feature. We are already capable of dealing with this problem on behalf of those vital members of our society, our first responders. And what’s more, the point of having them as aggravating features rather than as a discrete offence—and particularly this offence, but I will come to that. The point of having this as an aggravating feature means that we actually are able to cover the full gamut. So not just injuring with intent to injure. Why is it not possible and why is it not relevant to the member opposite, for example, that a constable is assaulted in the course of his duty or her duty? Why is it not relevant to the member opposite that a constable is threatened with grievous bodily harm or even a threat to kill? These things are not covered. Apparently the only thing that matters is injuring with intent to injure. The beauty of treating it as an aggravating feature is that it gives the judge that flexibility. Now, I will come back to that point of flexibility so I would like you to hold on to that thought, because I really take issue with Mr Bridges for what he said earlier. Flexibility in judging is one of the beauties of our system.

So the point is we already have the ability to take cognisance of the fact that the victim is a first responder delivering vital service to our society. We already have the ability to do it in a far wider range of circumstances than the current bill under discussion would ever allow us to do it. It seems to me that when we have so much to do for our poor country, so many things to clean up and to fix, here we are essentially making work. This is empty calories. It may make people feel good. It may provide them with this idea of—I think Mr Bridges called it a signifier. He called it “signalling”. It signals, unfortunately, nothing.

I have never met a police officer in the course of my reasonably lengthy career in criminal justice who asked for a separate offence of attacking an officer. I have never met a nurse or a doctor who asked for that sort of response. What they ask for is that we make real change. They ask that we look at the causes of offending. They ask that we look at giving them, for example, more colleagues to work with. They look for the fact that we have more police officers. And thankfully, I am part of a Government that has, in fact, provided the biggest police force we have ever had in this country. I meet doctors and nurses, for example, emergency consultants who say what we need to do is provide more support for our vulnerable members in society so they don’t end up in these situations. I’ve never had an emergency consultant come to me and say, “Please put me in the Crimes Act, Emily.” It is a mystery to me that we are being asked to spend our time on this.

But one thing I have been asked to spend time on is the hierarchy of offending, and this is the second way in which this particular bill is simply not going to achieve what it needs. The hierarchy of offending, and we’re talking sections 188 to 192 or so of the Crimes Act, sets out a scale of offending that starts at the most serious and goes to the least serious. So I think if you consider what a common assault is—I wonder if it is worth just taking a moment to remind the House of what an injury and an assault and a wound, in fact, are. Because an injury simply means—an assault is a touch. It may not have any physical impact whatsoever other than a touch. An injury leaves some sort of mark, but it may be very transitory. A red mark from being grabbed is considered an injury. A wound is when you break the skin, that level of greater seriousness, and then you get to grievous bodily harm (GBH) and you’re talking broken bones and serious injury.

So there’s two elements to this hierarchy of offences. One is that it is based on the seriousness of the injury. The other is it is based on the culpability, on the mental element. And these are the two ways in which this particular offence really doesn’t do justice to anyone. First, it completely conflates reckless or unintentional offending and actual intentional offending. And for some reason, both of them are given exactly the same sentence. The second point is it doesn’t pay attention to the actual seriousness of what’s done. It leaves the bizarre possibility that we could end up having a police officer who has suffered GBH, whose offender is charged with GBH and who gets a sentence of seven years, while his friend who just got a red mark on his arm, his offender’s sentenced for 10 years. This is just a nonsense.

The final nonsense—and I really want to get this in. The final nonsense is the idea that this would ever be a deterrent. There are studies after studies after studies. Deterrence only works if you’re thinking about the offence before you commit it. Deterrence works for white collar criminals. Deterrence does not work for people who are not thinking, who are in the middle of a scuffle or an affray. Deterrence doesn’t work for them. This bill, this offence, is candy for the mind.

Kia ora. Tēnā koutou katoa. Well, I learn new things about this job every day. Tonight, I learnt that if both our spokesperson and the back half are not here, the person on duty gets to do the speech. So I apologise, actually, to the House that I stand to take a very short call without the experience and research that I would normally like to bring to any topic that I stand here to speak on or that my colleagues would have brought. So I will be very succinct.

Number one, we absolutely support our first responders for the incredibly important and life-saving work that they do. We must look after them and acknowledge the role they do. I also honestly hope that we pay them well enough for what they do.

Number two, as my colleague Emily Henderson, who just resumed her seat, said, all the research shows that mandatory sentences do not form a deterrent—they do not.

💬 Simeon Brown: They were removed at select committee.

Thank you.

💬 Simeon Brown: We’re talking about cumulative.

Cumulative, so there you go. This is again—

💬 Simeon Brown: Oh, you don’t like those either?

Thank you for the clarification. Any kind—whether it’s mandatory, whether it’s cumulative—of higher sentencing disproportionately affects Māori and often Pacific Island people as well.

The Greens accept the work of the Justice Committee. I know that we work very hard on the Health Committee and we work generally in consensus, so it’s concerning to me, then, that the select committee wasn’t able to bring something to this House that we could all support. But we cannot support this bill going forward. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and it’s a pleasure to be able to take a call on this bill. Can I just start by acknowledging those who have put this bill together: a former MP from New Zealand First Darroch Ball who chaired the Transport and Infrastructure Committee that I sat on. I know that he was passionate about all things related to things like this and he’s not here but I acknowledge Mark Mitchell for taking this forward. Also, I put an acknowledgment in for the Justice Committee. I know they’ve looked at this bill twice over. I’m not a member of that select committee, but I know there’s been a lot of work and rework on that to ensure the best possible outcome could be achieved.

Unfortunately, as the House has heard, on this side of the House we will be opposing the bill and you’ve heard many good reasons. Part of this, the inspiration for me, has been that previous colleagues have talked about why we are opposing this and one of the big impetuses for this has been when I heard my colleague from Whangārei Emily Henderson, who really—and I want to sum this up as a “prevention first” mantra. As she said, she talked about if we wanted real change, we would be looking at the causes of offending first. They’ve been summed up, unfortunately, by some as us being soft on crime. I reject that, because those comments, in my view, they lack authenticity. When I hear that it’s a slogan, it’s unreal, it’s not true, it’s inaccurate, it’s almost cheap, because the bottom line—and I know that the police have this as part of their value system—is prevention first.

So what are the causes of offending: very much to stop the old ambulance at the bottom of the cliff approach. And what a slogan—I mean, “ambulance at the bottom of the cliff”, because this very much is that; it doesn’t address the root causes. It doesn’t do anything deep. It doesn’t really do anything other than what—sometimes I think, you know, and I don’t want to discredit the member who brought this forward, but maybe it was just easy to put this back in the box and to get this through. I’m not sure.

But we also heard that we’ve got some big numbers. I reflect, just on Sunday, I was at one of the largest community events in New Zealand being Newtown Festival and there you get a really good experience of our first responders who are there in action, be it the St John Ambulance service—obviously in Wellington here we have Wellington Free Ambulance as well, but St John Ambulance do the event services part of the operation here in the city. We also saw the fire guys and the extent of the parade stretches right up to Newtown fire station, for those that know that part of Wellington, and you see them. And very much one thing I like about both of those entities is the effort that they put in for education. I think often education and responding in that way is seen as soft. And I look at so many cases where if we just simply took some time to educate people around some of these things and maybe then you wouldn’t get the outcome or the crime that comes. To call that soft is really unfair to those first responders because they don’t deserve that.

The police were there, a small crew—estimate for 100,000 people. I know our police department really well. I know the four: there were two constables, senior sergeant, and an inspector. I know them well. To have only four tells me that it’s a community that they feel safe in. And also our Māori wardens, I feel they take an active role through the Maori Community Development Act. They have the respect and mana now that goes well beyond just dealing with our Māori communities; much more in dealing with communities in general. They know the whānau and families and I treat them as first responders also. But I knew I was probably going to be speaking on this and I observed them closely during the—it seemed like a lifetime I was there, but 12 hours standing on my feet at that festival. I was thinking, “What would happen if anyone did try to do anything to them, apart from the community responding and saying and preventing anything, hopefully, too bad?” But this bill reminds you of how they would feel.

I relate the conversation back to my colleague Emily Henderson, who really said, you know, “I don’t think this would be the sort of thing that they would want. They would want more resourcing.” And we see that with the police service now where we’ve got more police, be it sworn or unsworn. I mean, on that side of the House, let me tell you this. They’d always want more human resource, whatever—sworn, non-sworn, any bits and pieces, dare I say it, that make their lives easier. But this would be the last thing on their mind. I don’t think they would go to work thinking, “Thank Christ, we’ve got a piece of legislation there that will help us if anything goes wrong.” That’s not their kaupapa. They are there to help people and serve them, and if things do go wrong, they’re there to simply do their job—and I think without asking them, I must say, because it’s our role to facilitate these outcomes on their behalf. And with my many years of knowledge working with each of these organisations—even, dare I say it, and the previous speakers have spoken about nurses, too. We’ve got a hospital there in Rongotai. We’ve got the emergency department and observing our nurses and our medical staff in action, I think this would be the last thing on their mind. What they would like to see is more resource, more effort, more equipment, and, luckily, this is a Government that cares for core public services and those resources are and will be available.

When I look through some of the detail, I think a lot has been said, and I’m just going to reinforce some of the things that have been said. I want to reaffirm to those who may be listening here tonight—those first responders are probably out working or taking time off or resting from their shifts—but any assault or any misdemeanour on a first responder, regardless of role, is completely unacceptable. I think the select committee—I know and I had a lengthy chat with the chair, the member for Hutt South, Ginny Andersen, saying, “Why? What happened here?” Why did this not get through, despite having a lot of work done to it in terms of what she said to it going through the select committee process twice? So how does something go through a process twice and still not get to an outcome where both sides can agree? And that puzzled me. That puzzled me. I thought, “Hold on a minute. How did we get to that?” And I thought then, “OK, so we’ve got to that stage. It’s still coming to the House and it will come here knowing that we will oppose it. And why was that?” And I thought. “Because the amendments that were put forward, they still didn’t address the significant issues that this bill should have addressed—the fundamentals that we’ve heard previously.” I thought, “Well, that could have been better with extra work, but hei aha—that’s how it is. So I come back to that fundamental around saying: what, I guess, with a prevention-first approach is the need for this? I can’t see it. Madam Speaker, kia ora.

I stand before you tonight in support of this bill for our first responders, and I’d like to, throughout this speech, address some of the comments that have been made from across the floor, but I’ll start off in the first place with just a couple of points from the ACT Party.

One is that we think this bill sends a powerful message that we support and wish to look after our first responders, and when I hear of going to a festival and there being lots of people around and we cannot imagine whether or not we’re going to see somebody assault a first responder, I’d like to tell you that it probably doesn’t happen at festivals, with a lot of people around. What we see on the reality TV programmes is that it’s happening late at night; it’s happening where there’s only a few people. What I’m hearing from my colleagues next to me is that there’s a nurse that got head-butted. It’s too late then to actually jump in and help that person. What I’ve heard of is a niece of one of our members, a nurse, who has been punched in the stomach. Again, it’s too late to do something then.

I don’t see this as being a deterrence; the ACT Party sees it as being a consequence to the actions that somebody takes on one of our first responders. And, while I hear from across the House where they say St John Ambulance don’t want this or first responders don’t want this, that’s not what we’re hearing when we’ve been lobbied, especially by the prison officers. I’d like to commend the National Party for the three Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that they put in, because the ACT Party was quite prepared to support those and actually see them as a really good compromise to the issues that the Labour Party had brought up during the select committee process.

I too sit on the Justice Committee. One of the questions, actually, that was asked was, “Do we need to create an offence?” And the answer to that is, actually, yes, we do need to create an offence, to show that there will be a consequence to the actions of going after one of our first responders. We also had made the point of saying in the select committee that we needed to extend this so that the first responders included the GPs, included the doctors, the nurses, the fire response people, and also the prison officers—the prison officers who, National have already told us, are living with a 92 percent increase in violence that is occurring within the prisons. They are looking for support, and we would like to support them. When I heard from the member from Taieri her sad story, I tautoko her story but I also heard her say that she has a high regard for St John, and I wonder: how can you have a high regard for any organisation but not for their safety when it comes to discussing looking after them as first responders?

I also heard the other side talking about us wanting to lock up the offenders and throw away the key. Now, I’ve not seen in the first bill or in any SOPs anything at all to say that we were wanting to lock them up and throw away the key. We want to see a consequence to the actions of going after one of the first responders. We’d like to see the support from this Government to all of those first responders. And I’ve seen heads shaking over there. I’ve seen the Labour Party actually talk about wanting to create other solutions so that we don’t have people wishing to attack the first responders, when the reality is, from where I’m sitting, you’ve had four years to actually get into that and make some positive changes and it’s not occurring. What is occurring is an increase in the violence that is occurring to our first responders.

We are hearing about other solutions that are needed but haven’t been told exactly what those solutions are. So I am going to factor in that it’s probably that we need more mental health help, we need jobs out there, we need people in homes, and people are just getting frustrated and they’re attacking others, and this is where we need to make sure that they know there is a consequence to that. To have no support of this bill is actually to not support the first responders, and we need to do that, because there’s actually a failing in the other issues that are causing this response. So we need to do something in the first instance for them. To ensure that a general practitioner, that his nurses, that Fire and Emergency, that our constables, that our prison officers are actually held in high regard does mean that we need to pass a bill to help protect them, and it does send a message that this Government actually values the work and the effort that they put into our communities.

And, further to that, I have four children; three of them are girls. One of them is studying to be a doctor, another one is studying to be a nurse, and the third one, when she leaves school, will become a paramedic, and I want to make sure that my three daughters are protected, that society will have the same respect for them that everybody in this House says that we have, by introducing a piece of legislation that will help protect them. So it’s disappointing to hear what’s happening from the other side of the House, but ACT will support National’s Supplementary Order Papers and we would have wished that this bill could have gone further in order to support those first responders, those that are there now and those that will be there in the future. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I stand here as a someone who, before I came to this House, spent 41 years and nine months as a police officer, 21 years of them on the front line. I acknowledge my colleague Mark Mitchell across the way, who spent a little bit less time than that. I also acknowledge those of my ex-colleagues who are out there. Someone mentioned they’ll be starting just heading off for night shift tonight, many of them, not knowing what’s going to happen. That’s one of the reasons why probably many of us liked joining the police—that sense of better work stories and not quite knowing what’s going to happen. It’s certainly a job that I found very fulfilling over those years.

I also stand here as someone who got a good hiding when I was in the police. Like all police officers, there were always a few scuffles and various other things that took place. But the one decent hiding I did get, like many assaults, came out of nothing. It was a Wednesday afternoon, called to a family violence—it’s called now; then we called it a domestic—in Mount Victoria. A male had come around to try and kidnap his child. When we got in there, without going too deeply into it, I ended up having a baby thrown to me, which I ended up holding on to while I was attacked by three gang members, and I couldn’t do much about it. I was eventually able to get one of the neighbours to take control of the baby, and we were able to then retaliate. But that was one of those experiences that—and I’m sure Mr Mitchell sitting there, and any police officers listening tonight—anyone who’s been in the police will all know, as there’ll be prison officers, as there’ll be those who have worked in emergency services. They’ll all have that one moment where the violence of the moment really—I suppose it was a bit of a loss of control at the time.

But, as in many of these cases, the offenders in my case ended up spending some good time care of Her Majesty, as almost invariably these cases do. Even now, of course, in the Sentencing Act, it is an aggravating feature to assault a police officer, a prison officer, or indeed an emergency worker. So it’s in there. Generally, also, when I was a member of the Police Association, when there was a sentencing after one of our officers had been assaulted, I always made contact to see if they were happy with the sentence. Generally they were, because almost invariably those people—particularly after serious assaults, there was a long prison sentence involved. I won’t say everybody was always happy and would like to have seen—particularly the people who probably were the least happy were the partners of those who had been assaulted. I found that they were the people who really probably were more angry on behalf of the partner who had been assaulted than the actual person assaulted themselves. So I bring that up to give some context, some personal experience.

Also in my last period before this job, I worked in the Police Association and spent my time getting the protection that police officers in particular need. I realise this is broader than just police officers, although I was pleased that by the time I finished, prison officers were able to avail themselves of some of the things that we’d achieved for police, initially being—OC spray was one, tasers, vests, even digital radios; all things that did all work to make our people—as, I suppose, the society changed, and more surveillance of what—and also, I suppose, even the size of police officers changed. Again, not all police officers look like Mr Mitchell and myself, who locked the scrum in Waipū on Friday night. But, obviously, the police should be reflective of the society that they police, and that ensured that they did represent people of different sizes. So what was obviously necessary was to ensure that where perhaps the physical presence wasn’t quite enough, therefore it was compensated for by the tasers, by the OC spray. So there’s some balancing out necessary. So things do evolve.

It’s a little bit like having spent most of my career as a detective, something that—Mr Mitchell, as a dog handler, never probably made those lofty heights. But he will sort of mention that detectives probably didn’t work at night as much as the dog handlers, but we had to learn a little bit more. One thing that I did do is also train detectives at the same time. One of the things that always confused young detectives that came through when we were training them was this whole area around assaults and trying to define what was the assault. It used to be that we would set questions. How we’d train detectives is we’d do what we call a criminal liability, where you’d outline a situation where they would have to go through and determine what offences had been committed. Of course, the basis of every offence is an intent, and where there’s—in establishing any case. Mr Bridges was here before. As he will know, having been a very good Crown solicitor in his day, you don’t really take—with the exception of a few cases where there is strict liability, and they are relatively few, you do need to actually establish an intent in all these cases. So, of course, what you’d be then asking, having established there was an intent to assault, an intent to do whatever—that was always an important part of the offence—then you would start breaking down, and you’ve heard some of the previous speakers talking about the hierarchy of offending. That hierarchy of offending was determined by the intent and by the injury. Most of it was overly complicated and remains overly complicated. My belief is more discretion by, shall we say, well-trained judges is probably what the system—under certainly, clearly, the necessity for guidelines.

That was why, initially, when I was on the very-hard working Justice Committee—good to see my ex-colleagues over there, still beavering away and obviously doing some work on this bill to try and probably revive it, I would have to say. That would be the only way I could say it, because it was quite clear that it was a bit of a bill with a solution looking for, probably, the problem, because it wasn’t going to make any difference.

I think as legislators here, it’s very important that when we do—passing laws is really important, and we’ve always got to know why we are doing it. So when we’re standing in this House—that’s why the legislative process is quite a complicated one. There are many who speak to—probably many of us before we came to the House. “Why don’t you just pass a law to do this?” We’ve all heard it in our electorate offices: “Why don’t they just do that? Why don’t they just do that?” Well, we are those “they” now, and when we get here, the first thing we realise is that we actually owe it to make sure that by time a piece of legislation does leave this place, it is a good piece of legislation—a good piece of legislation that is going to do what it’s intended to.

I just refer to the previous speaker, Nicole McKee. She actually was quite surprising and revelatory, her speech, where she said she didn’t see that this legislation was going to have any preventative act or element to it at all—quite surprised me. She said it was all about retribution. And yet at the same time, she said she’s got three daughters who are going to be going into the field where, actually, these—and good; congratulations. They’re going into the field. Yet she had just said that they deserve the protection. But, actually, this wasn’t, as she said herself, going to provide them with any protection because it wasn’t going to stop them being assaulted in the first place. Actually, I’ll quote—she actually said it was actually all about a consequence, not a deterrent at all. So anything we should do should be about making sure it deters.

Actually, one thing all criminologists to the left, to the right, to the top, to the bottom all agree with is actually that the best crime prevention measure, the thing that actually determines whether they will commit a crime or not, where there is any intent, is actually a belief that they will get caught. That was what, when Mr Mitchell and his dog van would turn up—a belief that they would get caught would be, actually, a thing that would determine their behaviour. So, actually, by Ms McKee’s own admission, any legislation like this wasn’t going to actually provide or prevent the assault, which she very honestly—I think it was very insightful and honest of her to stand here and say that: that it was all about, for her, making sure there was a consequence for that action.

Well, I can reassure her that, actually, there are consequences. While, as I say, particularly partners of those assaulted are often not happy with the sentencing, generally my experience has been where there’s been the sort of serious assaults that this legislation has been geared towards and was pointed towards, there’s never been a shortage of ability—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

This bill comes down to a simple principle: that this Parliament owes a duty of care for the ambulance officers, the firemen, the police, the correction officers, and the doctors in A & E that every day keep our community safe. I am appalled at the hand-wringing that we have seen from Government members refusing to provide those good people with the protection that they deserve.

I’m actually appalled at the sort of evidence we heard at the Justice Committee. Let me give you one: 90 percent of the doctors and nurses that work in our A & E up and down New Zealand have been physically assaulted in the course of providing care for New Zealanders. That’s a disgrace. The very people that provide the care—regardless of people, whatever violence they’ve been caught up with—are assaulted in their job. Let me give you another one: since Labour’s been in Government, there’s been a 92 percent increase in the number of assaults against our corrections officers. These are the people who actually put their life at risk to look after some of the nasty, bad people in society that pose harm. And, again, I say this Parliament owes those corrections officers the basic principle that if you assault, if you beat up, if you hurt those people who society requires to be there on the front line—that we’re going to protect them and the members opposite won’t. It is as simple and as blunt as that.

When I hear the Labour members opposite talk about principle—let’s talk about what happened to this bill. When it was a New Zealand First bill and they needed New Zealand First to put them into the Government, they supported it, but when it’s a National bill, suddenly, they flip-flop and they’re opposed to it. Their opposition to this bill has got far more to say with the petty politics that I’ve seen almost every members’ day in the term of this Parliament. When National members sponsor good bills, Labour are so narrow-minded and petty that they oppose it regardless. That pettiness was exposed in the select committee. Members on this side of the House heard the evidence and proposed amendments that would make the bill better. Labour members of the committee admitted the amendments would make the bill better but voted against them. Well, I think we owe a duty as members on select committees, whatever the bill is, to make it the best possible bill. Members opposite are like robots for the executive and will just do whatever they’re told, even when it breaks their basic principles.

I look forward to engaging with the ambulance officers, the policemen, the corrections officers that get weasel words from members opposite. When it comes to voting in this Parliament, these guys are more interested in backing those that hurt our people on the front line. I say to members opposite: have a damn good look in the mirror. This is one of those occasions when Parliament needs to not speak but act in favour of backing those public servants, those volunteers in communities from Kaitāia to Bluff who put their life and their work on the line to protect society. I’m proud to be part of the National Party, that knows right and that’s prepared to back these good people and is prepared to send a very clear message to the community of New Zealand: that you don’t beat up on those people on the front line.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I have just a short call this evening, but first I wanted to acknowledge, like many others have in the debate tonight, those people in our communities who are working on the front line to protect our communities. I stand here tonight and acknowledge the many cousins, friends, and people in our community who are part of the ambulance service, who are part of the fire and emergency service, who are in the police, who are corrections officers, and who are in A & E. I am related to many; many are my friends. I would not stand here in this House and deliver a speech which I don’t believe to be true, that I believe is going to protect those members of my whānau, of my friends, and of my community.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why did you vote for it at first reading?

Now, I want to correct something that Dr Nick Smith said. Let’s correct the record, because anybody listening might take what you just said as the truth. It is not. Let’s go back to the beginning of the process. Yes, we supported it to first reading. If you go and look at the Hansard debates, you will see in those debates that we had concerns and—

💬 Erica Stanford: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The member just said that my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith had said something that was not true, and I understand it to be a breach of Standing Orders to claim that a member has wilfully misled this House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I thank the member. It is up to the member concerned to take a point of order on that.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Indeed, the member said just that and also breached Standing Orders in respect of referring to you when you were distracted.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I ask the member to withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Willow-Jean Prime.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to make it clear and put it on record for anybody who might be confused by the prior contribution that, yes, we did support this to first reading, but we noted our concerns with the member’s bill in those debates. We supported the first reading because—and let me say—we believe that the issue of ensuring our first responders are protected is important, so we wanted a select committee process—we wanted to hear submissions. But I say we noted that we had numerous concerns with the bill.

So when it went through that process—when it went through that process; when we heard the submissions; when we looked at what things might be done to rectify the situation—we could not support it at second reading. We were not confident that our concerns had been addressed. So it proceeded because National, in fact, supported it. It is an unusual case where we have had two select committee processes on it. We reopened it for submissions—we heard further submissions.

Now, I wasn’t a member of the committee in the last Parliament, but I am a member of the Justice Committee in this Parliament. One of the things that has been highlighted by many of the speakers on our side of the House this evening is that once you remove what really was one of the fundamental proposals in the member’s bill—which was mandatory sentencing—it really doesn’t leave much to achieve in terms of this. Why is that? The other side would have you believe that we don’t want to support our first responders at all—right? But we actually already have legislative provisions to be able to weigh that into the consideration of sentencing, and the appropriate people to do that are the judges. They already have the ability to do that; they do not need this piece of legislation to give them the power and the ability to do that. That already exists. When you take one of the main proposals out of the member’s bill—which was around mandatory sentencing, which the other side also doesn’t support—then it really doesn’t leave much else.

I am confident that what already exists in the legislation will support our first responders. The judges are able to take into consideration the aggravating factors when determining sentencing, and therefore our side of the House—the members of our select committee from the Government—do not support this bill.

I do want to just finally acknowledge that many of those who we are talking about tonight will probably not be tuned into this debate this evening because they’ll be undertaking their good work, but I do not want it to be misunderstood or misconstrued.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on this piece of legislation. I’ve been sitting here listening to this debate, and I’ve been listening to the Government members of this House give what I think is a slap in the face to our front-line officers, our police officers, our corrections officers, our nurses, our doctors in emergency departments (EDs), our paramedics, and I am appalled and I am very disgusted—disgusted—by this attitude of this Government.

The Government has refused through the select committee process to help to improve the bill. Select committee is meant to be there to help improve the legislation. This Government got in the way and did nothing. And I haven’t heard one single suggestion tonight as to how they are going to make it any safer for the front-line officers and the front-line first responders who put their lives on the line every single day to protect New Zealanders and to keep them safe—not a single suggestion. All they’ve said is the current legislation is fine. Well, I ask them to say that to the nurses and the doctors, the corrections officers who are seeing a 92 percent increase in assaults by prisoners—92 percent increase in assaults under Kelvin Davis’ leadership; that is unacceptable. And there’s not one single suggestion that they’ve brought to Parliament tonight to try to solve that problem.

Actions speak louder than words, and actions speak a lot louder than the crocodile tears I’ve heard tonight. I’ve heard stories about, “Oh, I met this first responder the other day.”, or “I was at this event down in this suburb of my electorate and I saw how amazing their work was.” Well, I’m sorry, but actions speak louder than words, and actions speak a lot louder than these fake crocodile tears, which I just think is absolutely disgusting.

I firmly believe that victims should be at the heart of the criminal justice system. That’s the National Party’s view—victims should be at the heart of the criminal justice system. And I’m not going to stand here in Parliament and make excuses for criminals and excuses for people who bash up front-line officers—I’m not going to stand by and make excuses for them. The New Zealand Police Association in their submission on this piece of legislation made it very clear: it is not in the job description of a police officer to be assaulted in the line of work that they do, but it’s happening far too often.

The Corrections Association of New Zealand would say the same thing: it’s not in the job description of a corrections officer to be assaulted in their line of work. They work in the most dangerous environment, working with the most dangerous people, and it is not in their job description, and they are being assaulted more and more often. Not only just being assaulted—and some people listening might be thinking, “Oh well, that’s just a bit of a bruise or a bit of a clip around the ears.”—the number of corrections officers who have had to received medical care has increased from 162 to 292 per year under this Government; an 80 percent increase in the amount of Corrections Association staff requiring medical treatment. And we hear the Minister trying to downplay these assaults and saying, “Oh, well, we’re trying to encourage more reporting.” Well, you might be trying to encourage more reporting, but there’s more people being assaulted more seriously. And he tries to say, “Oh, well, the number of serious assaults is not going up.” Well, it’s pretty serious if they’re needing medical treatment and taking time off work. There were corrections officers that I’ve met who’ve had to have serious time off work, operations, all sorts of procedures done so they can get back to work, and then it’s the emotional stress and the emotional strain which comes later afterwards. And I see the Police Association talking recently about post-traumatic stress injury, and the injury which is caused from these traumatic events.

We have to also recognise the seriousness of this. That’s why this piece of legislation is so important. It’s important because it does make a difference. And I’ve heard the Government members try to downplay this piece of legislation to say, “Well, it literally doesn’t do much—it doesn’t do anything.” Well, I’ll tell you what, it does two things—two very important things. Firstly, it puts in place a specific offence, so if you assault a corrections officer, police officer, an ED doctor or nurse, or a paramedic, there is a specific offence that you will be charged with for committing that crime. And they say, “Oh, well, it’s already an aggravated factor at sentencing.” Well, it might be for some of them, but it’s not for the nurses. Patricia, who’s been emailing some of us, watching from her home in the Waimakariri, she’s been telling us it doesn’t fit for her, and this is another reason why this piece of legislation is needed. It sends a very clear message that as Parliament, we will not accept these people being assaulted. It sends a very clear message that there should be a deterrent sentence, and that people who do this should be punished.

And some people say, “Oh, we shouldn’t be sending people to jail.” Well, this Government has a goal of reducing the prison population by 30 percent, and I wonder if that’s the reason why they don’t want to vote for this bill, because actually a few more people might go to jail.

💬 Hon James Shaw: Point of order, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Point of order, Dr James Shaw—Hon James Shaw.

💬 Hon James Shaw: Thank you. I aspire to a doctorate one day, Madam Speaker. This is the earliest opportunity I’ve had to ask this point of order—it’s just taken me a while to look up the Speaker’s rulings. I just wanted to ask you to clarify the ruling that you made before when you asked Willow-Jean Prime to withdraw and apologise in relation to two points, one of which was that she had used the word “you” and drawn you into the debate, and the other was that she had said that a statement by Dr Nick Smith was untrue. And I wanted to ask you which one of those two things you were asking her to withdraw and apologise for, because I’ve been checking—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you, I think I understand the point of order that the member is making—the member will resume his seat—and the member, you’re quite right, took a point of order. I ruled that Dr Nick Smith had risen to his feet and had taken offence, and that is why I asked the member to withdraw and apologise.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And a reminder to members to take points of order, I guess, when the issue actually comes up.

But the point here is this bill does two specific things: the specific offence, which actually recognises the importance of the work that these people do, and it is an incredibly important piece of work that these people do. And I was talking about the fact that maybe this Government doesn’t want these people to possibly go to jail, because actually they want to reduce the prison population by 30 percent, and the Green Party signs up to that goal too. This Government is namby-pamby when it comes to actually taking action against people who cause serious offences.

The second point is it puts in place the ability for a judge to have a cumulative sentence, and this is most important to those corrections officers who get assaulted in their day-to-day work by a prisoner who might be on remand, and then what happens? They go before the judge with an additional charge of assaulting a corrections officer, and the judge has to use the totality of the offending, and there’s no actual additional punishment for that offence. In fact, it’s essentially a free punch on a corrections officer. And these are being caused particularly by gang members. We know 60 percent of the assaults on corrections officers are being caused by gang members. The Mongrel Mob turned up to Parliament the other day and told us how they’re just such a kind, betterment association. Well, actually, in January, 16 of the 51 assaults on corrections officers were caused by Mongrel Mob members. They’re not a group of people who just want to be kind and caring. And so there should be a very clear message sent: there are no free punches in the prisons against corrections officers, and that’s what this piece of legislation will do.

This piece of legislation is incredibly important. I am proud to be supporting it. I’m absolutely disgusted at the arguments put up by the other side—the crocodile tears about their support for front-line officers, but they will not do the work and actually put their words into action, and that’s what we as politicians are elected to do, and the Government and the Green Party have failed.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to rise at this late hour and take a call to speak to the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill. This is, of course, a bill that has come through the Justice Committee, of which I am a member. As we’ve heard tonight, there was a majority committee recommendation on this report in favour of taking note of the report, but not in favour of the bill progressing. I do want to acknowledge that there was an alternative view, but, unfortunately, that view still left us with a very unworkable bill.

I am a new member of the Justice Committee, having been elected last year, and one thing I’ve noticed, just comparing it to my experience in sitting in other committees, is that it is a highly emotive committee because of the nature of the issues that come before us. They are often issues that we deal with that are about harm done to individuals. I think, because of that, it requires an emotive response—and as it should, which is why we should be sitting there, hearing those important submissions that we heard on this bill. And then we have an obligation as lawmakers, a responsibility, to reflect on the principles of law that we are setting in place in this House that should pay respect to the principles of criminal law—they are principles about proportionality, about responding to the needs of individual perpetrators, but also individual victims. It is about taking a four-tiered principled approach to crime, which, yes, it does include prevention; yes, it does include punishment, as my colleague Nicole McKee spoke to earlier this evening; it does include community safety; but it does also include rehabilitation. In this House, we have an obligation as lawmakers to consider those principles. That is why the scale of offending and the scale of sentencing is critical. I’ll come back to that.

Given I am the last speaker, I will very quickly recap the key features of this bill which amend three separate Acts: the Crimes Act, the Sentencing Act, and the Summary Offences Act. As others have traversed earlier this evening, the big change was really that creation of the new offence of injuring a first responder or prison officer with intent, the requirement of a minimum sentence being imposed of six months for those convicted of the new offence, and requiring that any sentence of imprisonment be imposed cumulatively on any determinant sentences. I do acknowledge that there was an alternative view in that respect that agreed with the majority view removing that minimum sentence. I will speak to that later. Thirdly, there was the expansion of the existing offence of assaulting a police officer.

So in terms of our process at the Justice Committee, a few of my colleagues have mentioned that we received 74 submissions. I actually just wanted to reference a few this evening as I speak to why I am opposed to this bill progressing. I wanted to first reflect on the submission of the Law Society, and they said this: “The desire to offer greater protection to first responders and prison officers while on duty is understandable. It is however not necessary to amend the criminal statutes to achieve this objective. The Crimes Act and Summary Offences Act already contain specific criminal offences for assaults on police and other responders, and the Sentencing Act 2002 expressly recognises the status of the victim—police and prison officers, and emergency health or fire service personnel at emergency scenes”. This was section 9(1)(fa) and section 9(1)(fb) of the Sentencing Act that the Law Society were referencing. So we do already recognise first responders in our legislative scheme. Simon Bridges from across the floor referenced the fact that we needed to signal that this was wrong; this is the signal. It is already there. So it doesn’t add in that respect. We already have the signal.

But what it does create is an inconsistency in terms of the basic principles of criminal accountability. It doubles the maximum penalty for one type of assault—injuring with intent to injure—but not for other assault offences. That leaves a huge inconsistency in terms of the law, because offences not only need to be proportionate to the crime—and this is just in response to my colleague Mark Mitchell from across the floor, who wanted a further explanation to this. So it is not just that the sentence needs to be proportionate to the crime, crimes also need to be considered across the board so that there is consistency between life offences. So doubling an offence like this because of the nature of the victim would be extremely unusual in terms of criminal principles. It wouldn’t be unusual for it to be an aggravating factor, which it currently is, but it would in terms of doubling the offence. So in terms of the inappropriate outcome in this respect, injuring a first responder or a prison officer with an intent to injure would be considered twice as bad in terms of penalties. So that is the hierarchy in comparison. That doesn’t sit right in terms of criminal principles.

Now, the other issue is mandatory sentencing. I wasn’t going to speak on this, but as Simon Bridges has raised this as an issue that he believes should sit within parts of the criminal law, I do think I should address this. There are no offences for which a court must impose a minimum mandatory sentence. The proposal for a mandatory minimum sentence is a significant departure from principles of sentencing in New Zealand, so that is except for the crime of murder. That is the only time when a mandatory minimum sentence is imposed. It is a significant departure. JustSpeak said this well in their submission to us. They said, “Mandatory minimum sentences necessarily increase incarceration—the human rights issues and overcrowding in the prison system in the United States of America, which pioneered … mandatory minimum sentence[ing], should be a salutary lesson to Aotearoa New Zealand.”, which I completely agree with. The Howard League also echoed that to us in their submissions, as well.

So I do think that, in terms of mandatory minimum sentences, they are absolutely a disproportionate response, and there are other commentators who make similar comments but expand their arguments against minimum sentences, including that they focus on particular kinds of offences which mostly tend to have an effect on a certain category of individuals, as well; that they often impact the nature of bargaining when you are going through a criminal trial, which can sometimes confound that process as well; that putting people in prison, obviously, costs money; that there is little policy of evidence; that it prevents further commission of crime; that it doesn’t benefit the victims; and that there are alternative ways of having a more effective way to address criminal sentencing.

I would also like to comment on the proposal around cumulative sentencing which stayed in the alternative proposal that has come to the House today. So section 83 of the Sentencing Act actually already provides for the court to impose a cumulative sentence if it considers it appropriate. So to add this to another offence would, again, change that balance or the assumptions of whether a cumulative sentence is appropriate or not. At the end of the day, we have allowed judges to make decisions about what the appropriate level of sentencing is, because they have a closer view of the offender and of the victim and of the nature of the crime. Cumulative sentencing ties their hands in a way that is actually unhelpful to preventing further offending.

Lastly, I would just say that I think the motivation behind this bill is good. I think it is about deterrence. But deterrence is about more than just increasing sentencing; it is about addressing the causes of crime. It is about increasing support to our police, which this side of the House are absolutely doing. So thank you for the opportunity, again, to speak to this bill, Madam Speaker. I cannot commend this bill to the House.

Members, before we come to the votes on this bill, I’ll let you know that there will be two questions put, which has been agreed by the Business Committee. The first is about the House taking note of the select committee’s report. When we’ve dealt with that, the second question is on whether this bill should proceed. So the question is that the motion be agreed to.

Motion agreed to.

The question now is, That this bill now proceed.

This bill will not proceed, and will be withdrawn from the Order Paper.