Goff Phil: Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goff Phil: Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 12 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5200. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 I have a copy of the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill in my hand and as the House will see it is paper-thin. It is one page—two-sided but one page. And I have to say that Supplementary Order Paper 14 is the same length but it actually has more substance and will make more change than the bill itself. 
Jacqui Dean 
: Oh harsh. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: No I want the member to listen to this and then the National Party can reply—if it has any reply but I guarantee that it does not. 
The Minister of Justice’s speech at each stage of this bill has barely gone 3 minutes and that is an indication that there is not actually anything in the Minister’s bill itself that will make a material difference in practice. It will not make a difference in practice. What actually makes this bill worthwhile is Supplementary Order Paper 14 introduced by Charles Chauvel my colleague because it does extend the sort of attitude that an assault on a police officer or a prison officer is regarded by the courts as an aggravating factor to other front-line personnel to emergency workers such as fire staff and medical staff. 
 I have to say that I am strongly in favour of that. When I spent a night—into the early hours of the morning or late into the morning actually—at Auckland City Hospital I was told by the doctors there that every Friday and every Saturday night their medical staff are subject to assault by drunken people. That is maybe something this House should consider when we are looking at another piece of legislation the Alcohol Reform Bill. So it is important to extend the sort of recognition to other people at the front line doing their job that Charles Chauvel’s Supplementary Order Paper actually does. 
But I want to come back to the regulatory impact statement. This statement as you are aware is produced by the Government’s advisers the Ministry of Justice. And what does that regulatory impact statement say? Well first of all it says that in certain circumstances legislation explicitly sets out that an attack on police officers or prison officers is an aggravating factor. For the worst offence for example the murder of a prison officer or a police officer there is not any fuzzy statement that the court “should take into account”. It directs the court. It makes it mandatory that the life sentence for murder must begin with at least 17 years. We put that legislation in and it is justifiable. If anybody kills a police officer or a prison officer in the course of their duty of course it is an aggravating factor and it should be treated as such. Further the Crimes Act makes specific reference to the use of firearms against an officer or an aggravated attack. 
But in the Sentencing Act we did not explicitly include that an attack on police officers or prison officers should be regarded as an aggravating factor. Section 9(1) of the Sentencing Act 2002 does run a list of factors that the court must take into account but it is not exhaustive. It does not specifically include an attack on police or prison officers. But section 9(4) of the Sentencing Act covers that. It says that the court may take any other aggravating factor that it thinks fit into account. That is what it says in section 9(4) of the Sentencing Act. And the Ministry of Justice in its regulatory impact statement says that because a factor is listed under section 9(1) does not imply that it should be given any extra weight by the court. In fact it says “there is no impediment to the court regarding the fact that an offence is committed against a police officer or prison officer is an aggravating factor under the current law.” It says it explicitly: the court can regard that now as an aggravating factor. 
Not only can the court regard it as that but also common law shows that the court is doing that. It is doing it right now. In 1985 there was the case of  
R v Tua 
. The judgment of the High Court set out something that I agree with completely. It described an attack on a police officer as “equivalent to an attack on the community because our police are the representatives of the community in the matter of law and order in society. They are society’s front line …”. So there you have in a case 27 years ago explicit recognition by the High Court that any attack on a police officer or a prison officer should be regarded as an aggravating factor and is regarded as an aggravating factor. So this bill does not change current practice. 
One has to ask why the Minister brought a bill into the House that does not change what is already happening. The Court of Appeal has backed up the High Court in this. It has emphasised the gravity of using serious violence against the police and it has upheld sentences that could be regarded as deterrent sentences. I worry about the use of that term “deterrent sentences” because as much as I have read of how sentences impact on criminal behaviour I have not seen any evidence that the sentence acts as a deterrent. Time will prove that this piece of legislation brought in by the Minister will not change the gravity of the sanctions imposed against offenders who attack police and prison officers because that is already an aggravating factor. They are already doing it. 
There is a whole lot more in the regulatory impact statement that makes the point time and again—time and again—that this bill will not change the practice. One wonders about a Minister who brings in a bill complete with a regulatory impact statement from her own department that says that it will make no difference. It talks about the “limited nature of the proposal”. It says that “Offending against law enforcement officers has long been taken into account as an aggravating factor in sentencing at common law.” It says that this bill does not and cannot direct the court to take any specific action. So my challenge to the National Government is that in bringing in this legislation where is there a skerrick of evidence in its own ministry’s regulatory impact statement that says that this bill will make any difference in practice? 
I come back to the statement that I began with: the thing that will make a difference is actually the Supplementary Order Paper that was moved by my colleague. It is not a practice in common law to take into account that an attack on an emergency officer a fire officer or a medical officer should be regarded as an aggravating factor. So that will actually make a difference. I congratulate my colleague on that and I acknowledge the good sense of the Minister in adopting that Supplementary Order Paper into her bill. I think she knows that the bill was empty of any substance and she grasped with great enthusiasm a Supplementary Order Paper moved by a Labour MP that actually added a little bit of substance into the bill. 
I have to say that whatever legislation we pass we have to ask how much difference it will make. Is there a problem? Yes there is a problem. The level of attacks on police and prison officers has been increasing in recent times and that is something that should be of concern to every member of this House. But I have to say that if you are looking to make a difference the fact that the Labour Government in its last term of office increased the police numbers by over 1000 actually made a difference. How many extra police officers did the National Government bring in in its last 3 years not including those who were funded in the 2008 budget? I will tell you: it is a handful—just a handful. 
 So if you are looking at a Government that actually makes a difference in protecting the police and increasing their numbers it is a Labour Government that has done it. If you look at a Government that respects the role of police officers and prison officers by giving them reasonable wage increases it is a Labour Government that has done it. What this Government has just introduced by way of police salary increases does not even meet the level of inflation. What the Labour Government did was bring in real legislation—the Sentencing Act the Parole Act the proceeds of crime Act—not superficial frivolous politically oriented legislation which is what this Government is about. 
I congratulate Charles Chauvel. I say we will support this bill but there is not a member in the National Government who can point to any evidence at all that what they have proposed will make a skerrick of difference in sentencing practice.