Walters VanushiVANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): 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."