Hughes GarethGARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to support this legislation to vote it to the select committee.Looking into it it's pretty astonishing that last summer near Wanganui somehow 1400 lambs were taken from a paddock. It's quite incredible because it would've taken maybe a couple of hours definitely involved a couple of trucks essentially happening in plain sight—simply staggering. I can understand why it is such a worry to rural communities. When you see the estimate of $120 million of costs when you take into account the isolated rural nature of many of these properties that have been discussed in this debate I can understand how it's a real worry to people living in rural communities.Looking into some Federated Farmers of New Zealand data what we can see is that as a response 38 percent of farmers have installed sensor lights 20 percent have gone towards security cameras and 35 percent have done practical things like moving their dog kennels to their sheds. On the other side of the coin we also know that 60 percent don't apply locks which I think is the New Zealand we all grew up in believe in and want to see going forward where you can have trust in your colleagues your citizens and your community—you can leave the gate open you can leave the door open and you won't get robbed.Now many dairy owners in urban communities are probably listening to this debate tonight and saying Well what about us?" because we've all heard the terrifying stories of dairies and other retail outfits that have seen violent robberies. We see retail data showing retail crimes in the order of $1.2 billion a year—a huge issue. So while we're supporting this bill to the first reading we have to make the case in the select committee why this should be singled out as above the other communities and I look forward to hearing from the member Ian McKelvie.What we haven't heard is the existing penalties and how they're ineffective. In fact I don't believe anyone's raised it. We need to make the case why it needs to be a specific requirement in the Sentencing Act 2002 because what I would point out is that there's about a dozen existing requirements in the Sentencing Act 2002 for example if the offence involved actual threatened violence; the use of a weapon; particular cruelty for example; was vulnerable because of any other factor known to the offender; the issue of premeditation; the nature and extent of the connection between the offending and the offender's participation in an organised crime group. Now I raise these because what we've heard in the arguments for why we need a specific livestock rustling penalty is that sometimes weapons are used—that's already in the legislation. Sometimes it's organised criminal groups—that's already in the legislation. Sometimes it's premeditated—that's already in the legislation. So we'll be asking the member and we'll be asking the submitters the Ministry of Justice and the select committee why we need to add a specific one.Now David Bennett raised the example of people taking avocados. Should we add avocado rustling as part of this? We heard it in the speech from that member. Dairy owners will be asking "Why aren't we included as an aggravating factor under the Sentencing Act 2002?" Now we're supporting it because we want to have that debate—little bit rich after the last debate we just had on the medicinal cannabis bill but let's have that debate.What I want to ask in that select committee is why existing sentences have been ineffective. We haven't seen evidence that extending the sentences harsher criminal penalties acts as a deterrent. When the evidence doesn't show that why would it happen in this case? So we look forward to the submitters appearing in front of the select committee. We are glad it's going to go to the select committee but the question this Parliament's got to ask ourselves is: is it actually passing an effective bill that's going to make a difference that's going to go above existing criterion legislation or really is it just about trying to look good?"