Henderson EmilyDr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): 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."