O'Rourke Denis: Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13757. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): The Government has introduced a number of bills that put the interests of children as paramount. An example of course is the Family Courts Amendment Bill which was recently passed. New Zealand First actually opposed that bill because we felt it had too many serious faults. Although it made the interests of children paramount in fact it lessened the circumstances in which a lawyer for the child would be appointed. So we felt that the Government had reneged on its own declaration about the paramountcy of the interests of children in that bill. But although New Zealand First did not support that bill we did support the principle of putting the interests of children first and we know that there is also cross-party support for this important principle.The Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill will increase sentences for offenders as a means of bringing home to them the need to protect children from the effects of their offending. That puts this principle into practice. So it is no surprise that all parties want this bill at least to go to the appropriate select committee for examination. All parties I am sure want to see something done about the problem that the bill seeks to address which is the exposure of children to criminal offending and to the psychological effect that this has on their whole lives one of which is to drag those children into criminal offending themselves in later life. Another recent piece of legislation is the Victims of Crime Reform Bill. This is supported by New Zealand First for the same reasons.New Zealand First and Asenati Lole-Taylor are promoting this bill to protect children from the effects of criminal offending. For too long victims’ rights have been ignored. The current Government legislation to reverse that situation will be well augmented by Mrs Lole-Taylor’s bill the Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill because although the victims’ rights are extremely important generally there is a considerable gap in the need to emphasise children’s rights in these areas. The particular focus of this bill is to deal with a by-product of offending being the effects on minors when crimes are committed in their presence and when they live in unhealthy homes because of the effects of crime especially the production and selling of drugs. So the bill in fact targets that area and especially where methamphetamine is involved. Offenders who allow their criminal activities to cause harm to children must have a much higher degree of deterrence by the imposition of much harsher penalties. Such criminals must get a sharp wake-up call that not only is the offending itself going to be punished but also if it harms children then that will cause a significant increase in the penalty. That is the purpose of this bill. It is a simple and straightforward measure. Even the dumbest criminal will understand it. Accordingly the bill will help to attack one of the worst-affected sectors of the victims of crime—New Zealand’s children.We in this House have a sacred duty to do all we can to protect children and this bill is one way of doing just that. The essence of the bill is in clause 5 which says that it is“an aggravating factor in the consideration of sentencing of an offender aged 17 or over for the crime to have been committed in the presence of a minor if the actions undertaken to commit the offence put the minor at risk of harm.” Although there is nothing in the law currently that would prevent a court from taking that into consideration as an aggravating factor they too often do not do so. So it would be much better if they are required to do so as a mandatory measure. This would advert the courts’ attention to the issue so that they do consider this consistently in sentencing. I congratulate Asenati Lole-Taylor on bringing the bill before the House. It is a small measure but it is likely to have considerable impact on the protection of children and I trust it will get the support it deserves.