O'Rourke Denis: Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 12 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5199. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First has always put the safety of our police and prison officers as a high priority so we will of course support the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill and with some enthusiasm. With an increase in the severity of assaults on police and prison officers in recent years we do acknowledge the need for a strong deterrent. In this I would have to disagree somewhat with my friend Lianne Dalziel because I think that in the case of inmates in prisons who assault prison officers they may well—in fact I think they will—be deterred if they know that the sentence is likely to be significantly more severe than for an assault on any other member of the public. In addition to that of course Parliament itself needs to reinforce the fact that the community will not tolerate assaults on police officers or on prison officers either. That is just as important. 
We do support the bill although we are disappointed at the Law and Order Committee’s refusal to extend the scope of the coverage for the bill. We note that the aggravating factors to be considered for other people working with prisoners have not been taken into account. They need protection just as much as prison officers do. Other employees of the Department of Corrections will not be covered by the bill even though they may well be subjected to an assault or harmed by an inmate in a similar way. They will be excluded simply because they do not come within the title “prison officer” even though they still have duties to carry out—for example rehabilitation work with inmates in prisons—and that means they are in daily contact with the inmates. 
I am told that the ratio of corrections staff to prisoners is one prison officer to 20 prisoners. Asenati Lole-Taylor was one such person. She tells me that most times she was on her own when working with up to 30 and sometimes 44 prisoners without a prison officer being present and often was called upon to defuse situations amongst some of the prisoners where prison officers could not resolve the situation or settle the prisoners down. You can see that people such as those who were in the position that Asenati Lole-Taylor was in would be just as much at risk of an assault as a warranted prison officer yet for some reason they are not covered by this bill. In her job she was doing exactly the same as if not more than prison officers were yet that work is not taken into account in the bill. It could in fact be perceived by some as a discrimination against those other staff who do not hold warrants as prison officers. 
Although I applaud the Minister of Justice’s decision to extend the scope of the bill to cover emergency services workers I certainly do not applaud the decision not to cover people who work in prisons but are not warranted prison officers. You see the rationale seems to be that the aggravating factors should cover in addition to police warranted prison officers because they are in contact with prisoners and therefore may be assaulted. Well that is the case with those other people working in prisons too yet they are not covered by the bill. So it just does not make sense in that way and that is the source of our disappointment with it. The only reason that I can see as having been given for not extending the scope of the bill in that way is simply that it was not intended to do that in the first place. That is a totally inadequate reason. If it is appropriate to extend it now at this late stage to emergency workers then I would have thought that it should be extended to other people working in prisons who have contact with prisoners but who are not covered because they are not warranted prison officers. 
Although New Zealand First supports the idea behind the bill we think that we need to pay attention to the issue that I have raised. We also ask in addition to that whether the training programmes with police and the prison officers are adequate to assist in avoiding assaults on police officers and prison officers. We think that it would be wise to invest in resources to improve this and that that should be a high priority as well. We believe in a no-nonsense approach for those who lack respect for persons who uphold and enforce the law—in particular those who work in prisons; not just warranted prison officers and police—but we do not think that this bill by itself will be likely to change anything unless additional training and resources for prison officers especially are given. We feel that that is an area that is lacking. 
However with those reservations that I have mentioned especially the lack of coverage for people who work in prisons who are not warranted prison officers New Zealand First does believe that it is a necessary piece of legislation and that it will make a contribution to the safety of the police and people who are warranted prison officers working for the community in prisons. For those reasons New Zealand First will certainly vote in favour of the bill.