O'Connor Greg; Dean JacquiGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I stand here as a someone who before I came to this House spent 41 years and nine months as a police officer 21 years of them on the front line. I acknowledge my colleague Mark Mitchell across the way who spent a little bit less time than that. I also acknowledge those of my ex-colleagues who are out there. Someone mentioned they'll be starting just heading off for night shift tonight many of them not knowing what's going to happen. That's one of the reasons why probably many of us liked joining the police—that sense of better work stories and not quite knowing what's going to happen. It's certainly a job that I found very fulfilling over those years. I also stand here as someone who got a good hiding when I was in the police. Like all police officers there were always a few scuffles and various other things that took place. But the one decent hiding I did get like many assaults came out of nothing. It was a Wednesday afternoon called to a family violence—it's called now; then we called it a domestic—in Mount Victoria. A male had come around to try and kidnap his child. When we got in there without going too deeply into it I ended up having a baby thrown to me which I ended up holding on to while I was attacked by three gang members and I couldn't do much about it. I was eventually able to get one of the neighbours to take control of the baby and we were able to then retaliate. But that was one of those experiences that—and I'm sure Mr Mitchell sitting there and any police officers listening tonight—anyone who's been in the police will all know as there'll be prison officers as there'll be those who have worked in emergency services. They'll all have that one moment where the violence of the moment really—I suppose it was a bit of a loss of control at the time.But as in many of these cases the offenders in my case ended up spending some good time care of Her Majesty as almost invariably these cases do. Even now of course in the Sentencing Act it is an aggravating feature to assault a police officer a prison officer or indeed an emergency worker. So it's in there. Generally also when I was a member of the Police Association when there was a sentencing after one of our officers had been assaulted I always made contact to see if they were happy with the sentence. Generally they were because almost invariably those people—particularly after serious assaults there was a long prison sentence involved. I won't say everybody was always happy and would like to have seen—particularly the people who probably were the least happy were the partners of those who had been assaulted. I found that they were the people who really probably were more angry on behalf of the partner who had been assaulted than the actual person assaulted themselves. So I bring that up to give some context some personal experience. Also in my last period before this job I worked in the Police Association and spent my time getting the protection that police officers in particular need. I realise this is broader than just police officers although I was pleased that by the time I finished prison officers were able to avail themselves of some of the things that we'd achieved for police initially being—OC spray was one tasers vests even digital radios; all things that did all work to make our people—as I suppose the society changed and more surveillance of what—and also I suppose even the size of police officers changed. Again not all police officers look like Mr Mitchell and myself who locked the scrum in Waipū on Friday night. But obviously the police should be reflective of the society that they police and that ensured that they did represent people of different sizes. So what was obviously necessary was to ensure that where perhaps the physical presence wasn't quite enough therefore it was compensated for by the tasers by the OC spray. So there's some balancing out necessary. So things do evolve. It's a little bit like having spent most of my career as a detective something that—Mr Mitchell as a dog handler never probably made those lofty heights. But he will sort of mention that detectives probably didn't work at night as much as the dog handlers but we had to learn a little bit more. One thing that I did do is also train detectives at the same time. One of the things that always confused young detectives that came through when we were training them was this whole area around assaults and trying to define what was the assault. It used to be that we would set questions. How we'd train detectives is we'd do what we call a criminal liability where you'd outline a situation where they would have to go through and determine what offences had been committed. Of course the basis of every offence is an intent and where there's—in establishing any case. Mr Bridges was here before. As he will know having been a very good Crown solicitor in his day you don't really take—with the exception of a few cases where there is strict liability and they are relatively few you do need to actually establish an intent in all these cases. So of course what you'd be then asking having established there was an intent to assault an intent to do whatever—that was always an important part of the offence—then you would start breaking down and you've heard some of the previous speakers talking about the hierarchy of offending. That hierarchy of offending was determined by the intent and by the injury. Most of it was overly complicated and remains overly complicated. My belief is more discretion by shall we say well-trained judges is probably what the system—under certainly clearly the necessity for guidelines. That was why initially when I was on the very-hard working Justice Committee—good to see my ex-colleagues over there still beavering away and obviously doing some work on this bill to try and probably revive it I would have to say. That would be the only way I could say it because it was quite clear that it was a bit of a bill with a solution looking for probably the problem because it wasn't going to make any difference. I think as legislators here it's very important that when we do—passing laws is really important and we've always got to know why we are doing it. So when we're standing in this House—that's why the legislative process is quite a complicated one. There are many who speak to—probably many of us before we came to the House. Why don't you just pass a law to do this?" We've all heard it in our electorate offices: "Why don't they just do that? Why don't they just do that?" Well we are those "they" now and when we get here the first thing we realise is that we actually owe it to make sure that by time a piece of legislation does leave this place it is a good piece of legislation—a good piece of legislation that is going to do what it's intended to. I just refer to the previous speaker Nicole McKee. She actually was quite surprising and revelatory her speech where she said she didn't see that this legislation was going to have any preventative act or element to it at all—quite surprised me. She said it was all about retribution. And yet at the same time she said she's got three daughters who are going to be going into the field where actually these—and good; congratulations. They're going into the field. Yet she had just said that they deserve the protection. But actually this wasn't as she said herself going to provide them with any protection because it wasn't going to stop them being assaulted in the first place. Actually I'll quote—she actually said it was actually all about a consequence not a deterrent at all. So anything we should do should be about making sure it deters. Actually one thing all criminologists to the left to the right to the top to the bottom all agree with is actually that the best crime prevention measure the thing that actually determines whether they will commit a crime or not where there is any intent is actually a belief that they will get caught. That was what when Mr Mitchell and his dog van would turn up—a belief that they would get caught would be actually a thing that would determine their behaviour. So actually by Ms McKee's own admission any legislation like this wasn't going to actually provide or prevent the assault which she very honestly—I think it was very insightful and honest of her to stand here and say that: that it was all about for her making sure there was a consequence for that action. Well I can reassure her that actually there are consequences. While as I say particularly partners of those assaulted are often not happy with the sentencing generally my experience has been where there's been the sort of serious assaults that this legislation has been geared towards and was pointed towards there's never been a shortage of ability—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member's time has expired."