Williams Arena; Rurawhe AdrianARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. It's a privilege to be able to speak on this bill because it is entirely appropriate for harsh penalties to be administered for people who kill police dogs in the line of duty. It is entirely appropriate for harsh penalties to be administered for anyone who hurts an animal and for anyone who abuses an animal. What's not appropriate is for the Opposition to propose raising the penalty from two years in prison to five years in prison when the effect of that is frankly nothing and when they know that and when they are leading public discourse in this area knowing full well that increasing the penalty will not result in charging offenders who kill police dogs will result in longer sentences and it will not result in a deterrent effect in cases of violence against police dogs. I thank the member from ACT for her contribution in memorialising those police dogs who have lost their lives in the line of duty. It's useful and it's right for us as parliamentarians to acknowledge the work that police dogs do for us and our gratitude to them. We are the recipients of selfless loving service of these dogs both for their constables who are their handlers and for the public who they protect. It's right for us to acknowledge all of those lives lost of those dogs in service in protecting our communities. But it's not helpful for us to have this discussion on the backdrop of merely looking tough on crime without following an evidence basis about this.When we talk about the deterrent effect of this it's useful for us to consider in what cases and in what scenarios these dogs are losing their lives. These are situations where an offender will be facing a raft of serious charges—serious assaults on police officers evading police officers—the charge that they were going to be charged with in the first place which may be a serious offence because they are evading police. These are situations where the people who are apprehended are already facing serious charges long-term prison sentences and there is in fact no deterrent effect in the heat of the moment where they are injuring and committing violence against a police dog if we are proposing here to increase the sentence from two years to five years.What is helpful for us to do is to place more importance on the work of these police dogs to acknowledge in this House their service by acknowledging their names. And I want to turn to the member Nicole McKee's acknowledgment of the names and just highlight for the House a few of those dogs which have died in the line of service. We've made a few references to the first police dog that died in an accident in Napier. His name was Nero and that accident was the first in this country for what was a very new system where we use police dogs with our police officers in enforcing the prevention of crime. The next dog who lost his life was in 1975 and his name was Nick and he was shot in Wellington. That was the first incident where it was deliberate harm against a police dog that caused a police dog to lose his life. And it highlights I think the importance of acknowledging these crimes. But in those incidents there would have been no deterrent effect if the penalties had been harsher. It's important for us to remember that this already exists as a penalty in law and that it can be prosecuted. And it is. It is treated as a very serious offence by police and prosecuted to the fullest extent because police and prosecutors recognise this offence as an offence against police. It's also right for us to acknowledge that the safety record of police dogs is very high that the police officers charged with the care of police dogs take their duties really seriously to what are their partners in work. And considering that they're called out 40000 times a year the rate of safety is very good. So we need to be able to acknowledge the important work here and also acknowledge that increasing penalties is simply painting this as a political issue which makes some parliamentarians look tough on crime and does not address the root cause of this problem. I want to finally conclude my remarks by saying that 30 years of locking more people up for longer has failed to make our communities safer and has resulted in a reoffending rate of 61 percent. That's why on this side of the House we will continue to do things differently and use evidence-based methods to determine what the penalties in these situations should be in all areas of our law and order system in order to reduce—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired. This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.