Beaumont Carol: Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Beaumont Carol: Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:17952] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak in support of the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill. Labour will support the referral of this bill through to the select committee. I think the comments of the Minister of Corrections about what this legislation will achieve are somewhat overstated but I will come back to that point. 
Let me start by saying that on the day when we are having the first reading of this bill I saw in today’s  
Dominion Post  
a story with the headline “Bashed policeman says motorists saved his life”. This is the story of highway patrol officer Steve McLardy of Turangi who was bashed unconscious and received multiple punches. He was arresting a man who had given false information after a failed breath test. This was less than 5 months after Waiouru officer Bruce Mellor was beaten with a machete near Taihape. 
Paul Quinn 
: We read the paper Carol. We can read over here. 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: None of us in this House despite what Mr Paul Quinn was saying would condone that sort of behaviour. We find it offensive that the people who serve us and look after our interests by trying to uphold law and order in this country be they police officers or prison officers should be treated in this way. We are all concerned about these sorts of gratuitous attacks on our police officers and it is interesting that on the day when we are debating this bill there was such a story in our newspaper although that is not uncommon. 
The bill would make the fact that an offence was committed against a police officer or a prison officer who is acting in the course of his or her duty a listed mandatory aggravating factor at the time of sentencing. As I have said we agree that assaults on police and prison officers should be taken very seriously and we have no problem with supporting this bill. However we do not think it will make any difference as the courts can and already usually do take into consideration that that is an aggravating factor when sentencing offenders. This is where I think the Minister somewhat overstated what this legislation is likely to achieve. I want to note that our public servants and our State servants—people like police and prison officers but others as well—do a very difficult job often in very trying circumstances: often with people who are angry under the influence of drugs and alcohol or feeling disenfranchised or who for whatever reason are just plain bad or feeling just plain angry. Police and prison officers and not just people in those jobs but also nurses doctors in our emergency departments teachers in our schools Work and Income staff and Housing New Zealand Corporation staff—our State and public servants—have to deal with these sorts of problems on a fairly common basis. 
I wonder what is happening to those workers police and prison officers but the rest of them as well the other State servants and public servants who are under enormous pressure from Government cuts and who are under pressure because the public they are dealing with are stressed are unemployed and are struggling to make ends meet. Those things make doing the job a whole lot more difficult that it was previously. I just think that when we talk about legislation like this we should talk about that context: the real fact that these people are being put under pressure by Government policy and in fact in many cases are having the support that they are given and the number of staff in their organisations cut. Of course we will all wait to see what happens in the Budget in that regard. 
Going back to the specifics of this bill as I said we have no objection to the bill but we think the Government is just tinkering around the edges instead of providing evidence-based plans to reduce crime. The Sentencing Act already provides that a court may take into account any aggravating or mitigating factor that it thinks fit in addition to the specific factors listed in section 9 of that Act. The Act lists a whole number of things that are aggravating factors including the fact that the offence involved actual or threatened violence or the actual or threatened use of a weapon and a whole lot of other factors. It then puts in place a number of mitigating factors which include things like the age of the offender whether and when the offender pleaded guilty and the likes of that. So there is already quite a comprehensive list of aggravating and mitigating factors set out in sections 9(1) and (2) but the Act also says those things are not the end of the line. Nothing in those sections prevents a court from taking into account any other aggravating or mitigating factor that it thinks fit. Nothing in the sections that I have just referred to implies that a factor referred to there must be given greater weight than any other factor. So there is already provision for this type of assault to be treated as an aggravating factor at sentencing. 
This amendment bill does not require a court to take any specific action in terms of the type or severity of sentence it imposes. It means the court will be required simply to take this factor into account along with the other specified and unspecified aggravating factors in arriving at the appropriate sentence to be imposed in a particular case. The regulatory impact statement says the court would already usually take this factor into account—that courts have traditionally regarded assaults on law enforcement officers as serious. In fact there is a quote from the High Court describing an attack on a police officer as “equivalent to an attack on the community because our police are the representatives of the community in the matter of law and order in our society. They are society’s front line.” That was from a 1985 court case. 
So we say we will support this bill but we do not think it will make a great deal of difference. In fact this is another piece of meaningless law and order legislation from a Government that does not seem to have any ideas for reducing crime other than supporting “three strikes” - type legislation from the ACT Party. We are sick of seeing ad hoc and piecemeal law and order legislation from the Government in reactions to particular topical issues without the Government trying to make a coherent whole and without it trying to really address the real spectrum of issues that are so important—the causes of crime victims’ rights appropriate levels of punishment and appropriate rehabilitation. What sorts of things are actually leading to the increase in violent crime in our society? They are issues around poverty issues around parenting and issues around alcohol and drugs. And what about unemployment and what about the fact that so many people are struggling to make ends meet? None of those things which are actually really important factors in driving crime seem to get anywhere near the Government’s radar. Instead the Government seems to be willing to just have another very brief headline-grabbing piece of law and order legislation to say it is being tough on criminals and responding to law and order issues even though in fact the legislation is all fluff.