Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. I do want to acknowledge the member who has brought this bill to the House and all of the speeches tonight that have spoken about violence and how abhorrent it is that we still as the small beautiful island nation that we are suffer from such high rates of violent crime. And you know as members have pointed out that includes domestic and sexual violence. It includes violence that's drug or alcohol induced. It involves violent crime that causes far more harm than might be foreseeable. We're all in agreement about that and we're all in agreement that where serious harm akin to someone being placed in a coma for a length of time being brain damaged or losing their life—it's some of the most serious of crimes that we have on our statute book. And as has been repeatedly pointed out we do have those crimes on our statute book.People have talked about all of the different degrees of violence the way that our criminal law defines them based on the level of intent or recklessness; foreseeability of harm; that the offender carries the level of violence in the actions; and also the impact so whether it's wounding whether it's injuring whether it's causing grievous bodily harm whether it's death. We have those crimes in the statute book.We also have the Sentencing Act where the circumstances of the offending are taken into account on a case by case basis. Whether the person was a gang member will be taken into account whether they were intoxicated whether it was premeditated whether it was provoked. All of those things are taken into account when a sentence is set.A lot has been made of the mens rea or the mental element required in our homicide laws. So we have two different types of homicide in our laws—just to clarify this because I too have worked in the criminal justice system for about a decade. There is murder which can be committed through two types of mens rea: one is through intentional death and the other is through committing a violent act or an unlawful act where foreseeable serious harm was taken into account by the offender. Those are the two ways that murder is committed. That's supposed to be recklessness and intent. So the recklessness requirement seems to have been misunderstood by the Opposition as being the mens rea requirement for manslaughter. That's not the case. Both of those types of mens rea mean that the person will be held accountable for murder. So if you foresaw really serious harm or death that's murder. Manslaughter doesn't require foreseeability of the harm it only requires that the unlawful act itself was committed intentionally. Any assault counts. You don't have to prove that death or serious harm was foreseeable. So it's covered. It's homicide and the sentence is life if needs be.Those are all covered by our law. So you know we stand here and we've got this new piece of criminal law being proposed which at best is unnecessary and at best has been brought to the House under a misconception about the current criminal law. At worst—and we see this in the House from time to time—it's a branding exercise for political parties so that they can talk about themselves as being tough on crime. Appealing to the plight of victims to the fears of our communities so that politicians can look tough on crime is callous. It's abhorrent. On this side of the House we want to care for victims by providing for mental health care by providing for hospitals by providing for rehabilitation reintegration—under that Government reoffending of violent crime was at around 50 percent. So the victims that we talk about that people have talked about tonight who are laying in comas in hospital were laying in hospitals where the walls were rotting—the hospital walls were rotting. That's how much that side of the House cares about victims while we rewrite the criminal law based on what already exists.Let's actually care for victims instead of giving tax cuts to our mates. Let's get mental health care for them. Let's get actual healthcare. Let's get housing. That's what a compassionate Government would do.