Chauvel Charles: Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chauvel Charles: Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 31 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:4136. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you very much Mr Chair and I know that my colleagues will be very happy about that. I am very grateful that the Committee accepted the leave application from the Minister because how we would have heard any sensible speeches on a clause that provides that “This Act is the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Act 2010.” is a question that is probably not worth pondering. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I don’t know. I’ve done it before. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: The member next to me says she has done it before. That was clearly in the bad old days. 
As I was saying the original purpose of the bill was to provide that it would be expressly a duty on the court in sentencing somebody who assaulted a police officer or a prison officer in the course of their duties to regard the occupation of the person who suffered the assault as an aggravating factor. As I said we were fully supportive of the policy and intent behind that but we were concerned that there are members of other professions just like police officers and prison officers who have no choice in the course of their duties but to put themselves in harm’s way. It did not seem logical to us that members of those professions should not receive the fullest protection of the law as well. That is why Supplementary Order Paper 14 in my name would provide that emergency health or fire services providers acting in the course of their duties at the scene of an emergency would also if assaulted have the fact of their professions and the fact that they were carrying out those duties when they were assaulted regarded as aggravating factors in the event that the matter came to trial and sentencing. 
I want to acknowledge the Minister for her cooperative approach when I first put the suggestion to her. We did have some to-ing and fro-ing about the exact wording of the Supplementary Order Paper but in the end the principle was agreed. My understanding is that that Supplementary Order Paper along with the principal Act will receive support at least from the two major parties and one or two other parties that have written to me to express support for the approach in my Supplementary Order Paper. 
The instruction from the Deputy Leader of the House by leave also applies to Supplementary Order Paper 9 in the name of Asenati Lole-Taylor. That Supplementary Order Paper would also make it an aggravating factor in sentencing the fact that the assault occurred against a corrections officer conducting enforcement duties which would be defined as “the exercise of any statutory enforcement power and for the purposes of the Corrections Act 2004 includes performing non-custodial services:”. I do not know what the position of the Government is concerning that particular Supplementary Order Paper but I can signal that the Labour Opposition will give that Supplementary Order Paper its support on a substantive basis. 
To summarise as far as the position on this side of the Chamber is concerned yes we agree that prison officers and the police do deserve the fullest protection of the law if it can be afforded to them through making an assault on them an aggravating factor at sentencing—that is magnifying the effect in law of the sentence because of the identity of the person assaulted. But it should also happen to fire service responders and to emergency medical responders who are in a similar position at accident scenes. It seems to us that the further extension in respect of prison officers that is moved by Asenati Lole-Taylor is logical as well because again you have people who put themselves through their job through no choice of their own into the path of danger in order to preserve and protect public safety and we ought to support everybody in that position.