Andersen GinnyPROTECTION FOR FIRST RESPONDERS AND PRISON OFFICERS BILL Consideration of the Report of the Justice CommitteeGINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): I move That the House take note of the report of the Justice Committee on the Protection for First Responders and Prison Officers Bill. I would like to take the first call on this particular debate.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order. Is this a second reading?DEPUTY SPEAKER: No.GINNY ANDERSEN: It's right that the member points it out that this is a somewhat unusual situation because as this bill has already had a second reading—the debate today is technically the consideration of the select committee report rather than a second reading as such.So as members will remember this was initially a member's bill in the name of Darroch Ball which was voted on in support by National and New Zealand First and I think ACT as well at the last Parliament and that was then referred to the Justice Committee. That bill has subsequently been taken under the name of Mark Mitchell and there have been some proposed changes suggested at select committee.I would like to speak on behalf of the Labour members and as chair of the Justice Committee. First of all I think it's important to state to this House that every assault on a first responder or corrections officer is unacceptable. We support measures that will actually work in order to keep them safe in these important roles that they provide for our communities. We know though the way that this bill has been drafted is seriously flawed. In particular we would like to point to the case in point of mandatory minimum sentences. And it's good to have agreement by those members opposite who also agree that mandatory minimum sentences don't work for a number of reasons. And members from the National Party spoke at length at select committee as to why they did not support mandatory minimum sentences—Dr Smith I remember was one proponent in particular. So what was suggested by those National members in committee was to remove the provision in this bill that suggested that there should be a mandatory minimum sentence. The problem this struck was it didn't leave much of the bill behind. So there were some proposed changes but the majority of the committee felt that there was not really much left to the bill. So of the changes proposed there was not enough left for it to carry forward and that is why Government members did not agree to those proposed changes. It's also important to note that as the Justice Committee identified our men and women in uniform are already provided for and given additional protection through sentencing law. And I'll give credit to those members opposite because I do believe if I read my books right that that change was actually passed under a National Government and it currently lists assaulting a first responder or prison officer as an aggravating factor in sentencing. And so that already exists in law.So the question is: what is this bill actually attempting to achieve? As the law currently stands as stated committing an offence against a police prison officer and emergency health or fire service personnel at emergency scenes is already an aggravating factor in section 9 of the Sentencing Act. So that means in current law the punishment for assaulting a prison officer or first responder in that instance would already be more severe than an assault in the same circumstances against any other member of the public. And I know that there were some issues raised about that in itself at select committee in submissions. Some of the personal ones I received as well were instances such as those in a convenience store or a 24-hour liquor store who are also put into great harm.This bill therefore proposes to introduce a new narrower offence—one for a kind of assault on first responders and prison officers when there are already ways the law can deal with a whole range of potential offending against these important people who protect our community. The established framework of an aggravating factor in the Sentencing Act also is a better way of addressing this issue and it's good that on that point there was agreement across the House—there was agreement that imposing that a judge must have a sentence would not work in that particular instance.The other problem that Government members had had particularly with what was initially proposed in this bill was that the bill puts out of step the existing hierarchy of offending and that is really problematic in terms of making sure there's a weighting to the seriousness of offences in how they are I guess punished or provided for in the courts. So currently sections 188 and 189 of the Crimes Act are carefully formulated to provide a hierarchy of offending in cases of wounding or injuring people to take into account the offender's intent how much harm they intended to cause and how much harm they actually did cause.So I'll provide an example to illustrate the point I'm trying to make. For example an offender who intended to cause someone grievous bodily harm and injured them would then be charged with injuring with intent under section 189(1) which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Had the injury been caused by reckless behaviour or with intent to injure rather than grievously injure however they would be charged with injuring with intent under 189(2) which carries a maximum sentence of just five years in prison to reflect the lesser harm meant to be caused. However—and I'm sorry this is complicated but once it's unpacked hopefully it'll be clear—had the act caused grievous bodily harm rather than merely injury they would be charged with wounding with intent under section 188(1) which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years' imprisonment to reflect that they intended more harm to be caused to the victim.So this bill inserts a new offence into the Crimes Act which is wildly I guess in lay terms out of whack with that hierarchy that I have just outlaid. It disproportionately weights offending so it causes a problem in the wider scheme of how we are weighing up offending. This bill inserts into the Crimes Act—and it would lead to I guess bizarre sentencing outcomes. Firstly the new offence makes no distinction between recklessly causing injury and deliberately causing an injury—the maximum minimum mandatory sentences are exactly the same. So this could lead to quite strange scenarios where someone who recklessly injured a first responder could be imprisoned for 10 years—double the sentence for recklessly injuring anyone else and massively out of step with the current sentencing and clearly unjust.Secondly the new offence has no regard to the level of injury caused which could lead to even more bizarre outcomes. For example if someone had injured a police officer with an intent they could face a maximum minimum penalty of 10 years. If they caused grievous bodily harm to a police officer with intent which is worse they'll be charged with the extent of wounding with intent which carries seven years. So what has been done—the members opposite who are complaining about what they've agreed to have agreed that mandatory minimum sentences don't work yet they've come up with no viable alternative—no viable alternative. And so in order to address the problems that were initially raised this is not able to be completed.So when we heard the submissions from those people who came forward before the committee—we received 74 in total. And one of the ones that were of particular interest is that they saw the reoccurring theme that we often get from the National Party that we just want to use increased penalties as a deterrent. This comes time and time again and it's deep in the National psychology that if you increase a penalty that will somehow change the way people think and how they behave. And we know for a fact that that's flawed ideology—it's a deeply flawed ideology. So those who oppose the bill—and there were a fair few of them—generally regarded it as too punitive. They questioned whether the desired effect—which was agreed that we want to reduce the assaults on first responders—would be done by imposing a mandatory minimum sentence.So the problem we have with this bill is that we agree with the intent of keeping our first responders and respecting them and supporting them we do that wholeheartedly but we question the fact that this bill is fundamentally flawed. There is now no core crux of what this bill was going to deliver which we disagreed with which was a mandatory minimum sentence. Now that that's gone there's nothing left. So therefore the Government members and the members of the Justice Committee will not be supporting this bill to proceed.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.