Calder Cam: Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Calder Cam: Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 07 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:158. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to rise and speak on the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill. I must take issue with my colleague across the floor Charles Chauvel making the comments he did about this Government’s record on law and order. In 1854 William Howard Russell reporting on the Russian cavalry’s advance on Balaclava spoke: “They dashed on towards that thin red line tipped with steel.” In 2008 under the previous Government for the Russian cavalry read the assorted miscreants recidivists and gang members of the small villages towns and cities of New Zealand. The thin red line is now tinged with blue and made up of men and women armed with little more than their courage their hope and wooden batons against the relentless tide of crime. That was then in 2008 and this is now. Since then we have had an excellent Minister in charge of measures of law and order and corrections in the form of the Hon Judith Collins and huge gains have been made.  
I can speak from the heart on this having been based in Manurewa for 3 years. It is a wonderful diverse community full of people hard-working and ambitious for themselves with a small number who lack a sense of purpose and a feeling of belonging who become regrettably the object of the long arm of the law. It has to be said there are many more long arms of the law in Manurewa since this Government has been in power. In fact there are 300 more uniformed men and women—300 more uniformed men and women—in Manurewa Manukau and the Counties-Manukau Police District where crime has been shown to have fallen significantly. There are 300 more spread around the rest of New Zealand in our small towns and villages and urban centres such as New Plymouth; in places like Otago Dunedin and Wanaka where my colleague Jacqui Dean is based; and of course in our greater urban centres such as Auckland and Christchurch.  
This Government has done an enormous amount for law and order. Some of the tools that our police have got since 2008 include Tasers and police safety orders. I have been out with the police on a number of occasions in Manurewa. May I commend those men and women in the Counties-Manukau team who go out there risking their lives day and night to protect our community.  
This is one of the reasons this bill applies only to police and corrections officers because it is our Government’s view that it is the police and corrections officers who cannot hide behind anyone else. Nurses do a wonderful job. I have worked as a doctor at accident and emergency myself and I know what it is like on a Saturday night when the drunks come in. I know what it is like on a Saturday night when the drunks come in and the nursing staff and the medical staff in our hospitals do an outstanding job. But if they get into trouble who do they call? They call the police. It is the police who have to take the brunt of this unbridled aggression and appalling behaviour day in and day out. That is the reason that this is yet another layer of protection this Government is affording our men and women in the thin blue line.  
This is a denunciatory piece of legislation. This says it is not appropriate to assault the custodians of law and order—those people those men those women who time and time again go out there and put their lives on the line to keep us safe. I commend this bill to the House.