Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. It's good to speak on this bill. I was a member of the committee for some time on this bill with the Justice Committee—sadly no longer a member—and I see that the committee has continued on when I left it in the last few months and has been unable to agree on—Greg O'Connor: One common denominator Mr Bishop.CHRIS BISHOP: Mr O'Connor says One common denominator" and I will spare the House my comments and thoughts on that. That's a bit of a shame but it's a split committee and often the committee engages in some robust shall we say debates. So it's good to speak on this bill.I want to congratulate the member Darroch Ball for advancing it—first drawn in May 2018; so quite some time ago now just over two years. And as the member's bill process winds on—and of course we had that interregnum of a year or so while Parliament was embroiled in—Chris Penk: Those were the days.CHRIS BISHOP: Chris Penk says "Those were the days." Well I think you sort of get those opportunities for those moral issues maybe once in a parliamentary career and some of us have gone through about two or three in the space of about three or four years. So it's all very interesting. But we find ourselves just on the cusp of an election finally considering the second reading of this bill. I want to signal that we think it's a worthy bill and the approach of toughening the penalties for first responders who are quite literally in the front line of our fight against crime and mayhem is worthy of support.We can't help but comment on the sad death a couple of weeks ago of the constable in West Auckland Matthew Hunt. I think all of us in the House will be reflecting on him and the police as we consider this bill and I just want to put that on the record. It is true of course that there has been an increase in assaults against first responders like the police and prison officers which I know Mr Ball is concerned about with more serious injuries occurring as a result. I want to signal that I'm supportive of the extension of the bill through Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 487 to insert definitions around emergency services workers and scene of emergency and my understanding from talking to the member in charge of the bill is that this SOP will extend the penalties to include our nurses. I've had some correspondence from constituents in the Hutt Valley supporting that extension and I think it's a worthy idea. I think you know so often our nurses are at the front line of dealing with some pretty tricky situations and there's no real distinction really between a prison officer and a police officer and a nurse and those who work in our emergency services. So I think that's a good step forward.Like Mr O'Connor I want to signal that I'm pretty cautious about the mandatory minimum sentence which is SOP 219. I think we do need to be cautious about that in Parliament. We do need to be cautious about mandatory minimums. They can produce perverse outcomes. They can produce what we would regard as invidious outcomes in the justice sector. So we will consider that one but I think we should be a little bit cautious on it.But generally it's a shame the committee couldn't agree on the bill with a report because it would have been good actually to see the report of the committee and see what the members on the committee thought about it. Because actually I know from my time on the committee there are some members with real expertise in the justice system—Ginny Andersen who has worked for Police; Greg O'Connor obviously as well from the former Police Association and former police officer some way back to be fair but still got that experience; and other quite experienced members on the committee. So it would have been quite good to see the report but we will be backing it at second reading with those cautious notes as I said about SOP 219 about mandatory minimums. And we'll wait and see and invigilate those issues in the committee stage of the bill when it comes up. Thank you very much Mr Speaker."