McAnulty KieranKIERAN McANULTY (Labour): I must admit I'm taken by surprise to have to speak so early. I thought at least the previous speaker Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi who stood to speak in support of his colleague's bill would be able to last five minutes but he couldn't. But I'm not totally surprised. It's not a great bill. I've got to be honest: it's not that flash because it doesn't actually provide us anything that's worthwhile. But I do want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the member that introduced it to the House the current Wairarapa MP Alastair Scott. I want to reassure you that I will not use this opportunity to attack you personally as tempting as that may be. The point is that you've put forward a member's bill and I believe it deserves the respect that it should get in this House despite the fact that I don't agree with it. I say that respectfully.I said during the last campaign that if I was lucky enough to get into this House having been an opponent of Mr Scott at the previous election then I would work collaboratively and I would not have a go and so I won't. But the bill is pretty poor because it addresses an issue that doesn't need to be addressed and that was reflected in the Justice Committee process. Of course it does suggest that section 272 of the Crimes Act be extended from the two years' imprisonment to five years' imprisonment despite the fact that there have been only three instances since 2007 of people being tried under this legislation. That is not an example of some drastic need in this country to change this law through what is proposed here in the Crimes (Increased Penalty for Providing Explosive to Commit Crime) Amendment Bill. I note that the heading of this section Providing explosive to commit crime" does not reflect the elements of the offence. No part of section 272 requires that an explosive be provided to another person. There's simply not enough need to warrant this.It is somewhat of a wasted opportunity because there are many pressing issues facing this country and I know of many MPs that have gone their whole career without having a member's bill pulled from the ballot. I understand that the right honourable Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard is one of those MPs. After 27 years in this House—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Can we come back to the bill please?KIERAN McANULTY: This bill?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): It would be useful.KIERAN McANULTY: This shocking bill? I'll get back to this poor bill in front of us now.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): That would be useful. If you have nothing further to say you can take your seat.KIERAN McANULTY: Oh look I've got plenty. I've got a minute and 53 seconds more to speak Madam Assistant Speaker. The point here is that—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Make it count.KIERAN McANULTY: —increasing the length of a prison sentence is an expensive and arguably an ineffective way to reduce offending. There have been many examples brought forward to the House this evening that highlight the fact that increasing sentences just for the purposes of deterrence is not effective and that is essentially what this bill proposes.I do note in the opening address Mr Scott indicated somewhat of a frustration that intent in his view is essentially the same as the act and that is something that I just simply cannot agree with. The member used the example of "pulling the trigger" and I can't see how the logic is there that the intent to commit that act to commit pulling the trigger is as bad or almost as bad as actually doing that itself. If that is the logic behind this bill then I'm not surprised that this has failed to get unanimous support at the select committee stage. There are numerous examples in the past not just in New Zealand where increasing the term of imprisonment in a bill has not acted as a deterrent.There's one point that I want to make in my remaining time around New Zealand's prison population. It is at capacity already. There would be no sense whatsoever if indeed anyone was tried in the future under this legislation with an increased prison sentence to increase our prison population just for the sake of it which I fear is what's being proposed today. So along with my colleagues here in the Labour Party we will not be supporting this bill but good on him for giving it a go."