O'Rourke Denis: Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 31 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:4141. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First will always put the safety of our police and corrections officers as a high priority but New Zealand First also recognises the need for the safety of all other law enforcement officers or staff. With an increase in severity of assaults on police and corrections officers in recent years we acknowledge the need for prevention of assaults on them all. We do support the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill but we question the scope of coverage of it. It was documented by the Law and Order Committee in its report dated 7 July last year that the aggravating factors be considered for other groups and public sector workers too. It was then noted that the amendment was constructed specifically to address an increase in assault cases against only police and prison officers. 
Asenati Lole-Taylor has therefore proposed an amendment in Supplementary Order Paper 9. As a past employee of the Department of Corrections in the role of a regional adviser for the northern region she tells me that she would not have been covered by this bill if she had been subjected to an assault or harmed intentionally by a prison officer or offender. She did not come within the title “prison officer” for the purposes of this bill but her position still held a duty of carrying out similar responsibilities to prison officers. Non-uniformed staff also work with prison officers and offenders whenever and wherever necessary. The ratio of corrections staff she tells me is one prison officer to 20 prisoners; non-uniformed staff could be working with up to 30 and sometimes 50 prisoners without a prison officer present. Mrs Lole-Taylor tells me that she was often called upon to defuse situations amongst some of the prisoners where corrections officers could not resolve the prisoners’ behaviour. In these roles she would do exactly the same if not more than a corrections officer would have done and this bill does not take this into account. 
Other public sector workers also play a big part in the rehabilitation of offenders and prisoners. Facilitators of many other programmes medical people community probation officers and psychologists who work within the corrections department are not covered yet they are exposed to the same risk factors as the prison officers themselves. The non-uniformed and all other Crown law enforcement staff serve an equally important role in sustaining the safety and rehabilitation of inmates in our prisons throughout the country. In fact the bill could be perceived perhaps as discriminating against other staff within the corrections and police force as well as those of the Customs Service and fisheries officers. I believe that it is vital that the bill includes non-uniformed staff of police and corrections services for these reasons. The bill falls short of protection for other Crown law enforcement roles such as in particular fisheries officers and customs officers. 
New Zealand First supports the bill but are we giving real solutions to this very real problem? We ask whether the training programmes within the police and the prison force are adequate in the prevention of assaults on officers why there has not been a review of the processes and procedures in regards to this and why there has not been more investment in resources to improve that situation. 
New Zealand First as I have said supports the bill and it is good to see that the Government has gotten something right in identifying a problem of this nature but it does not go far enough. Other parties have shared the view that they do not feel that this bill would give weight to effectively changing these statistics or making a significant difference in assault cases regarding the country’s enforcement employees and ancillary staff whether uniformed or not. I therefore encourage members to support Mrs Lole-Taylor’s Supplementary Order Paper in order to also include other employees of the Crown lawfully engaged in enforcement duties and acting in the course of those duties. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 9 in the name of Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor be agreed to.