Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you Madam Speaker. Like other contributors to this debate can I just commence by acknowledging the situation at Whakaari / White Island to send out thoughts and prayers to those who have been so deeply affected by the events there and to acknowledge all of those in different capacities who are doing their level best to support people in that very tragic situation. Really as we turn to this debate there could be nothing that is a greater reminder of the importance of the role of first responders in our country. I would acknowledge those members from this House who have been present at Whakaari / White Island and the surrounding area to provide support and leadership including the local member the Hon Anne Tolley; the Minister for Civil Defence the Hon Peeni Henare; the right honourable Prime Minister; local list member Kiri Allan; and local member for Waiariki Tamati Coffey. While it is important that political leaders are there in these situations to show support and leadership and to ensure that the arms of State are working as they should to provide support really the most important work—the lifesaving work—is done by those who are first on the scene at these kinds of events. While the events at Whakaari / White Island are a unique event the reality is that every single day in our country there are situations in which first responders save lives and help people and this bill fundamentally is about ensuring that those people should be able to be safe as they carry out their work for other New Zealanders. It is also about ensuring that they are able to do their jobs because of course one of the problems is that if first responders are confronted with situations in which there is violence or the threat of violence or intimidation or other forms of disorder not only is their own safety at risk but it makes it far more difficult for them to provide the life-preserving services that they are there to provide as well. Of course these are incredibly important roles in our society and we want to make them as attractive as possible for skilled people to train and enter into. The possibility that a person might enter into one of these roles and then be subject to abuse or intimidation or violent behaviour can only be off-putting to the people that we need to attract into these essential professions as well.So for all of those reasons this is an important bill. The issues are real. I was actually shocked to read some of the numbers of assaults that some of our first responders face. If we look at emergency service workers: St John Ambulance reports 2000 verbal attacks over the past year and 161 physical assaults. That's over three per week that ambulance service people are facing when they turn up at the scenes of house fires assaults car crashes and the like. That is shocking to hear and it is something that we do need to address.Of course the resolutions to these issues are in a range of policy responses. This is not the only one but it is an important one. We do know that often in these cases—and the previous member referenced this—alcohol is involved. That's something that we need to address through other policy responses. It's my understanding that sometimes in these cases we're dealing with people in significant states of agitation who may have real mental health issues as well. We need to have a significant response in that area as well and that is a major priority of this Government. But we do also need to send a clear message both to the responders and to the public that we're not going to tolerate assaults on people carrying out this incredibly important work. So what this bill does is put in place through amendments to both the Crimes Act and the Sentencing Act provisions which allow a maximum sentence of up to 10 years and a minimum sentence of no less than six months for people who are found to have attacked a first responder in this way.The Labour Party is supporting this bill to select committee because we believe this issue is important because we need to keep people safe because we need to send a clear message. In the select committee we do want to explore whether we've got those provisions exactly right. It's a relatively unique piece of legislation in the way that it sets those sentencing guidelines and we think that it's important the select committee looks at those fully and on an informed basis to make sure that we get this right. But certainly this is an important bill. We strongly support the intent of it and I commend it to the House.