Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to take a call on this piece of legislation. I've been sitting here listening to this debate and I've been listening to the Government members of this House give what I think is a slap in the face to our front-line officers our police officers our corrections officers our nurses our doctors in emergency departments (EDs) our paramedics and I am appalled and I am very disgusted—disgusted—by this attitude of this Government.The Government has refused through the select committee process to help to improve the bill. Select committee is meant to be there to help improve the legislation. This Government got in the way and did nothing. And I haven't heard one single suggestion tonight as to how they are going to make it any safer for the front-line officers and the front-line first responders who put their lives on the line every single day to protect New Zealanders and to keep them safe—not a single suggestion. All they've said is the current legislation is fine. Well I ask them to say that to the nurses and the doctors the corrections officers who are seeing a 92 percent increase in assaults by prisoners—92 percent increase in assaults under Kelvin Davis' leadership; that is unacceptable. And there's not one single suggestion that they've brought to Parliament tonight to try to solve that problem.Actions speak louder than words and actions speak a lot louder than the crocodile tears I've heard tonight. I've heard stories about Oh I met this first responder the other day." or "I was at this event down in this suburb of my electorate and I saw how amazing their work was." Well I'm sorry but actions speak louder than words and actions speak a lot louder than these fake crocodile tears which I just think is absolutely disgusting.I firmly believe that victims should be at the heart of the criminal justice system. That's the National Party's view—victims should be at the heart of the criminal justice system. And I'm not going to stand here in Parliament and make excuses for criminals and excuses for people who bash up front-line officers—I'm not going to stand by and make excuses for them. The New Zealand Police Association in their submission on this piece of legislation made it very clear: it is not in the job description of a police officer to be assaulted in the line of work that they do but it's happening far too often.The Corrections Association of New Zealand would say the same thing: it's not in the job description of a corrections officer to be assaulted in their line of work. They work in the most dangerous environment working with the most dangerous people and it is not in their job description and they are being assaulted more and more often. Not only just being assaulted—and some people listening might be thinking "Oh well that's just a bit of a bruise or a bit of a clip around the ears."—the number of corrections officers who have had to received medical care has increased from 162 to 292 per year under this Government; an 80 percent increase in the amount of Corrections Association staff requiring medical treatment. And we hear the Minister trying to downplay these assaults and saying "Oh well we're trying to encourage more reporting." Well you might be trying to encourage more reporting but there's more people being assaulted more seriously. And he tries to say "Oh well the number of serious assaults is not going up." Well it's pretty serious if they're needing medical treatment and taking time off work. There were corrections officers that I've met who've had to have serious time off work operations all sorts of procedures done so they can get back to work and then it's the emotional stress and the emotional strain which comes later afterwards. And I see the Police Association talking recently about post-traumatic stress injury and the injury which is caused from these traumatic events.We have to also recognise the seriousness of this. That's why this piece of legislation is so important. It's important because it does make a difference. And I've heard the Government members try to downplay this piece of legislation to say "Well it literally doesn't do much—it doesn't do anything." Well I'll tell you what it does two things—two very important things. Firstly it puts in place a specific offence so if you assault a corrections officer police officer an ED doctor or nurse or a paramedic there is a specific offence that you will be charged with for committing that crime. And they say "Oh well it's already an aggravated factor at sentencing." Well it might be for some of them but it's not for the nurses. Patricia who's been emailing some of us watching from her home in the Waimakariri she's been telling us it doesn't fit for her and this is another reason why this piece of legislation is needed. It sends a very clear message that as Parliament we will not accept these people being assaulted. It sends a very clear message that there should be a deterrent sentence and that people who do this should be punished.And some people say "Oh we shouldn't be sending people to jail." Well this Government has a goal of reducing the prison population by 30 percent and I wonder if that's the reason why they don't want to vote for this bill because actually a few more people might go to jail.Hon James Shaw: Point of order Madam Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Point of order Dr James Shaw—Hon James Shaw.Hon James Shaw: Thank you. I aspire to a doctorate one day Madam Speaker. This is the earliest opportunity I've had to ask this point of order—it's just taken me a while to look up the Speaker's rulings. I just wanted to ask you to clarify the ruling that you made before when you asked Willow-Jean Prime to withdraw and apologise in relation to two points one of which was that she had used the word "you" and drawn you into the debate and the other was that she had said that a statement by Dr Nick Smith was untrue. And I wanted to ask you which one of those two things you were asking her to withdraw and apologise for because I've been checking—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you I think I understand the point of order that the member is making—the member will resume his seat—and the member you're quite right took a point of order. I ruled that Dr Nick Smith had risen to his feet and had taken offence and that is why I asked the member to withdraw and apologise.SIMEON BROWN: Thank you Madam Speaker. And a reminder to members to take points of order I guess when the issue actually comes up.But the point here is this bill does two specific things: the specific offence which actually recognises the importance of the work that these people do and it is an incredibly important piece of work that these people do. And I was talking about the fact that maybe this Government doesn't want these people to possibly go to jail because actually they want to reduce the prison population by 30 percent and the Green Party signs up to that goal too. This Government is namby-pamby when it comes to actually taking action against people who cause serious offences.The second point is it puts in place the ability for a judge to have a cumulative sentence and this is most important to those corrections officers who get assaulted in their day-to-day work by a prisoner who might be on remand and then what happens? They go before the judge with an additional charge of assaulting a corrections officer and the judge has to use the totality of the offending and there's no actual additional punishment for that offence. In fact it's essentially a free punch on a corrections officer. And these are being caused particularly by gang members. We know 60 percent of the assaults on corrections officers are being caused by gang members. The Mongrel Mob turned up to Parliament the other day and told us how they're just such a kind betterment association. Well actually in January 16 of the 51 assaults on corrections officers were caused by Mongrel Mob members. They're not a group of people who just want to be kind and caring. And so there should be a very clear message sent: there are no free punches in the prisons against corrections officers and that's what this piece of legislation will do.This piece of legislation is incredibly important. I am proud to be supporting it. I'm absolutely disgusted at the arguments put up by the other side—the crocodile tears about their support for front-line officers but they will not do the work and actually put their words into action and that's what we as politicians are elected to do and the Government and the Green Party have failed."