Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): You know they're in trouble when their Minister of Finance gets up to deliver a speech and all he does is talk about our associate finance spokesperson. He doesn't talk about anything the Government's doing. They all stay in the House—they all stay in the House—so they can rise to their feet and give him a standing ovation—Hon Member: They've got nothing else to applaud.Hon MARK MITCHELL: —because they've got nothing else to keep them going. This is a clear indication of how desperate they are and how bad things are. The most undignified thing I've seen in this House is the Hon Ron Mark tripping over himself and falling over himself to get to Grant Robertson to shake his hand for such a great speech. It was embarrassing. He's had no papers into Cabinet. I assume that he's putting on a big effort to try to actually secure some funding to actually buy some assets for our Defence Force. But I want to use my general debate speech today to make an acknowledgment. We always in this House stand and acknowledge our first responders whether it be the police whether it be the fire service whether it be the ambulance service or whether it be our front-line medical staff that are having to deal with cases that come in through the emergency department. But the one service that we don't really acknowledge because they're basically invisible to us as the public is our corrections service. Our corrections staff do an outstanding job every day of making sure that the people that can create harm in the community are actually kept in our corrections facilities. It is an incredibly challenging profession. It requires strong character and resilience to each day turn up and not know what they're going to face during the day. They might face a prisoner that is completely motivated to self-harm and they have to show compassion. They might face violent prisoners that want to spit kick punch assault and attack them. They may even have to face a prisoner that's actually got a weapon whether it's a toothbrush that's been filed down or some sort of shank. Two hundred and fifty-nine corrections officers were assaulted between June last year and now—259 assaulted or attacked in the workplace. The one thing that we can do as a Parliament is we can apply sanctions. We can put laws in place that send a clear message. I feel strongly that assault against a corrections officer is actually an assault against the State—it's an assault against all of us—and the one thing that we can do in this House is we can apply sanctions to say that we support corrections officers and we take it very seriously as a country when they are assaulted while they are just trying to do their job and keep the rest of us safe and happy.So it brings me to a point that I want to raise. I was shocked last week when I asked in this House the Minister of Justice for two things: a definition of a low-level offender or offence and a definition of a non-violent assault. The non-violent assault—to be honest with you I thought the House might pick up the fact that there is no such thing as a non-violent assault. There has to be some sort of force used even if it's spitting. There's got to be some sort of violence attached to that offence—there is no such thing. He stood in this House and he used as an example an indecent assault against a female corrections officer. That's the example that he used and every single one of the members opposite—and especially the female members of the Labour and the Green caucuses—have been completely silent on this.Chlöe Swarbrick: We care about outcomes.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Sorry who's that? The sponsor of the bill the domestic violence bill—what's she got to say about it? What's she got to say about it as the great saviour and the advancer of these issues?I was deeply offended by it. You had the justice Minister of New Zealand stand up and trivialise an indecent assault against a female corrections officer and I think that that is a disgrace. That message that should be sent from this House is that we support them—Jan Logie: You are the problem right now.SPEAKER: Order! Order! Ms Logie I remind you who you're addressing.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Thank you Mr Speaker. This seems to have touched a raw nerve and it should touch a raw nerve. Get up. Get up and take a call. Get up and take a call and explain because I've been inundated with correspondence from women since the debate in the House—the questions in the House—last week including another female corrections officer that was also indecently assaulted on the job. And actually the result of her assault meant that there was a second strike against the offender.If this is the only example they can come up with against three strikes it's a terrible indictment on the fact that they don't have an argument against three strikes. Thank you Mr Speaker.