Dean Jacqui: Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13750. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): National does support this bill the Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill at its first reading. We will be very interested to consider this bill. National does support this bill because it aligns pretty fair and square with the work that this National Government has been doing in first of all putting the victims of crime first but also in its very strong cross-ministerial work programme looking after the interests of all children including vulnerable children.I commend the member Asenati Lole-Taylor for bringing this bill to the House. It is a simple bill. It proposes to amend section 9 of the Sentencing Act to add a new aggravating factor at the time of sentencing. As I understand the bill the judge presiding must take into account whether or not the child who is to be under 16 years old has had a crime committed in their presence by somebody over the age of 17 years—so it concerns an adult albeit a young adult having committed a crime in the presence of a young person or child under the age of 16. So the judge at the time of sentencing is to take the fact that that young person or child was present at the time of the offence into consideration when sentencing that offender.The member will be very aware that this Government passed legislation earlier this year to make it an aggravating factor at sentencing offences against corrections officers police officers ambulance officers—and I might be forgetting—Le’aufa’amuliaAsenati Lole-Taylor: Fire ambulance.JACQUI DEAN: The Fire Service. We did that with the support of the House because we recognised that those service providers did not ever have the option of running away from an incident. So the fireman cannot run away from a fire. If that fireman is prevented from going about their business as happens and as happens to ambulance officers on a not infrequent basis and to prison officers they have no choice. They have to stand their ground. They have to deal not only with the emergency that they face like the prison riot we had recently but also with perpetrators committing offences or attempting to commit offences on them.So you can very well argue—and I think it is very true to say—that young people under the age of 16 can find themselves in circumstances through no fault of their own such as being in the midst of a crime scene be it as I think the member Asenati Lole-Taylor cited being seen in a P lab and having the toxic fumes and the very danger of explosion around them be it family violence or being sat in a vehicle that is the subject of a police pursuit. All of those scenarios are similar in that the child does not have the choice. They are children. They are in the control—one would hope in our society—of responsible adults. So I commend the member for bringing this bill to the House for its first reading and we will have a good look at it in the Law and Order Committee. It aligns very well—very well—with the policies of this National Government and with a lot of the work that this Government has done already in our first 5 years in Government.I will talk about some of the more detailed aspects of the bill. It refers to “in the presence of a minor” and that means in a place or a building where a minor is present or could reasonably be expected to be present or in close proximity to a place or a building where a minor is present or could reasonably be expected to be present. In other words I think the member is saying here that they do not have any choice. They are kids. They have got to do what they are told. They are minors. They get placed in these circumstances and here we have a bill that makes the presence of a minor an aggravating factor in the sentencing of the perpetrator of a crime. Well good on you Asenati Lole-Taylor for bringing this bill to the House.I just want to go through a few of the initiatives that are complementary to this bill and they are around the protecting of vulnerable children. I do have to disagree with the member that the Children’s Action Plan is not going far enough. I believe it is. I believe it is putting the interests of vulnerable children first and I think some of the provisions in that policy are going to be quite crunchy for people. But we are unapologetic in putting the interests of vulnerable children first. Why? To keep them safe. Why? Because they cannot choose the homes that they are born into or the situations that they find themselves in. They do not have that choice. We as adults have that choice; children do not have that choice. So I am unapologetic and I am proud of the Hon Paula Bennett’s Children’s Action Plan. I look forward to seeing the roll-out of the implementation of that plan and keeping our young children safe in New Zealand.Under National we have already toughened sentences for crimes against children. We have already done work in that area. It is now a crime to stay silent if you know that a child or a vulnerable adult is at risk. We removed the parole eligibility for the worst repeat violent offenders and for offenders who commit the worst murders. We did that with the three-strikes law thanks to our coalition partner the ACT Party. We introduced screening of parole applications to allow the Parole Board to reduce the number of unnecessary hearings. Again this was putting the interests of the victims first be they adults or children. Of course there are always children associated with victims. We are all mothers we are all grandmothers we are all aunties and we are all family members. Every crime that is committed in New Zealand has a number of victims and a number of those victims are children.I could go through a number of initiatives and I know my colleagues will. I just want to talk about the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill which is newly introduced into the House and is now going through scrutiny in the Law and Order Committee. Again this is another complementary piece of legislation that puts the interests of the victim first. It is about protecting the victim as much as is possible from crime and criminals in New Zealand. It might be adults but in this case it is children. This Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill is agood bill. We will support this bill through its first reading. I commend the bill to the House and thank Asenati Lole-Taylor for bringing it to this House.