M.P.s agree on bill on violent offending

Press, 12 September 1986, Page 8

M.P.s agree on bill on violent offending

PA Wellington - Members on both sides of Parliament backed a Government bill aimed at combating violent offending, Parliament was told yesterday. Reporting back the Violent Offences Bill, the chairman of the Justice and Law Reform Select Committee, Mr Bill Dillon (Lab., Hamilton West), said the committee had adopted a bipartisan approach in accepting the thrust of the bill, which created five new offences. The committee hoped the bill would be seen by the courts as a responsible reaction by Parliament to the need for crimes involving weapons to be “dealt with in a strong, firm manner.” The new offences provided for in the bill are:

• Assault with or while carrying a weapon, carrying a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment • Aggravated burglary while carrying a weapon — maximum penalty 14 years. • Use of a firearm in committing a crime — maximum penalty 10 years. • Use of a firearm against a member of the police, a traffic officer, or a prison officer — maximum penalty 14 years. • Carrying a knife in a public place without reasonable excuse — punishable by up to three months imprisonment or a fine of $lOOO. The maximum penalty for carrying an offensive weapon would be doubled to two years imprisonment. The Opposition spokesman on justice, Mr Jim

McLay (Nat, Birkenhead), said the bill would mean those who carried weapons and in the process committed offences, even if they did not use the weapons, were putting themselves at special risk if they were apprehended. “That is the way it should be, because too often the carrying of a weapon followed by the commission of an offence, followed by apprehension at the scheme, suddenly gives rise to the production of that weapon and its use or its threatened use,” Mr McLay said. “Those circumstances are too dangerous for our society. They must be met with special penalties.” The Minister of Justice, Mr Palmer, said he hoped the bill would be passed into law “well before Christmas.”