Larry Williams Drive

Anyone out there, hands up, who doesn't agree with the Justice Minister's plan to introduce harsher punishments for people who assault first responders? I feel like this is a complete no-brainer. I mean, there are some out there who would argue that no assault is acceptable at all and that if you create two tiers of punishment where you've got the police officers on one level and then the normal humans on another - what you're saying is that some assaults are more acceptable than others. And that's a fair argument to make, but I think reality has a role to play here, and the reality is different, isn't it? The reality is you and I, regular citizens, can just walk away if we see something happening, if we see there's somebody who needs a bit of help, but we can see it's not safe - we can just keep on going. First responders can't. For police and ambo workers in the fire service, it is their job to go into those situations that are often quite risky because people are upset or people have been substance ab