The Bill is important as it ensures that assaults and other violent acts against emergency workers are better recognized and appropriately punished.
The ‘Crimes Legislation Amendment (Assaults on Frontline Emergency and Health Workers) Bill 2022’ has been introduced by the NSW government to Parliament on August 12, 2022.
Presenting the Bill, Attorney General Mark Speakman said “every person should be able to feel safe in their workplace, including health and emergency services workers who perform an essential public service for our community, in difficult circumstances and often at personal risk”.
Not too long ago, a nurse in the Western Sydney suburbs had to bear the brunt of an assault in the form of facial fractures.
Media reports around the same time brought to notice that six staff members had been assaulted in specialized aged care units in a span of three weeks, which included two pregnant nurses being punched, one also being reportedly choked and a security guard kicked while on duty.
The situation was so horrific that the staff had to resort to staging a rally outside Blacktown Hospital to raise awareness.
At the peak of Covid, a very distressing incident was logged with the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association – an ICU nurse with her scrubs on, was allegedly assaulted upon boarding a train.
Scattered media reports pointed to nurses working at Blacktown, Westmead, Royal North Shore and Queanbeyan – all being forced to put up with abuse while out in public, either at shops or supermarkets, during that time.
A pregnant midwife in western Sydney was verbally abused and told that she should not be out spreading Covid, while at a fast-food outlet.
Research shows that violence against emergency services workers is reasonably common. According to the ‘Assaults on emergency services workers’, NSW’s Sentencing Council’s July 2021 report, the number of recorded offences which come before the NSW criminal justice system is modest, with incidents being heavily under-reported.
Even among those reported, several challenges make it difficult to track the outcome of those offences through the criminal justice system.
Available data show that rates of assaults too vary across categories of emergency workers. While police officers, ambulance officers and health workers face maximum assault, firefighters and rescue workers experience comparatively low rates of violence.
Significantly, the new bill is part of the NSW government’s response to the NSW Sentencing Council’s report. It is committed to strengthening criminal law protections for the frontline emergency workers.
Significantly, firefighters from the NSW Rural Fire Service, Fire and Rescue NSW and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, pharmacy staff, community health workers, NSW State Emergency Service frontline workers and other specified emergency workers will also be covered by the new Bill.
