The State Government has moved to increase the maximum penalty for the offence of assaulting an ambulance officer.

It will lift from 3 to 7 years and then be the same as the penalty for a serious assault on a police officer.

I don’t always support increases in penalties but I think this one is long overdue.

Having worked side by side ambulance officers, and called on them on occasion, there is no doubting they have the most responsible and stressful job.

Ambulance officers attend the same scenes of accidents and incidents as police officers often putting themselves in the firing line.

The major difference though is that the ambulance officers attend unarmed and backup is not as readily available as it is for a police officer.

The ambulance officers are much more vunerable.

The increase in the maximum penalty is parliament's way of communicating to the courts that the community expects the offence to be dealt with by the imposition of higher penalties than those that have previoulsy been imposed.

The message is that the ambulance officers need to be respected when going about their job of protecting us all and that those that are accused will probably find themselves being dealt with in a district court and, if found guilty, have stiffer penalties imposed.