Assaults against police would be judged as worse than attacks on pregnant women under laws proposed by the Liberals, a plaintiff lawyers group says.
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The Australian Lawyers Alliance also warns that a Labor plan to protect police could make it an offence to try to stop an illegal detention.
The Canberra Liberals tabled draft legislation last year that would increase penalties against those who assault police, adding three to five years to the maximum jail term.
The Australian Federal Police Association strongly backs the creation of a specific offence of assaulting police.
Its president, Jonathon Hunt-Sharman, told an Assembly committee last week some officers no longer laid charges against those who attacked them because they had lost ''faith in that judicial process''.
However, the alliance, which represents about 1500 lawyers, said the opposition's proposal would create an ''obvious disparity''.
''Pregnant women are carrying vulnerable life and disregard for that infant, should surely attract more of a penalty than a police officer who has the added protection of capsicum spray, baton, taser and handgun.''
Under the Crimes Act, assaults are often upgraded to ''aggravated'' offences - which carry a tougher penalty - if they are committed against pregnant women.
The alliance's spokesman, Steven Whybrow, said this was unnecessary for police, who were both armed and already well protected under existing laws.
He said the Liberals' bill would create ''special victim category'' for police.
''Why? We don't do that for other vulnerable groups, such as paramedics, or intellectually disabled people, or elderly people.''
Mr Whybrow also said Labor's legislation would abolish the right of someone to defend themselves or another person if they tried to stop police from using excessive force or from illegally arresting someone.
''Under this law, you commit an offence even if you intervene reasonably, with proportional force, to try to, say, stop an innocent person being tasered.
''Even if you just grab the officer's arm, or touch them, you could be guilty of a criminal offence.''
Labor says defendants would still be able use a self-defence argument if they were trying to protect themselves against a police officer who ''was not acting in good faith''.
In a joint submission to the Assembly, Attorney-General Simon Corbell and ACT Policing said the government's legislation aims to ''specifically not apply to actions of ill-intentioned police officers''. Mr Corbell's submission also criticised the Liberals' bill, saying increasing the penalties ''will have no effect on assaults on police … as it doesn't address the real issue, which is that a defendant can still rely on the defences of self-defence where a police officer is acting in good faith''.
