Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2)

on behalf of Simeon Brown: I move, That the Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.

The purpose of this member’s bill is to prevent the most dangerous gang members from accessing firearms. And, in that regard, I would like to think, and I hope—and I believe, actually—that is a purpose supported by all members in this House. No one, certainly, can deny what a problem—what a crisis, in fact—this issue is. We have violence and shootings in New Zealand every other day. You only have to pick up any day’s paper and you will see the visceral harm and evidence of that harm, of the violence and the shootings. What’s more, it’s also undeniable now—and people used to mock this from the National Party—that that violence and those shootings are disproportionately from gangs and gang members.

So what will this bill do? It will empower the Commissioner of Police to issue firearms prohibition orders against gang members, with two requirements: where they are convicted, in the last decade, of serious violence, domestic violence, or firearms offending, and where the commissioner considers it in the public interest to ensure that the gang member doesn’t possess a firearm. The bill does a set of other important things, including that a person subject to a firearms prohibition order, or a gang member, then can no longer have a firearm, have access to a firearm, or be around them—say, at a gang pad or, indeed, anywhere else for that matter.

Now, at the select committee, a number of good suggestions were made. The committee has recommended a series of amendments, which, I think, turn this from—as is the case with most members’ bills—a member’s bill with a few flaws into one actually that is fit for purpose and very much not only worthy but urgently in need of passing. One issue is of some controversy, that of search powers, and the Police Association came along and they told us—and I thought their submission made perfect sense—that it is clear that, for this law to work and to be effective, search powers and the greatest warrantless search powers are needed. Now, of course, that will be a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, but there is a countervailing issue very much on the other side of the ledger that I say—and I think reasonable New Zealanders would understand—means that we need those search powers in this law, and that’s safety. That’s the need to ensure that New Zealanders aren’t harmed by people with guns and, more particularly, by gang members with guns, given that the evidence is clear about the proliferation of those guns and their violence. National is, and indeed I am, on the side of the safety of New Zealanders, unequivocally in that regard.

The reality is this: Labour is going to use its majority to vote down this bill, and I say to this House, I say to New Zealanders watching, that is a tragedy, and it will have tragic consequences. See, that violence and those shootings every other day are disproportionately by gangs, and sooner or later, mark my words, an innocent person will be killed in those shootings. We’ve seen Constable Matthew Hunt, a brave young man, in the line of duty killed by gang people with guns in West Auckland. And I note that and the tragedy of it and his brave service. But there will be civilians that will be killed as well if we don’t act. I just note that the first report to the first police Minister of this Labour Government, four years ago, made clear the need for firearms prohibition orders. Nothing has been done, but recently the Government has said, the Labour Party has said, it will introduce firearms prohibition order law soon—I think I’m right in saying before the end of the year. But the problem with that is this: this law is needed now. This is an urgent issue right now—in fact, it was last week, it was the month before, it was six months before, it was a year before—as the gangs and guns and the violence and the shootings and the harms have increased and increased exponentially in this country.

This bill, with the amendments recommended, would, as I’ve said, be a fit-for-purpose bill, and given the urgency, I ask Labour to pass it in this House—given that, as I understand it, they are not going to. Actually, the only reason I can see for them not to—certainly the primary reason that I can see for Labour not to pass this law—and I regret to say this, has to be politics and playing politics. And I say, actually, New Zealanders—many New Zealanders—have had a job done on them, where they think that Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government actually doesn’t do politics. They’re holier than thou; everything’s nice! It’s a very political Government, and it’s, basically, only politics that will see this law that everyone should be behind defeated today in this Parliament. I say that with sorrow, because there’s no primary, big reason that I can see why the Labour members wouldn’t vote for this bill, given they’re going to do substantially the same thing at a later time but don’t want to see the fine member Simeon Brown get the credit for it. I note, actually, just in that regard, in the remaining minutes, they wouldn’t give full police advice to the committee. They want to pass their own law, they say they support this, but they wouldn’t actually be involved with finding the answer in this bill.

Look, actually, the other conclusion I come to, regrettably again, is that Labour, for whatever reason, has a blind spot, a soft spot, when it comes to gangs, and that seems to be a motivation on this bill too. And if members over there—they’re very quiet. The reality is Willie Jackson, Marama Davidson—actually, other members of that Government—are meeting regularly with gangs. They are soft on gangs. And, as David Seymour was saying just before, we’ve seen it in this age of COVID, where everyone else gets prosecuted and warned by the Government. Anyone who has any kind of meeting with more than a few people ends up getting seen by the police and dealt with by the police. Anyone crossing borders—well, they’re not allowed and, if they do, they get dealt with and prosecuted by the police. But there’s one group in New Zealand where there seems to be no consequences whatever, and who are they? They’re patched gang members in this country—actually, the people, it seems on the evidence quite clearly, who are spreading COVID-19 across the borders in Auckland, through into Waikato and the King Country, up North, and also seem to be the only people who aren’t being named by the Government and shamed on the TV news, I might add. So we’ve seen they’re soft on gangs and COVID, and we’ve seen they’re soft on gangs in this bill.

I want to make these final couple of points. I just also want to note, in relation to guns, the concern I always had, and National always had, with what Labour has done in gun reform in the last small number of years—with the buy-back scheme, the register, and so on—and it is that all they’ll do is get at the good people, the law-abiding people who comply with the law anyway, and they’ve taken plenty of their guns, and then end up doing nothing about the multitude of illegal guns held by gangs in this country. And we see that with this bill today, actually. They’re happy to sock it to pistol clubs and anyone else with historic rifles, but they won’t do a single thing when it comes to gangs. [Interruption] Four years, Poto Williams, and this Government has done nothing when it comes to gangs and guns.

Finally, I want to commend the member who has brought this bill to the House, who’s worked very hard on it, very diligently, the MP for Pakuranga, Simeon Brown. He’s someone, unlike the Hon Poto Williams, who actually is prepared to face up to the problem we have with gangs in New Zealand, with their drug peddling, with their thuggery, and with the proliferation—

Order! The member’s time has expired. The question is that the motion be agreed to.

I rise to take a call on this bill, and, as a member of the select committee who sat on this matter, I first want to start by thanking the 37 submitters who took the time to participate in our democracy. Of the 34 who produced serious or substantive submissions, I believe that it was 27 who profoundly disagreed with this bill, and, unfortunately, I must agree with them.

This bill is, frankly, a day late and a dollar short. It’s a day late in that the National Party had the opportunity to do something about this and they failed to vote for tougher penalties on gun crime, including taking guns off gangs, harsher penalties for those who push synthetic drugs, and tougher controls on returning terrorists, and, may we just remember, police numbers fell under the National Government. That is not the approach of this Government, but what we want to do is put together legislation that actually works, is comprehensive, and is going to actually sort the problem out—and that’s the other problem with this bill.

When I say it’s a dollar short, it’s a cheap shot and, like most cheap shots, you get what you pay for, and in this case it’s a bill that doesn’t have all the bits. So, as many of the submitters noted, for example, on the much-vaunted comment about a question of search powers, the bill begins by saying that there are going to be additional search powers introduced and then fails to do any such thing. This was quite a relief to the Attorney-General, who said that had such search powers been in the bill, then he might have had some serious questions. But since the member somehow forgot to actually put them in, it wasn’t a problem.

The Justice Committee gave huge consideration to this bill, and what we really noticed—and you can see it in the report—was that just about every single clause would have be amended to drag this bill into some semblance of order and relevance. But I want to take particular notice of one particular issue with it. When I say it’s a day late and a dollar short, I’ve mentioned the day late bit, but the dollar short bit is this total focus on gang membership.

Now, this Government is in no way—in no way—taking its foot off the pedal when it comes to gangs. We have made massive strides in addressing the actual issues with gangs and actually hitting them in the pocket, where it hurts. But this bill seems to think gangs are the only issue in the country. This bill sets out to only allow firearms prohibition orders against gang members. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but people who are not in gangs also commit gun crime. People who are in organised criminal groups that are not classified as gangs—they sometimes do it. Terrorists—now, there’s a group that under Mr Brown’s bill would not be subject to firearm prohibition orders, and this was a point made repeatedly by submitters.

If you’re going to create firearm prohibition orders—and we profoundly agree that you should—you need to actually make them do something. You need to actually produce a piece of legislation that’s going to have some longevity.

I don’t really see the point in a single-issue law. Why are we only targeting gang members with this piece of legislation? If you’re going to produce something as useful as a firearm prohibition order, then why can’t we make it for all the people who create problems with illegal firearms or with poor control of their guns? I don’t know. We could ask Simeon Brown. It really was something that was a continuing matter of concern for us, and it is a reason we just can’t support this.

But what we are going to do is bring in a piece of legislation that is fit for purpose and that will be comprehensive in the way this bill, sadly, simply isn’t. The bill that we are going to bring in at the end of this year, which is not a rushed matter—it’s been under consideration. There has been consultation going out for some time.

💬 Chris Bishop: For four years.

Sometimes it’s worth doing something thorough, you see. Sometimes, it’s better than producing, as I say, a cheap piece of legislation that ain’t going to do nothing. So the bill that we’re going to produce instead is going to cover not only gang members with convictions—

💬 Barbara Edmonds: Point of order, Madam Speaker. Just noting that one of the members doesn’t have their mask on. They’ve just put it on.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Emily Henderson.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So whereas Mr Brown’s well-intentioned but, frankly, a little bit sloppy bill only covers gang members with convictions, leaving large gaps on who will and won’t be covered, as I have said—gang members without convictions or people who are convicted of terrorist offences, for instance—the Government’s bill is going to look at the actions of the person, not the colour of their jacket. So we are going to include those who are convicted of serious firearm offences, serious violent offences, an offence of participation in organised criminal groups—section 98A of the Crimes Act—and terrorism-related offences. This is a bill that concentrates on where it actually matters—not the colour of the jacket, not the cheap shot, not the easy media message, but it’s actually dealing with the people who commit the crimes.

When I look at this, as an ex - Family Court lawyer, I think about all those women who are threatened and harmed by gun violence, who, according to Simeon Brown, don’t merit protection. It’s not OK.

The point of doing this is to do it well, surely. Otherwise, what’s the point of our salaries? We aren’t here to keep creating bits of legislation that then have to be added to and added to. We’re here to do our best job and to do it thoroughly and to do it comprehensively. That is what the Government is going to do, and what we are already doing for gangs or to gangs is similarly comprehensive.

So I would remind the members opposite of some of the things that we’ve done that they’ve, sadly—a day late and a dollar short. This Government has invested $450 million in the police since we came to office. That’s 700 police staff who are dedicated to organised crime-fighting, and the total police workforce is now over 14,000—more than they have ever had previously. Already, those numbers have allowed us to devote those organised police officers to operations such as Operation Tauwhiro, which was launched in February this year, and which is aimed at the disruption and prevention of firearms violence by criminal gangs—surprise, surprise. Since February, 1,091 firearms have been seized, along with $5.5 million in cash, and 940 people have been arrested in relation to firearms offences. The operation has been so effective in cracking down on gangs, it’s been extended for six months.

We are committed to a comprehensive package of moves. We are also going to bring in the criminal proceeds recovery Act to further enable us to crack down on gangs where they actually hurt; not taking cheap shots that generate headlines but do nothing—nothing—to actually address the problem.

You can do things on the basis of the colour of the cover of the book, or you can actually go through the pages and actually read all those long words and do something that is actually going to make a difference for this country. Unfortunately, Mr Brown’s bill is absolutely not fit for the purpose that it intends. It’s a pity. It’s a bit of a waste of our time, perhaps. It is not something where we feel there is any point in continuing to expend Government money cleaning it up. We’ve got a better option—we’re going to do it properly. For that reason, I just cannot commend this bill to this House.

Well, goodness, gracious me. I mean, normally new MPs come to Parliament with a bit of humbleness. They come in with a bit of respect for the institution and respect for people who’ve gone before, but that speech is a perfect demonstration of why that member will be a one-term MP only. I mean, the arrogance displayed from the Government in response to this bill is quite extraordinary. The member who just spoke says the bill was a day late and a dollar short—the chutzpah of that member.

This Government has now been in for going on four years—in fact, it’s ticked over four years. For four years this Government has been promising firearms prohibition orders. One of the first things Stuart Nash did when he became the Minister of Police in 2017 was he issued a very ill-advised press release which was that the Government, the Labour - New Zealand First Government, was going to smash the gangs. And when he became the police Minister, it was all about going after organised crime, going after the gangs. Smash the gangs is what he said they were going to do, and he said that they were going to introduce firearm prohibition orders, because what the member who just spoke doesn’t realise is that there is a history to this issue.

So if you go all the way back to 2017 and the inquiry from the then Law and Order Committee into firearms in New Zealand, that bipartisan committee recommended that firearms prohibition orders be introduced. That went to Paula Bennett, National campaigned in 2017 on introducing firearms prohibition orders. Obviously, we lost the election, the Government changed. Stuart Nash says we’re all going to do it. So we put a bill in the ballot, and it was actually originally, back in 2018, in my name. The bill got pulled, it came up for its first reading, and we said to the Government, “Righty-ho, put your money where your mouth is. Here’s a bill. Back your words with actions. Vote for the bill.” They voted it down. OK, fair enough. New Government, they wanted to take some advice. And do you know what the excuse was then? Literally exactly the same language as Emily Henderson used, which is “This bill’s inadequate but we’ve got a good one coming, just wait.”

That was in 2018. Here we are, there’s only been another election that’s happened in the meantime. In fact, we’re a year after the election—almost at the tail-end of 2021, and what are Labour MPs saying? “Oh, this bill’s inadequate. We don’t like this bill, but, don’t worry, there’s a bill coming.” Well, we’re yet to see it. So for Emily Henderson to stand up and say this bill’s a day late, when this Government’s had four years to introduce a bill and get it to the committee is brazen.

So my bill was defeated in 2018. April 2019, we had another attempt, because people will remember there was the Christchurch attacks and Parliament moved very quickly to reform firearms legislation. And I wrote to Stuart Nash, and Simon Bridges wrote to Jacinda Ardern at the time, and we said, “While you’re having a go at sporting shooters”—because we all agreed that we wanted to take the semiautomatic high-powered weapons out of the hands of New Zealanders, everyone agreed on that, but the bill went too far in terms of sporting shooters and things like that. So we said, “Look, while you’re having a go at the hunting community and the sports shooting community, why don’t you have a go at the gangs at the same time? So have a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). Here’s our firearms prohibition regime, drafted by the National Party. Take it. Insert it as an SOP into the firearms bill going through the Parliament.” So that was a very sensible suggestion. It was done in the spirit of bipartisanship and good faith. The Government said no. OK, fair enough.

Then 2020 rolls around and the bill gets pulled again. This time it’s in the hands of Brett Hudson—now it’s in the hands of Simeon Brown. And this time around New Zealand First—I think they could sense what was happening towards the election time—sends it off to select committee. The Government wasn’t very happy about it but there was nothing they could do about it. So the bill goes off to select committee with National and New Zealand First, and it’s sat there ever since. And the depressing thing about Emily Henderson’s speech is that the bill’s been at the committee since July 2020. It got pulled in February 2020, it’s been there since July, so it’s over a year now. The bill sat at the committee, and the committee, as I understand it, has worked hard under the chairwomanship of Ginny Andersen now and whoever the chair was prior to the election—they’ve worked hard to improve the bill. They’ve taken extensive advice is my understanding—I’m no longer a member of the committee—and they’ve improved the bill. There’s been a bunch of changes made to the bill. The committee’s worked hard on it. And here it comes back, we think the bill’s in decent shape to advance it to try and improve things substantively for the country, for all the reasons that my colleague Simon Bridges raises in terms of the impact of gangs on our community, and now we discover that the Labour Party, which has a Government majority, is going to vote against it.

It’s just, frankly, aggravating. And it would be OK if—well, it would be more tolerable, I suppose, if the Government had a bill before the House on the Order Paper that was about to come up or had it had already been sent to the committee; that would sort of be understandable, but they don’t. All we have is a press release from Kris Faafoi. And isn’t it funny, everything that the Government stuffs up in the justice space has Kris Faafoi’s fingerprints all over it these days: hate speech, conversion therapy, now this regime—the firearms regime. But anyway, all we have is a press release from Kris Faafoi and Minister Poto Williams saying there’s a bill coming. Well, literally, the Government has been issuing press releases and media statements about firearms prohibition orders for four years now.

I just did a quick Google search of police Minister and firearms prohibition orders and every time this bill gets talked about or the issue gets talked about, it’s really interesting. Normally what happens is the Labour backbench insult the whole idea. They talk about human rights and they talk about warrantless searches and they talk about how the bill’s an affront and we can’t possibly tolerate it, and then halfway through their speech they suddenly realise that they’re actually meant to be at least in favour, theoretically, of the concept, so they kind of start changing their mind and say, “Oh, but it’s just the way this one’s drafted. We don’t like this particular version of the bill.” Even though, as I say, the committee’s actually improved this.

So it’s aggravating, because this Government has had four years to do something about firearms prohibition orders and it’s not there. And Emily Henderson says, “I don’t think this issue can be boiled down to a single issue.”, and she is particularly upset that the bill, as drafted by Simeon Brown, focuses on gangs. Well, the interesting thing about the press release her own colleagues issued, Kris Faafoi and Poto Williams, is it’s all about gangs. So the Government’s own reason for being in favour of firearms prohibition orders is to take guns off gangs. So Emily Henderson might not like the fact that this bill just focuses on gangs, but the Government itself recognises that they are a big issue. I quote from the press release: “[We’ve got] to combat the influence of gangs and organised crime to help keep New Zealanders … safe.” Well, we completely agree. And the reality is Simon Bridges is completely right: it’s just raw politics here. This is not a decision made with anything other than politics in mind; it’s as simple as that. The bill is in good shape, the bill has gone through a select committee process—

💬 Hon Poto Williams: No it wasn’t, that’s the point. It’s not in great shape.

Well, the Minister says the bill’s not in great shape. Well, I invite the Minister to do some work for once and introduce a bill that the Government’s been purportedly working on for four years. I will take seriously what the Minister says about this bill when the Government introduces their own bill, seriously. I will take seriously their complaints about it when they actually put their money where their mouth is and introduce their own legislation.

I mean, you sometimes—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Until then it’s a Tui’s ad.

Until then it’s a Tui’s ad.

💬 Hon Member: Take a call, Poto.

Well, we look forward to the Minister taking a call—looking forward to the Minister taking a call on it.

But the reality is, under this Government, as Greg O’Connor knows so well, because I’ve read his first reading—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: He’d be all right as police Minister.

He would be all right as police Minister. I read his first reading speech on my legislation back in 2018, and Greg O’Connor talks at length with great verbosity about his time in the police and how bad gangs are, and how it’s really important we crack down on the gangs—we’ve got to take guns off the gangs, gangs are an affront to a dignified society and a civilised country, and I agree with Greg O’Connor. And the sad thing is he’s a member of a Government that has spent four years doing basically nothing about the gangs, and now we have gang membership and gang violence out of control. Gang membership’s increased more than 50 percent under this Government, and the Government doesn’t like being told about gang membership exploding because they say of the National Gang List, which is publicly available official data—that we’re not allowed to use it, and we’ve even got the Police Commissioner saying we shouldn’t publish it, which is just crazy. So now we have 8,000 gang members—the highest number of gang members ever—and they didn’t hand back the guns during the two amnesties. They didn’t hand back the guns then, they’ll never give back the guns. In fact, they’re on the record publicly saying they’re not going to give back the guns. The only alternative is for Parliament to pass legislation with teeth to make sure that the police can go and take them off them. This is a step forward. It’s a shame the Government doesn’t agree.

Just for anyone listening at home to the debate this afternoon that sort of might be tempted to believe some of the things they’re hearing, our prisons are full of gang members and gang associates and more are going in there every day. Now, I’m not going to stand here and rubbish—contradict—what’s been said by the Opposition, because that’s the problem with both firearms and gangs. They make very good, sexy speeches in the House, on both sides and for all hues of Government, but, unfortunately, if we believe that what we’re going to do here is all of a sudden have some mystical ability to diminish the power and influence of gangs, then we are wrong. What we will do, we will take a coordinated approach, a joined-up approach, a strategic approach which will ensure that we start at the recruiting level and we finish at the top level where people, relatively few people, are making a lot of money.

It’s important to understand how we reached this place and these are two things that come together: guns and gangs. Now, gangs have always been with us. They’ve been right through—you go to the back streets of the United Kingdom in the 1800s, in the Victorian age, there were gangs. There have always been. And the essence of gangs is a sphere of intimidation. It’s the ability to get someone else to go to jail for you, to get someone else to take a bullet, a knife, or what else for you. So it’s very important that we actually understand where the power of gangs comes from and, as I say, it comes from that sphere of intimidation. These gangs are also very hierarchal. So what we risk by taking a piecemeal approach to this, is that we will play at the edges, we will tinker at the edges, but we won’t actually be able to deal with the real issue, which no country has actually been able to do.

So in parallel with this, we’ve also had a firearm problem, which again has transcended Governments, and it’s important to understand how we’ve arrived at this because when we look at this bill or any other bill, we need to understand exactly what the problem is we’re trying to solve. Now, firearms became an issue—there will be those in the House who probably had firearms. Probably Mr McKelvie and myself may be the only ones under the old system where each firearm was actually licensed and actually it wasn’t the person who was licensed, it was the firearm. So going through the process of buying a firearm meant every firearm at some stage was seen by a police officer and would be recorded. So every firearm, someone was responsible for—it was very obvious who owned it. We could trace that back so the owner of the firearm had responsibility for it. That was a paper-based system.

Before computers, probably about five years too early, a decision was made that because the paper-based system had collapsed—and while you might be able to get some records locally for your local firearms, trying to do that nationally was pretty much impossible. So a decision was made, and I think most in retrospect would say the wrong decision was made, that firearms’ owners would be licensed instead. What that meant is that all of a sudden no one was responsible for individual firearms and so a plethora of firearms began entering the country. The police didn’t invest money in monitoring the firearms law and that got out of control as well and was shown up on several occasions. It was shown up by the shootings in Otago when, of course, we had the Aramoana shootings. Even on that occasion it showed that there was an individual who even though he should have been picked up by the system wasn’t and, worse still, he was able to buy as many firearms as he liked. That wasn’t fixed at the time as well as it could have been. There were a couple of changes made and again there were a couple of High Court cases where police attempted to control the numbers of firearms coming into the country. Unfortunately, the courts ordered against police and what was a trickle of firearms coming into the country became an absolute avalanche and to this day nobody knows how many firearms there are in this country.

In a previous iteration or a previous job I had we were pushing hard to get an inquiry into firearms in New Zealand and it took the shooting for four police officers in Kawerau before the then Minister, Judith Collins, agreed to actually have an inquiry. As the previous speaker, Mr Bishop, pointed out, some reasonable recommendations came from the select committee; unfortunately, the good ones were blocked by the New Zealand First representative and so what could have been an opportunity taken was actually missed.

So coming back to the bill, Madam Speaker, which I can see even with your mask on you are seeking me to do, it’s important to know what was happening with the gangs at the same time. Around about 2012 to 2013, the numbers of gangs started to rise, particularly the Mongrel Mob, and the Mongrel Mob were running the prisons. And what the other gangs realised was that they needed numbers, so the numbers of gang members needed to be increased by the other gangs so they could actually hold their own in prison. Across this also we had the 501s, where, despite the fact that we were getting on apparently quite well with the Government at the time, we then started to get planeloads of the worst of our criminals trained in Australia; they came and hit our shores. So we got the planets aligned quite badly for all these things to come together.

I come to the bill now and why this bill—[Interruption] Well, there are some things to commend it, and my previous opponent in Ōhāriu, Brett Hudson, was lucky enough to get this bill redrawn—there was a lot wrong with the bill and there still is because it is rather piecemeal. What is absolutely necessary and the reason I’ve arrived at this place speaking about firearms and gangs and putting them together is that just looking at either of these things in isolation simply will not work. I know in the past when I trained detectives, if you look at the Crimes Act and look at the Arms Act you’ll see some very similar pieces of legislation, because so often when we’ve arrived at this time, whoever’s been in Government, someone has come up, “We’ve got a problem, let’s pass another piece of legislation.” What you end up is some virtually identical pieces of legislation that again are relatively meaningless. Anyone who generally comes before the courts charged with a firearms offence associated with a crime generally gets a pretty good send off and there is legislation that enables a judge who is well informed to actually deal with it.

So what we really require now is the firearm protection orders need to be part of a broader piece of legislation, because I go back to what I said: the people who will be carrying the firearms, the people who have the firearms, the people who have got the violence convictions, they are not the ones who are going to be going to prison because they don’t actually carry the firearms—they don’t have them. I go back to what I said: the essence of gangs is that sphere of intimidation and the sphere of intimidation means that you can get people to go across some border for you into the Waikato to sell drugs to bring the money back with firearms, and apparently a bit of KFC as well, because if you are told to do that, you will do that even though it is actually a fraught activity. The chances of you getting caught are very high—and they were caught and many gang members are caught and, as I said before, that is why our prisons are actually full and getting fuller of gang members every day.

So this doesn’t require the next speaker to stand up here and lambast this Government, past Governments, future Governments for what they have and haven’t done because that will get us nowhere. You could go through Hansard and see that speeches like that have been made from time immemorial. What it does require is a well-thought-out, coordinated, joined-up piece of legislation that will incorporate much of what’s in this bill but will also incorporate good asset seizure, which will see gang members who turn up in a flash vehicle, a flash motorcycle, or anything flash, or with a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewellery on them—that that can be taken unless they can show that it was legally acquired. This is the type of joined-up legislation, these are the types of joined-up strategies that are going to be absolutely necessary so that those who succeed us in this House are making these same speeches in 25 years’ time. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak to the second reading of this bill.

Of course, the Green Party policy on gun control has probably been the most comprehensive of any party in this House for many, many years. We’ve long supported making it illegal to own semi-automatic weapons, having a gun registration system, reducing the licensing period, and reviewing vetting procedures. And, of course, that really is the point, right? It’s all about reducing access to violent firearms that are capable of killing large numbers of people. The point of that approach is to reduce harm to our communities, not to try and scapegoat or blame one particular part of society over any other, because some of the worst shootings that we’ve had, that have affected innocent civilians in this country, have not in fact been from gang members; it’s been white supremacists or people with quite, you know, serious issues.

I think what we’re seeing with this bill, and what we’ve seen—it’s quite ironic listening to the National Party speakers on this bill, because they’re saying this bill is being voted down because of politics. The only reason they’re putting forward this bill is petty, superficial politics. Scaremongering—a systematic approach to criminal justice legislation from the National Party, dog-whistling with very racist undertones and overtones, not the slightest bit interested in effective legislation that would reduce access to firearms from anyone with criminal intent, but a specific, bespoke piece of legislation, dog-whistling by blaming gangs for all of the problems in this country rather than saying “Let’s take an effective and systematic approach and reduce harm in our communities caused by firearms no matter where it’s coming from, including white supremacists.” I would love to see that sort of approach from the National Party. I assume the ACT Party is going to get up and say something very similar to the National Party.

The list of 35 gangs that was originally put forward in this particular bill particularly focuses on Māori and Pacific populations. Those are not the only criminal groups that we need to prohibit from holding gun licences. And I think we learnt that in Christchurch. So just classic, race-baiting populist politics from the National Party, a useless piece of legislation again from the member Simeon Brown. It’s not the only useless bit of legislation targeting, specifically aimed at, gang members rather than taking an approach that would affect all criminals and all people who are causing harm in our communities to be pulled from the ballot. He’s been incredibly lucky in that respect.

But yeah, our criminal justice system has tended to create more problems than it’s solved. Of course, the National Party will never take an evidence-based approach to reducing harm in our communities. They prefer to appeal to tribalism, to scaremonger, to make sure that the good people sitting at home watching the news feel very, very afraid, rather than taking effective approaches to reduce harm in our community.

So the Green Party opposed this legislation at first reading. We oppose it at second reading. We look forward to it going away and for us to actually support the Government in an effective approach to criminal justice and to firearms prohibition that will actually reduce harm in our communities rather than dog-whistling to racists.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I enjoyed that speech from Julie Anne Genter; thank you very much. It’s important, I think, to just affirm what she said, which is that what’s needed here is not some chest beating, and she used the word, I think, “dog whistles” to a pretty vile image, which is of brown people in South Auckland, and that isn’t the problem here. Gangs across New Zealand come in all shapes and sizes. It’s a pity, and I hope I’m allowed to say this, in these unusual circumstances, that Mr Brown isn’t able to present his own bill here in the House, because I would very much like to be able to eyeball him across the room and say that we are tired of him, at every opportunity—even the opportunity when someone bought a prisoner a hamburger for a great kapa haka team performance; he leapt on that, and what a vile, vile approach to crime and justice that is.

No, what we want to do is to take a careful, a measured, and a balanced approach, and that’s an approach which isn’t just leaping at a moment’s notice onto firearms prohibition orders. Yes, there is something in it; yes, the approach and the theme is correct; but it’s not fit for purpose. This bill is simply not fit for purpose. This Government will be introducing work on firearm prohibition orders. The work it’s done on firearms is well known, and some of that work has been done with cooperation across the House, but there’s more work to do, and it isn’t just a knee-jerk reaction.

Look, the Justice Committee here—and I’ve got the select committee report—did a Herculean task; I’ve never seen so much red ink. But the fact of the matter is that you can’t make the proverbial silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and this bill, which, admittedly, I understand, wasn’t drafted by Mr Brown—it was Mr Hudson’s original bill—is just not a workable framework. I accept that, as I know as a humble backbencher, drafting a member’s bill doesn’t have the resources of Government, but that’s why the Minister needs to be given the space to properly prepare something which addresses all of the thorny issues, and there are thorny issues in firearms prohibition orders.

One of those which needs addressing is exactly who they extend to. What is the reach of a member of a criminal organisation? Is the trigger, for example, as I understand is in here, some kind of serious criminal offending, or should it extend a little bit further, perhaps? Should it extend to associates, people who are members of what is, essentially, a criminal organisation but have managed to escape the long arm of the law to date? That’s an inquiry that we need to have, and I suggest that it’s something where we need to perhaps look a little more carefully, because if the policy underpinning this is firearm safety, as it should be—and everyone’s policy is firearm safety—then we need to ask the question: where is the risk coming from? Is it coming from only those people who have done hard time—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: It’s coming from gangs.

—for criminal offences, or is it coming from a wider group of people, including—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Oh, come on!

—to the future mayor of Tauranga—recent recruits.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Point of order, Madam Speaker. It’s out of order to refer to a member who’s not in the House, and Jan Tinetti’s in the Beehive at the current time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I thank the member. That is not a point of order. While I’m on my feet, I just want to reflect on some of the behaviour and language that has been a feature of the last couple of interventions. I’m relying on Speaker’s ruling 44/2 to with regards to the use of the word “racist” being used in an insulting and demeaning way, and I note that towards the end of the Speaker’s ruling, “the presiding officer must make a judgment.” I’d just like to warn the House that in a couple of previous interventions, I believe that threshold was getting very close. I’m very confident that speeches to this debate in the future will not be skirting into that dangerous territory.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was, of course, in my earlier contribution, referring to my views of the underlying policies and not to the values of any member that may be involved in it.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member will resume his seat. I thank the member. I don’t need to be told and given an explanation of where I may have been wrong in my ruling. I have ruled; I am now inviting the member to continue with his speech.

So we absolutely need to look at the reach of these firearms prohibition orders, and, of course, we need to look at not only to whom they may attach—gangs, the gang associates—but also the locations involved. As the select committee rightly pointed out, and wrestled with, there are very much New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues about entry into premises, whether they be, you know, gang pads, if you like, gang houses, houses that are known resorts for gang members, or whether in fact they be ordinary residences. Of course, once we extend, if we look at extending, the reach to people who are gang associates, not necessarily convicted criminals, then we do have to think very carefully about the right to enter into premises.

Having said that, you know, the rights issues in respect of this legislation have to be seen against the background that there is no human right to carry a gun. This is not a right such as that entrenched in the American Constitution; this is a privilege which is conferred by the Arms Act, and therefore the granting of a license or the ability to obtain a licence, that this legislation if passed would take away—which a firearms provision order is—that is, essentially, a discretion, a benefit, extended by Government to citizens. It’s not the case to say that not having the right to bear a firearm is some fundamental breach of rights. However, the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure is, and that’s something which isn’t sufficiently worked through in the legislation before us. The balance must be carefully struck. The threshold, the evidential burden that needs to be shown before a police officer or other authorised person can enter into a residential premises must be high, and there must be a safety threshold.

But the other thing is this: that, standing alone, a piece of legislation like this doesn’t do it. It’s got to be part of an integrated response. We all know, I think, on both sides of the House, that gangs are not—they are the symptom, not the disease, and we absolutely have to address the disease as well, not only by addressing the activities of gangs but by the drivers of poverty, of alienation, and so on as well. This bill, if passed, wouldn’t do the job. It’s clunky, unworkable. In some places, it doesn’t go far enough; in other places, it doesn’t deal with human rights issues satisfactorily.

Look, obviously, all parties in the House want to work on this, from the Greens to the ACT Party. We do have different approaches, but the idea that we shouldn’t allow people who are known dangers to the community to have guns goes without saying. Absolutely we’re committed to it on this side of the House, and it’s great to know that it’ll be supported when a fully-fledged bill is introduced. But until we get to that stage, it’s no good putting a half a bill—a half a bill—into law, because it’s only going to create more work, and we know that you can’t build a strong house on a foundation of sand, and this would be a foundation of sand. It would be washed away; lawyers would drive a truck through it. It would be ineffective, and it would become a laughingstock. To be honest, it wouldn’t do justice even to Simeon Brown, so we’re actually doing him a favour here.

So, look, the fact of the matter is that there is work to do. It’s part of the wider programme of police and justice in the gangs sector. This is a bill which, arguably, shouldn’t have gone to select committee because it was never really going to work, but you probably couldn’t know that until the select committee did its work. I must say, to the chair of that select committee—done a fantastic job. Of course we’re following select committee advice when it said, “Look, we don’t think it should be passed, but if you must, here’s some tidy-ups.” The select committee itself came to that conclusion.

So, look, Simeon Brown’s had a fairly good run out of members’ bills, and I suspect we’re going to hear from him again in the not too distant future, but this isn’t one that should go any further. But I do look forward to discussing constructively a much more thorough, thoughtful, and well-planned-out firearms prohibition orders bill in the near future. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT, in place of our usual spokesperson on this particular bill—and our justice spokesperson—Nicole McKee, in support of the Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2).

This is not a particularly complicated bill. It allows the police to stop gangs from getting guns; that’s what it allows them to do. It’s based on the simple premise that if you’re in a gang, you’re on the National Gang List, and you’re committing crimes, then you shouldn’t have a gun. The funny thing is that the Labour Party usually are the first to say that it’s a privilege to have a firearm—usually; they’re usually the first people to say that: it’s not a right, it’s a privilege, they’ll say. And yet they’re also now trying to say that they want to fight to maintain that privilege for gangs. They think it will be terrible to discriminate against people who are involved in organised crime. Now, I’m as much in favour of equality before the law and human rights as the next guy—in fact, I can claim to have done my bit for those causes at certain times; more than most—but the idea that being involved in organised crime and identified as such, being in the National Gang List, being convicted of a crime, doesn’t even remove what the Labour Party calls the privilege of having a firearm, is really quite extraordinary.

And you have to wonder why exactly they think that is. I’m mindful of your ruling a moment ago, Madam Speaker, that we shouldn’t have epithets or accusations of racism in Parliament, and I think that’s a very important thing that this House maintains that standard. But it was just so odd that the Labour Party members, two different Labour Party members, said that somehow this bill was racist. Well, that’s fascinating, because this bill doesn’t talk about race, at all; it doesn’t mention it. It says that if you do a couple of things, that, sadly, people from all ethnic backgrounds do—join a gang, get convicted of a crime—then you can have your firearm taken off you. But two Labour Party speakers got up on their hind legs in this House and said that somehow this legislation was racially motivated—although there’s no race mentioned in it.

How did they come to that conclusion? There’s two possible theories here: either the Labour Party were actually deliberately trying to impugn people who support this bill as having racial motives, even though they don’t, and they were doing that for political reasons—trying to impugn the character of others—or they genuinely believe that Māori and Pacific people, as they mention, are more likely to be members of gangs, and, therefore, if you follow their logic, it would be wrong to put firearm prohibition orders on gang members because it would affect more people who are Māori and Pacific.

Now, standing before you right now, I don’t even know what the ethnic breakdown of people on the National Gang List is, but I do find it deeply troubling that the Labour Party, by making those comments, was either trying to deliberately smear and impugn the character of people who are worried about gang violence and gang gun violence—that’s one possibility—or they genuinely do think in such a coloured world that they believe the ethnicity of people is somehow more important than basic, basic things that unite all humanity, such as not wanting organised crime in your community, and, if you have organised crime in your community, not wanting organised criminals with guns.

I just leave that there, but I think it speaks volumes about the politics of the Labour Party—the way that they approach this particular issue. I can see some of the Labour backbenchers looking very attentively, because they know better than me which one it was, and they’re not comfortable with it, and they shouldn’t be, and that’s because there’s some good people in the backbenches of the Labour Party—people with real thoughtfulness and conviction.

Now, the other problem with this Government’s approach—you know, the Government’s going to vote this legislation down—is that they have taken an approach to organised crime and guns that is incredibly disturbing to a lot of people. Just today, we’ve been debating the fact that if you are a gang member, you can end up isolating at home under the current COVID response. If, on the other hand, you are one of tens of thousands of Kiwis suffering in a variety of excruciating ways, separated from your family and your home and your business, and so on—in some cases, separated from your expectant wife—you are unable to come to New Zealand and home-isolate, but if you’re a gang you’re allowed to do it. It really is quite an extraordinary thing that this Government has taken an approach to gangs where their gang programme, or anti-gang programme, is called Operation Tauwhiro. Now, I asked the Prime Minister: did she know that Tauwhiro means to care for or nurture—and it turns out she didn’t. But, of course, somebody in the Government either couldn’t speak te reo Māori, couldn’t consult a te reo Māori dictionary, or generally thought the way to approach gangs was to care for and nurture them. And then they gave the gangs $2.75 million of money taken from the gangs for dealing drugs to help people—get this, Madam Speaker—get off drugs. I mean, this has got to be the most sophisticated money laundering programme that the New Zealand Government’s ever been involved in—but maybe just about anywhere.

Underpinning this Government and this Labour Party approach in the House today is an approach to gangs that says, “Actually, if there’s a privilege,” as they see firearm ownership, “then for a variety of quite twisted reasons, the gangs should have that privilege too.” And I think that is totally at odds with the values of the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders who don’t want organised crime and don’t want armed organised criminals in their community.

But here’s the next thing: this is not only about gangs; it’s also about guns. This Parliament, shamefully, with the exception of one member, I might add, rushed through knee-jerk legislation in the wake of our nation’s tragedy in Christchurch, that would rate objectively as one of the least effective policies the Parliament has ever passed. Unfortunately, they banned a quarter of a million semi-automatic firearms, and they collected, in their so-called buy-back, around 60,000. So there’s 180,000 still out there, and the gangs have openly said, “We will not be retuning ours.” And it’s difficult to believe that due to that Government’s rushed, incoherent, knee-jerk response to a tragedy, a lot of those firearms that were banned but somehow didn’t appear at the buy-back—75 percent of them, actually—have ended up in the shootouts by gangs up and down this country.

So we’ve got a Government that is very poor at dealing with gangs, but also very poor at dealing with firearms policy. And I want to finish by suggesting a better way forward, which, funnily enough, Greg O’Connor, the member for Ōhāriu, actually suggested at the end of his speech. He said, “We need a. joined-up approach and we need to make sure that crime doesn’t pay for gangs.” So here’s ACT’s policy, and the Labour Party’s welcome to it for free; we’ve got so many ideas that we can actually afford to give good ideas to the Government for free—that’s how generous and filled with good ideas the ACT Party is. The National Party just announced a whole lot of ideas that they’ve got from ACT, and we’re prepared to do the same for Labour, because we’re just great people like that. We should say if you’re a gang member with an illegal firearm and you are found committing a third crime such as drug dealing, it’s open season on your assets, because last year there was $50 million of asset seizures on $500 million of P, and if the tax rate is 10 percent, no wonder business is booming. We’ve got to stop crime paying with a policy like that. This bill won’t do it. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Can I first also add my voice to the voice of the Hon Chris Hipkins and acknowledge our cleaners. It’s cleaners day today. It’s a day to say thank you for the good work that they do not only in this Parliament but in this country. They are dignified people who do a dignified work for all of us.

I just want to start with gang culture and what’s wrong with it. I don’t think that in this House and beyond, anyone can deny the damage the gang culture can cause. The gang culture is damaging. It damages lives; it destroys lives. And this side of the House, this Government, rejects the idea that we allow gangs to destroy our communities. We have heard a lot about this Government being soft on crime, this Government being soft on gangs, but we reject this assertion.

The reason why we’re rejecting this bill—we’re not rejecting the principal idea of this bill, but this bill is flawed. This bill doesn’t do what the Opposition says it does. This bill is flawed because its focus is very narrow.

This bill went through the Justice Committee and it was debated thoroughly and about 37 people submitted on it. I just want to highlight a few points that were fleshed out by submissions. Amnesty International, for example, said that this bill has only focused “on gang membership and not organised crime or the most dangerous individuals more broadly”. This bill also “may exclude individuals who could be committing serious firearm offenses.” Under this bill, the 15 March terrorist wouldn’t be prohibited from owning a gun. So because of this and the many other issues in this bill, on this side of the House we’re saying that we’re opposing this bill today.

This Government has invested a record amount of money in growing our police. Since we came into power, our police force has increased to 14,000. Sometimes introducing legislation and chasing people through legislation or checking people or entering houses is not always the solution. We’ve got a police force that’s very capable, that’s well armed, that is fit to do their job and they are doing their job.

The reality is that this Government has never not been active in targeting gangs and the criminal leaders and getting them out of the streets. I think the evidence itself speaks loudly. Since we came into power, our communities are safer because we’re managing to put away a lot of criminals, and many of them are gang members. Yet this Government is being told that it’s soft on criminals, it’s soft on gangs—something that we reject. This Government has seized about $500 million in cash assets from gangs. Any soft Government doesn’t do this. Gangs and criminals, we don’t deny that they’re out there. We don’t deny that they are causing damage, but we’re also fighting them. We’re cracking down on them.

Also, fighting crimes should be multi-faceted. It shouldn’t be just by introducing one piece of legislation that’s narrowly focused. Actually, one of the problems with this bill is that it actually ignores if someone is not convicted they cannot be included in this. So even gang members who are not convicted of any crimes cannot be included in this bill. But we have an idea, like my colleague Emily Henderson said before. Within a few months we’re going to introduce a bill that’s comprehensive, that covers everyone, that covers everything, that takes away guns from anyone who poses a threat to our society, to our community. We can’t just pick up one thing and say we’ve got the solution. While we respect the member and the work that he put into this bill, this bill is not fit for purpose, so for that reason it’s not going to be accepted. Since Operation Tauwhiro launched in February, 1,091 firearms have been seized along with $5.5 million in cash and 940 people have been put behind bars for offences related to firearms.

I think the member before mentioned that this Government has said that owing a gun is a privilege; it’s not a right. That’s true. Because of that, anyone that uses a gun in this country and poses a threat to our community, to our society—we should have an ability to take the guns away from them. This Government is very clear that violent gangs and criminals don’t have a place in our society and they cannot continue to threaten and intimidate and exploit our communities. I would reiterate that gangs destroy lives but we will not let them destroy our communities.

We therefore oppose this bill and we will introduce our own legislation properly to implement the firearms prohibition orders regime very soon.

This is a split call. I call Ian McKelvie.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. If there was ever a case for restricting speeches in member’s bills to five minutes, today has clearly been a great example of that. Having listened to some of the speeches, it can only distress you to think that this is a member’s day, where, effectively, members are entitled to bring bills to the House, and if they’re lucky enough, they get it drawn. To then be shot down, criticised—in fact, very unpleasantly criticised—by members of the Government I think is a disgrace. I also think that to attack other parties over a bill like this is a disgrace, on a members’ day.

I will now get on to the bill. We’ve got to go back in history a little bit to understand the genesis of this bill, and Chris Bishop touched on it earlier. I’ve sat in this Parliament for some time now, and I’ve sat on every gun inquiry and every gun select committee hearing there’s been in my time in Parliament.

The 2017 inquiry into firearms in gangs’ hands was mentioned earlier. One of the interesting things that came out of those recommendations—well there was two interesting things, actually. One was that there was a lot of discussion about firearms and how they got into the hands of gangs, the ownership of them; and there was also quite a lot of discussion around firearms prohibition orders. The ironic thing of that was that one party opposed all that stuff as it came out of the select committee back to the Minister, who at the time was Paula Bennett—that was New Zealand First, who then later supported this bill as it went back to the select committee. So there’s irony everywhere you look on this thing.

We then get to the very unfortunate Christchurch shooting and the gun legislation that was put through the House by the Government as a result of that, where, effectively, we took guns from all the honest people in New Zealand, from collectors, enthusiasts, farmers, hunters, ex-servicemen and –women and we left the guns with all the criminals in New Zealand. We made no attempt at that time to effectively buy those guns back. We offered them an amnesty—well, no criminals are going to walk into the police station with a gun, are they? So that was never going to happen. We could have, however, offered them the opportunity to sell those guns back, because we paid everyone else for their guns except for those people who didn’t have a licence. And so lots of these guns are held by people without firearms licences. Those guns are all still out in our community. And if you listen to the police estimates of the numbers of them, in excess of 200,000 of them still out in our community. I don’t doubt for a minute that the police didn’t understand how many guns the gangs held, so they weren’t counted in those numbers that we’ve dealt with. We then went into the second gun buy back, which was no more expensive and, in fact, cost more to run than they got, or paid out, in buy back for guns. So very fraught pieces of legislation have dealt with this.

We now come to the piece of legislation that Simeon Brown has had drawn out of the ballot some time ago, actually. In fact, Brett Hudson was the first person to put this bill in the ballot, and he was the police spokesman in the last National Opposition. Prior to that, Chris Bishop, of course, had that same role. So both of them have had significant experience in dealing with firearms prohibition orders. The bill that Chris Bishop had drawn was thrown out, and back into the House it comes, it gets sent to the select committee and comes back with some recommendations, and I don’t think any piece of legislation we ever put through this house is perfect, but at least it gave the Government and the police an opportunity to progress this bill in a manner that could have been some use.

Now, we’ve had a whole lot of criticism about why it would be no use, why it wouldn’t work—all the excuses under the sun as to why it wouldn’t work. But actually, a piece of legislation that goes through this House gets improved as it goes through a select committee process and gets improved again as it goes, sometimes, through the committee of the whole House, ends up as legislation. They are always implementable. Probably the worst example of one that wasn’t was the Resource Management Act, actually. That’s been a disaster right from the start. So it’s easy to have a bill that doesn’t work.

This bill, in my view, would have worked, would have played a role in getting to a point where at least the police would have had a tool. And the really interesting thing for me was the speech of Greg O’Connor, who spoke beautifully for 10 minutes on this—well, actually, spoke about three minutes on the bill and seven minutes on other things. He never once mentioned his opposition to the bill, and he couldn’t because he knew this bill had some merit to the police. So I’m disappointed that the bill is clearly not going to pass, but—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, the member’s time has expired.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you. I stand to take a call on the Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2). As someone who has lived for many years in a community where there are gangs, and for someone who has spent many years in a community walking alongside whānau, alongside young people, trying to ensure that they don’t get drawn into the gangs, it’s really interesting to read this piece of legislation and to talk on this this afternoon. Very much, as I have been listening around the House to some of the contributions, it’s really got me thinking, because very much I want to be part of a Government—I want to be part of a Parliament—that is around empowering and protecting people. It is not just around waving a big stick, not just around putting more laws and regulations in place to punish people, but it’s how do we empower people to choose a different way and a different lifestyle.

Now, I was really disappointed to hear the leader of the ACT Party speak. I felt like he took out of context when he talked about Operation Tauwhiro. He played on te reo Māori when he was speaking on this, because my understanding—yeah, it’s very much the word means, and correct me if I’m wrong, to tend, to care for, absolutely, which is really, really important. But it’s also a word that can be used as “social worker”. As a noun, it’s a social worker, tauwhiro, I believe. So to say that this is some kind of namby-pamby care and love and just mucking around with the gangs isn’t true. This is around social work. This is around actually leaning in, engaging, and finding real life solutions when it comes to gangs, when it comes to guns.

I know in my community what I’ve seen with young people who have chosen the path, sadly, of engaging and—I find it hard to say, but—maybe finding their tribe, what seems to be their tribe, and where they’re accepted. It’s looking at ways that we can actually support, care, nurture, be social workers where they don’t become engaged with gangs, with guns, with violence, and those type of things. I was really pleased as I looked into Operation Tauwhiro and saw that it was focused on harm protection. It was also enforcement, but it was around that harm protection. Since the operation was launched just this year, in February, I see that they’ve seized, along with $5.5 million worth of cash, 1,991 firearms. Nine hundred and forty people have been arrested in relation to firearms offences.

An initiative like this with our police force is something that’s far more engaging and, hopefully, will ensure that gangs lose their steam, lose their power, and that guns—I guess everyone in this House would dream that one day we don’t have to have this conversation about guns because that is not something that we have within our communities. Sadly, we do, and, sadly, we have to look at ways to improve this. So I’m glad to see that, as I was reading through the bill and curious around the conversation that must have been had in the select committee, the conversations that must have been had as this legislation was worked through, the majority did not support the passing of this bill. But we here on this side of the Government are obviously looking at firearms prohibition orders that we’re working on that provide an extra tool for police to keep firearms out of the hands of our criminals.

So for me, I won’t be supporting this piece of legislation this afternoon. I appreciate the fact that the member Simeon Brown has put work in, and I just say let’s work together around how we can actually—things like Operation Tauwhiro, how we can actually, yeah, work with our gangs, not collude but work with them, to find solutions as social workers within our communities, as people who want the best for our tamariki, want the best for our rangatahi, and want to ensure that firearms are kept out of the hands of our gangs.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. While I didn’t sit on the select committee that heard this bill, the Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2), I really appreciate the importance of stopping firearms falling into the hands of the wrong people. Because I think, if you look at the statistics, every month, police are called to 200 crimes where a firearm is involved, and every year one in five front-line officers is confronted by a firearm, and every year between 800 and 1,000 firearms are stolen, and they potentially end up on the black market and potentially in the hands of criminals. And so I think it’s really important to be thinking about what we can do in this area, and certainly in Invercargill what we are seeing is, just in the media, increasing reports of gun-related incidents and injuries. And also, if you look at the stats, the Far South has one of the highest rates in the country of illegal gun seizures across New Zealand. So it is an important issue, but I think my concern is that I’m not sure that this bill will actually achieve what it’s setting out to do, which is preventing the most dangerous gang members accessing firearms.

I think whenever I go and have a look at a bill that I’ve been asked to speak on, where I haven’t actually sat and heard the submissions, the first place I always go to is the select committee report, and when I went and had a look at the select committee report for this bill, I think there were two things that particularly stood out for me. One of the first ones was that, basically, the majority of the committee members didn’t actually recommend that the bill be passed. And, if you couple that with looking at the number of submitters there, 36 submitters made written submissions and, of those, the majority, again, didn’t support the bill. So 26 out of 34 didn’t support the bill and raised a number of concerns.

So that’s just one of the aspects, but the other thing that stood out to me was just the huge amount of amendments—so, looking through the actual text of the report, it was just a whole lot of comments about “This bit no longer applies because it’s covered elsewhere”, “Shift this to somewhere else”, “Amend it”—and, then you actually looked at the bill itself, the huge number of deletions and then extra information that had been introduced. And so, for me, thinking it through, this is a really important area, but looking at the huge number of changes that have been made didn’t inspire confidence in me that this bill would be actually doing what it was setting out to do. And so I think, in contrast, what the Government has already said is that we’ve got an ambitious firearms reform programme, and we want to go on and address this issue.

As other members in the House have mentioned, we will be introducing firearms prohibition orders, and what they’ll do is they will make it illegal for high-risk people to own firearms, because, again, we are really—it’s a priority to strengthen our action to combat the influence of gangs and organised crime on our communities. So this is where we’ve already got work under way. But I think what we’ve said is that we will be introducing this legislation by the end of the year, but, as other colleagues have raised, the issue with the current bill that’s before the House at the moment is it just doesn’t have that broad coverage that we think we would need. But our bill, the bill the Government would be introducing, wouldn’t just cover gangs; it would also cover a whole range of other offences and issues that would pose a threat to the community.

So I think looking at what’s been left out of the bill and what we would be including is those who have had serious firearms offences, serious violence offences, participation in organised crime, criminal groups—so some of the aspects covered by this bill—but also terrorism-related offences, because I think the issue we’ve got is, if we’re only focusing on one aspect, which this bill does around gangs, the problem is that then you may have to come back if you want to then introduce other aspects that may relate to people who are then convicted under terrorism legislation or other aspects. And it would be much better if you can actually start that and do it comprehensively from the outset, rather than focusing on just one aspect, which is what this bill does.

And I think the other thing that we need to be thinking about is how a bill in this area would actually fit in with the wider comprehensive approach that the Government has already got under way, because already we’ve done a lot of work in this area. We’ve banned military-style semiautomatic weapons, and that’s actually taken 60,000 prohibited firearms out of circulation, and that’s a huge number of firearms that could end up in the hands of gangs. So I think these are aspects that are not covered in this bill. And also we’ve implemented harsher penalties for gun crime and a tougher licensing system, which means that we can actually make sure that the guns don’t fall into the wrong hands. But I think the other thing is looking at what’s already covered by some of the legislation, because we’ve also strengthened the rules around determining who’s fit and proper for possessing firearms and who could be disqualified for holding a firearm. And already what we’ve got is affiliation with a criminal group is listed as making somebody ineligible for a firearms licence.

So just going into a little bit more of the detail of that in the current legislation, which is already covered, a member of the police may find a person not a fit and proper person to be in possession of a firearm or an air gun if they’re satisfied—and then they list the criteria, and there’s a whole range of criteria there: so if they’ve already been charged and convicted by an offence that’s punishable by a term of imprisonment; had protection orders made under the family violence or domestic violence Act; and, particularly with reference to this bill, if a person is a member or has close affiliation with a gang or organised crime group. So there are aspects that have already been strengthened in the wider framework that the Government has put in place in this area, and I think the other thing is that there’s been a lot of discussion around the current Government’s approach to gangs and organised crime, but just again emphasising the huge amount of investment that has gone into getting more police on the ground and, basically, having those police being able to look at and focus on organised crime, with 700 officers to be focused on that.

So, moving forward, there’s been a big impact, and I come back about those stats I was quoting about the southern region having one of the most high rates of illegal gun seizure, and the impacts of Operation Tauwhiro, because, as it was launched in February, and since then we have had a huge number of firearms seized—so over 1,000 firearms have been seized as a result of that increased extra focus in that area. Over $5.5 million in cash assets has been seized, and 940 people have been arrested in relation to firearms offences. And just looking at some of our local media reporting, I think the comment was that that was why we were seeing those seizures of firearms down in the south, in those numbers, is because there’s been a real focus there on what’s happening.

So I think, just summing up, the issue is that we have actually as a Government got an ambitious firearms reform programme and that’s aimed at making sure, and will make sure, that firearms don’t get into the wrong hands. And we’ve already announced that we’ll be introducing firearms prohibition orders and that we’ll be introducing the legislation later in the year to address that. But what we talked about is the fact that we need that time to, basically, do a more comprehensive approach which looks at the broader range of offences that may well be included, as my colleague alluded to, and some of the submitters pointed out the fact that offences under terrorism Acts would not be included in the current bill. We need to think about that. But I think also, as my other colleague, Duncan Webb, was talking about, there’s then the issues in terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—that those discussions need to be worked through and we have to have the time to do that in a proper way. The sense, again, is that there just wasn’t the time or the ability to have that properly addressed in the context of this legislation.

And so I think, basically, this is a really important area, and I just think of the impact that the work already done in my own community of Invercargill, with the fact that we have had large numbers of firearms seized and the impact that that has in terms of the number of guns in the community, but I’m also thinking too that we need that broader approach that covers off all those areas that might need to be covered—that thinks of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act implications and the nuances there, and just makes sure that we’ve got the time to do that comprehensive approach. So, from my perspective, I think, just summing up, firearms ownership is a privilege rather than a right, but I also think that this bill that’s before the House at the moment doesn’t have the ability to take steps in the right direction. And so I unfortunately am unable to support this bill today. Thank you.

The National Party thinks gang members should not have guns. It’s a pretty simple position, but it’s one that members opposite are finding very troubling and very complex and very difficult. Well, we stand on this side of the House in proud support of Simeon Brown’s bill that would prevent the most dangerous gang members in New Zealand from accessing firearms, and that is a really simple position to take, because it’s our view that we should prevent gang members from using guns to harm other New Zealanders. But members opposite—they seem to take a different view.

I want to congratulate Simeon Brown, the member for Pakuranga, for bringing this bill to Parliament. It is a necessary piece of legislation. It is something that has been held up for many years by this Government, despite a strong recommendation in 2017 that something like this needed to happen, and Simeon Brown has been tenacious in his advocacy for it. Unlike members opposite, he has not bowed down and cowered to gang members, despite facing death threats from them. He has said no.

Gangs seek to perpetuate violence and to harm other New Zealanders, and we in the National Party won’t stand for it, because we stand for safe communities and we stand for upholding law and order. We actually also stand for the police having the tools they need to do their job, having the tools they need to enforce the law, and what this bill provides is an extra tool for the police by giving the Commissioner of Police the power to issue a firearms prohibition order against any gang member who in the past 10 years has been convicted of a serious violence offence. That is a tool that the police deserve and that they need to crack down on some of our community’s worst offenders.

Now, I just want to talk briefly about what gangs are, because there’s been a very philosophical discussion on the other side of the House about the virtues of gangs, and I want to remind people listening—

💬 Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall: Nicola, that’s not true.

Oh, Ayesha Verrall says, “No, that’s not true. We haven’t spoken of the virtue of gangs.” Well, she needs to go back and listen to Duncan Webb equating people in poverty with people in gangs, and saying that those are the conditions that lead to gang membership. Well, Duncan Webb should treat people in poverty with more respect, because just because you’re poor, it doesn’t mean you think you need to commit crime to get ahead. Actually, the vast majority of people in limited material circumstances don’t resort to crime and meth dealing and rape and assault and murder in order to further their own material circumstances. That’s actually what gangs do, and to equate that behaviour with poverty is wrong and we do not support it.

Gangs are organisations that exist for the purpose of using criminal activity for material gain. They use weapons and violence to intimidate and harm other New Zealanders.

I want to read to, particularly, the Labour Party members in the House tonight some headlines that really give you a sense of what gangs have been up to in our community lately. These are just headlines, by the way, from this year: “Brutal Christchurch murder: Mongrel Mob associates jailed, one for life, after ‘callous’ fatal hammer and knife attack”, “Pair become ‘cold and ruthless killers’ after involvement with the Mongrel Mob”, “The day a Mongrel Mob member opened fire on a cop, hit a taxi driver and carjacked two vehicles”, “Guns, bombs and ammo found at gang pad ‘for protection’ ”, “Patched Mongrel Mob members arrested on meth charges in Hamilton”, “Name suppression lifts for senior Waikato Mongrel Mob leader on drug charges”—and these are the people that members opposite want to cuddle up to and do a bit of “Kumbaya” with.

Well, we don’t want to do that on this side of the House. You would believe from the rhetoric opposite, and particularly, actually, I would say, from Julie Anne Genter, whose contribution was to say that those who speak out against gangs are dog-whistling and racist—well, actually, what she needs to remember is that these people described in these headlines are criminals, and we do not support them.

The numbers of gang members, in fact, have increased more than 50 percent under Labour, so the cuddling up approach isn’t working, is it? We’re not seeing fewer of them; we are seeing more of them.

I want to turn now to what this bill does, because it does things that are very practical, very pragmatic, and very sensible. It allows police to issue a firearms prohibition order against any gang member who in the past 10 years has been convicted of a serious violence offence, an offence under the domestic violence Act, or a firearms offence. Pretty sensible—I mean, why should someone who’s done that be able to get access to a gun? It does this to ensure they don’t get access to guns, it revokes firearms licences, and it also extends that power so that those who seek to become a gang member are also prevented from accessing guns.

For those who have had a firearms prohibition order served against them, it makes it a crime for them to access firearms or to visit places with guns. It also makes it an offence to knowingly supply someone with a gun, knowing that they have a firearms prohibition notice against them, and it provides the police with warrantless search powers so that they can practically enforce this law by searching for guns where they believe they are on premises where there’s someone with a firearms prohibition order against them.

Now, I want to particularly acknowledge the contribution of the Police Association in making this a better piece of law. They submitted to the Justice Committee on this. They made recommendations particularly about these search powers, and Simeon Brown has been very careful to incorporate those amendments into this bill.

But the members opposite, they would ignore the Police Association. They would ignore the people on the front line whose job it is to deal with these thugs. Well, National listens to them. We believe that they deserve the tools they need to do their job.

I just want to ask a couple of questions, one of which is: when members opposite talk about the fact that Labour really, truly, seriously wants to do something about this and that it’s coming soon, when is soon? I know Kris Faafoi has a very wide definition of the word “soon”. He uses it every time Erica Stanford asks a question about immigration—“Soon, soon.” But I’d be really interested to know what “soon” means, given members opposite have been promising they would do something about this for years, including, most recently, the Minister of Police, Poto Williams, announcing in May that she would be doing something.

Well, if members are so keen to do something, then what should happen is that they should adopt this bill that Simeon Brown has put forward in good faith. But, as my colleague the Hon Simon Bridges has said, the reason they won’t do that—the reason they’re not interested—is that they are putting politics ahead of the safety of our community and ahead of the needs of our police to have tools to enforce the law, and they are siding with the gangs rather than siding with the safety of New Zealanders.

So we oppose this bill. We believe that gangs—

💬 Hon Member: You oppose it—what?

—do no good in our communities, and we—

💬 Hon Member: Hang on!

Well, OK. So the members opposite think gangs do good in communities. So was that the Mongrel Mob member who was jailed for the fatal hammer attack, or was that the one who opened fire on a cop, hit a taxi driver, and carjacked the vehicle? We don’t think these are good things, and when people like that have access to guns, more harm can be done. So we don’t want to see gangs being able to do that. That’s why Simeon Brown has put forward this excellent piece of legislation, and it is my pleasure to support it.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, you know, it’s been an interesting night tonight. If there’s one thing after being on the Justice Committee is that Simeon Brown talks a big game. But the truth is that no one takes him that seriously. The truth is that this bill is similar; it talks a big game but it doesn’t deliver.

Before I go into the deficiencies of this bill—and I’ve got a good table on the deficiencies of the bill, even though we had a good crack at fixing it up at select committee—I’ll sort of recap where the debate got out. In the first two speakers from the National Party, give them their credit, they came out, Simon Bridges like a firecracker, they actually had some formative argument. So between Simon Bridges and Chris Bishop the main element of their argument this evening was that this bill has taken too long—it’s taken too long. From Chris Bishop we got a potted history of FPOs—or firearm prohibition orders—and he went through the different iterations the bill had been through. My memory goes back just a wee bit further than Chris Bishop’s. My memory goes back to 2008, when the National Government launched their Gang Action Plan. Back then, in 2008, lo and behold, firearm prohibition orders were in there too.

Along with that there were some other really interesting stuff in that action plan. Also, in there was something called “summer night lights”. I remember that, I think it was, Anne Tolley, who was the Minister of Police, went on a bit of a tiki tour around the world and visited countries that had gang problems like Los Angeles (LA) or Melbourne, to find out and do a bit of a stocktake on how we could address those problems here in New Zealand. My favourite was summer night lights. They went to LA and they saw that, you know, these bright and those big busy areas and dark parks, that’s where all the drug and the gang stuff was going on. They said “I know. We’ll come back to New Zealand and we’ll light up some places and do some festivals and stuff in the gang areas.” So the problem is that they didn’t figure out that if you go to Kaitāia and put up some night lights, well, people can go 2 kilometres up the road and you’re in a paddock. So it didn’t work that well. It didn’t work here.

But part of that stocktake was actually the truth of where firearm prohibition orders started and that was from Victoria and Melbourne that it was initially modelled on. So we talked a big game about those but they weren’t delivered on. At that time, you know, part of the reason why it got held up for nine years under the last National Government was that there were huge internal tensions within the National caucus regarding this very issue, firearm prohibition orders. I remember that absolute pearler that Paula Bennett came out with on The AM Show, where she declared that some people had fewer human rights than other people. I remember that quite clearly. I remember Bill English, he jumped in there quickly to fix that one up, and he clarified that Bennett’s mistake was, in fact, not National Party policy, and he referenced—he did actually acknowledge—that New Zealand has a Human Rights Act and said that it was enshrined in New Zealand’s law, whew.

So the truth is that National had nine years to pass firearm prohibition orders, which was policy under the last Government, and failed to do it. The main tenet of the argument tonight we are hearing from those members opposite is that we’ve not done it in four. So I think it is important that we stress that point.

I could go on, but I think we’ve got it. I think it’s important that we get this right—I think it’s important. Those comments around what were really causing issues under the last Government, it’s important we get it right here. That’s what this Government is doing. We will get it right. That is why Simeon’s bill doesn’t do it.

We had a really good look at it at select committee. We had a whole range of measures that we attempted to fix it up. But the reality was that it was munted. It was too broken to actually fix. The main problem, with the bill, first of all, was that he forgot to include search powers in it. So that was kind of like, if you’re going to look for a gun, you’d want to look for some search powers to be able to do that in the first place, but unfortunately that wasn’t included.

So once we’d fixed up the part about referring to maybe search and surveillance or search powers, we got onto the next main problem, which is quite fundamental to the bill and that’s why it is fundamentally flawed—that it only covers gang members with convictions. This is a big problem. You want to make it wider than just gang members with convictions because in the criminal world you do have clean skins. I’m sure Greg O’Connor will give you a great story about clean skins because he’s got many stories like that. So people without a criminal record that still work as operatives within the gang underworld is where a lot of your arms trade and illicit arms trade is happening. So from the very start you’re excluding some of those individuals that you want to include.

It would also exclude others, such as terrorists and other elements that we’ve seen in New Zealand that have a big problem with arms. So we would want to create a firearm prohibition regime that covers all of those areas, and that’s why this bill is fundamentally flawed. It needs to cover a broader range of offenders who pose a threat to our community, not just gang members. It’s important to say that this Government has a wider work programme on gangs. Our plan is focused on addressing those underlying causes of crime, not taking a trip to LA to put some night lights up in Kaitāia. Firearm prohibition orders form part of that plan. They form part of a wider group of measures.

Another really important part to say where FPOs will work is about some legislation that’s already been passed. This is a really important point. The Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act introduces a new power to enable the seizure of assets of those associated with organised crime. So that’s going to the real nut of where the money is and being able to target that. That’s something that was, again, talked about by the previous National Government but never delivered upon. So by going for the cash, hitting them in the pocket, that has a far more significant impact upon long-term viable gang opportunities to make a criminal organisation viable, by making it easier for police to identify an object that has obviously been ascertained by illicit activities and being able to take that. That is where you’re actually going to see real long-term impact on gang activities; it’s financial.

But not to leave it there, the reality is that this Government has never been more active in targeting the gangs and criminal leaders, and getting them off the street. Let’s look at what’s been achieved in that four years. We’ve seen $450 million invested in our police service since we came into office. That has translated into 700 extra police staff. Those are focusing on absolutely looking at organised crime. As a result, we’ve seen a total workforce of the police to 14,000. That’s a significant increase of extra officers. Over 1,200 additional constabulary and authorised officers have been deployed on the streets since we came into office. Yes, we have seen $500 million in cash and assets that has been taken off our streets. If you want to translate that into how it’s done often in police is that’s the equivalent of $1.6 billion removed from the illicit economy, an economy that this Government is focused on shutting down. It will be doing that in far more broad sweeping and targeted ways than simply proposing to introduce a short stopgap measure like this bill does.

Since coming into Government this Government has seen operations like Operation Tauwhiro, which has been so successful with over $5.5 million in cash and assets and 940 people arrested. Also, it was so successful that it’s been extended for another six months. These are real efforts to target a complex problem, which is organised criminal groups that operate in New Zealand. This is not a simple problem that will be fixed overnight. This is most definitely not a problem that will be resolved by a short-stop measure such as this member’s bill that limits firearm prohibition orders to such a narrow group that it has limited scope to have real impact on the problem. We are focused on making sure New Zealand communities are safe. We will not let gangs destroy our communities. We will do that in a way that targets the underlying drivers of crime in New Zealand. There will be a bill in this House that has firearm prohibition orders, and we will do it properly. Thank you.