Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill

Members, we come now to our final debate: clauses 1 and 2. This is the debate on clauses 1 and 2, “Title” and “Commencement”.

I won’t take too long on this part, because the Justice Committee did not suggest any amendments to the title of this bill. I thought it’d be worth raising the fact that the bill’s title is the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill, and a number of members tonight have incorrectly tried to label the bill as a “protection order” rather than a “prohibition order”. I think that we should get it clear and on the record that the title of the bill—

💬 Hon Ginny Andersen: It’s on the bill, James. It’s pretty clear on the bill.

—is the “prohibition orders” legislation bill. It is clear on the bill—the member is right: it’s absolutely clear on the bill. Member after member after member tonight has referred to these orders as “firearms protections orders”, so I just thought it would be very, very clear to put on the record that these are firearms prohibition orders. They’re the same firearms prohibition orders as brought in by the Labour Government in 2022; same firearms prohibition orders that they voted against in 2017 as well.

I just wanted to make that point very, very clear, and I wanted to make the second point that the commencement date is not the day on which it receives Royal assent but it’s six months after the date on which it receives Royal assent.

💬 Hon Dr Duncan Webb: So insightful!

There’s very good reason for that, and despite the interjections and the heckling from the Opposition members who steadfastly oppose this bill—or want to see it rapidly passed into law for some reason unknown to me—the bill does come into force six months after the date on which it receives the Royal assent. The purpose of this is, I think, very clear. It hasn’t been properly explained or announced by the Minister and it’s likely to do with the fact that these will take time to implement, and you’ll need to operationalise the new processes with the police.

I’m wondering if the Minister can just address that point for the commencement date and any other further comments and thoughts she might have.

I thank the member for clarifying the name of the bill. It has been misrepresented continuously through this evening. I think the people that we need to protect is on the minds of all members of this House—and that’s why it’s incorrectly referred to so often across both sides—because, ultimately, that’s the goal that we want. It is the “firearms prohibition bill”.

The member is quite right in regard to the commencement being six months away. We want to make sure that New Zealand Police are trained well in the operational instigation of how they’re going to go about enforcing the new search—the bespoke search—powers that they’ve been given. We don’t want them to come up against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and section 21. We want to make sure that when they do this, they do it right because it is a power that they’ve not had before. The training needs to be there for them, and that is ultimately the main reason why there is a six-month delay from Royal assent to implementation.

The Hon Duncan Webb’s tabled amendment to clause 1 is out of order as being merely an attempt to criticise the bill.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.

House resumed.