Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I move, That the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill, and at the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 31 July 2024.

For too long, gangs have been an intimidating and unwelcome presence in our communities. This Government is committed to restoring law and order and to ensuring that police have the tools that they need to take firearms out of the hands of gangs and criminals. The Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill is an omnibus bill which aims to do just that. The bill will amend the Arms Act 1983, the Search and Surveillance Act 2012, and the Sentencing Act 2002 to reform the firearms prohibition orders regime.

We on this side of the House know that the changes we introduce here today will make a difference and will contribute as part of our wider law and order regime to making our communities safer. It does this by expanding the eligibility to cover more people in gangs, those associated with gangs, and those involved in organised crime. We will achieve this by giving the police greater search powers to enforce the orders upon those individuals.

We have all noticed the increase in gang-related violence, public intimidation, and crimes involving illegally held firearms. We’ve seen it increase significantly since 2017, where the data and the evidence tell a horrid story. The Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill is an important part of the Government’s response to this increased crime in all our jurisdictions—urban, provincial, and rural.

Firearms prohibition orders—sometimes referred to as FPOs—are orders made by the court when offenders have committed serious violent offences. The way they work is that police make a case about an individual to the court, and if the court decides that individual meets the criteria for an order, then one will be placed upon them.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: What’s the criteria?

Hon NICOLE McKEE: It’s valid for 10 years, and it prohibits the individual from holding a firearms licence. And I am quite surprised to hear from the member across the way asking me what the criteria is, seeing as it was his Government that actually brought it in in the first place and didn’t do the job correctly, so we’ve got to come back here and fix it up. But I will be telling them what the criteria is in a little bit. Just wait a little longer.

Firearms prohibition orders, sometimes referred to as FPOs, are orders made by the court when offenders have committed serious violent offences. And the way they work is that police make a case about an individual to the court, and if the court decides that individual meets that criteria of the order, then one will be placed upon that person.

It is valid for 10 years, and it prohibits the individual from holding a firearms licence, from being around or near firearms—meaning they can’t go on to a range or into a gun shop, as an example—and the order prohibits them from being in possession of, or using, firearms. If that individual breaches the conditions of an FPO, they commit a criminal offence, and that is punishable by up to seven years in prison.

This amendment bill will make three key changes to the firearms prohibition orders regime that I just outlined. The first change is to expand the qualifying criteria so that FPOs can be issued to gang members and other criminals who commit drug, firearms, and other violent offences. Until now, FPOs could only be issued to people convicted of certain specific violent offences, like murder, serious assault, sexual violence, and aggravated robbery. The reality is that senior gang members often end up with low-level convictions because they get their prospects or others to do the dirty work for them. The expansion in qualifying criteria means that we are adding a penalty starting point and we are including a few more Acts of Parliament as qualifiers. So any crime committed that has a penalty of one year or more under the Arms Act 1983, the Crimes Act 1961, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, or the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 meets the current FPO Act’s criteria of being necessary, reasonable, and appropriate to managing the risk that the offender poses to public safety will be allowed.

What this means in plain language: FPOs may be issued to members or associates of gangs or members of an organised criminal group that commits drug, firearms, or violent offences. The courts will be able to issue more FPOs to gang members, gang associates, and violent criminals, helping to keep firearms out of their hands, ultimately making our communities safer.

The bill’s second change is to give police new specialist search powers so that anyone subject to an FPO can be searched at any time. People with FPOs are deemed to be of the highest risk to public safety. To reduce this risk, they should be subject to the highest level of monitoring. This is why we are creating these new search powers. There is no point placing an FPO on a criminal if the police don’t have the legislation that allows them to verify compliance with that order. Police need to be able to search offenders with an FPO, their vehicles, and their premises for firearms at any time to ensure that they are complying with the FPO. This change supports New Zealand Police to keep Kiwi communities safe from gun crime. We are giving police the tools that they need to ensure that these high-risk offenders are not accessing firearms.

Finally, the third change to legislation made by this bill is to establish a process for people who no longer pose a risk to apply to have the FPO modified or even removed. Currently, there is very limited ability to change or remove an FPO if a person’s circumstance changes—for example, if a person leaves a gang, changes their life around, and gets themselves back on track. Therefore, we propose that a recipient will be able to apply to the court for a determination as to whether the FPO should be reviewed, altered, or revoked after five years. This will ensure FPOs remain targeted only to those high-risk offenders. The review mechanism provides an incentive for people with FPOs to engage in rehabilitation and pursue law-abiding lives.

Keeping firearms out of the hands of gang members and high-risk offenders is fundamental to upholding this Government’s commitment to public safety. This bill provides police with the practical tools that they need to enforce FPOs, and it also sends a strong message to criminals and gangs that we are absolutely committed to addressing gang crime and to enforcing consequences for criminals, and we are taking back our communities. Enough is enough. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Well, that was quite a press release, but not much else, frankly. It is disappointing when you’re trying to do something as significant as this. I’m surprised that it’s the ACT Party. I actually went online and looked at the ACT Party’s—

Hon David Seymour: It is significant.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —constitution. Oh, it’s good to see that the leader’s come down to give the Associate Minister of Justice (Firearms) a bit of support, because she’s going to need it with this piece of legislation—

Hon David Seymour: That’s what we do in our party. Where’s that member’s support?

Hon Member: Where’s your leader?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —because here we have a piece of legislation which fundamentally cuts across the rights of people and intrudes on houses.

I’m not one to kind of cast back too far, but it was actually in the 1700s when there was a guy called John Entick, and his house was invaded and they had a bit of a search for papers. Now, in 1765, it was an open question as to whether the Government had a licence to walk into your house and have a look around or not. In 1765, that question was closed, because it was said that no one should be subject to arbitrary search.

Now, we’ve heard the Minister talk about why dangerous people should be subject to search, and we know that. There are really good grounds. But we know also that we have a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, where that right found in the case of Entick v Carrington is now expressed.

Hon Member: Is this lecture available online?

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: It says there in section 21, “Everyone has the right”—it’s funny that the party—

Hon David Seymour: If this speech doesn’t improve, I’m going back to my office!

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —who claims their individual rights are sitting there heckling when I’m talking about rights, because it just goes to show the cheap shots that they’ll now take. But, you know, everyone should be secure—

Hon David Seymour: Oh, look, it’s not improving! Come on!

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —against unreasonable search and seizure. Now, the Search and Surveillance Act has lots of powers of search, warrantless searches—

Hon David Seymour: Sorry, no good. Ka kite.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —and that’s fine because there are certainly cases where a warrantless search is appropriate.

Hon Rachel Brooking: A point of order. Mr Speaker, I believe that somebody was on their feet moving whilst heckling, and that is out of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I did not notice that, but I will take that under advisement, and if people are moving through the House to not heckle as they move, as well. But thank you for that notice.

Hon James Shaw: Point of order. Just to take the earliest opportunity, I’m afraid, Mr Speaker, which was, during the course of that debate, there was also an interjection reflecting on the Leader of the Opposition being absent from the House and locating where he was. That is also out of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Thank you. I’ll just take some advice on that. It’s important that we take points of order when they arise, and not five minutes afterwards. So I take the point, and I appreciate the energy in the House—I’m impressed by the energy in the House—and that you guys are so enthusiastic, and I commend that enthusiasm, but I would like now for the Hon Duncan Webb to continue.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The thing about this bill, though, is that the trigger for search is not only low, it’s non-existent. To search someone who is subject to a firearms protection order might be justifiable but the legislation that that Minister has brought before the House is triggered by a suspicion that someone might be subject to—the police don’t even have to be sure. Now, look, if you want to go and check on someone’s bail or parole, you can only do that if they are subject to bail or parole. That Minister wants the police to be able to have a reckon, and that is absolutely—you know, the fact is that the police can check on that kind of thing pretty much instantaneously on the National Intelligence Application. I think that that’s a reasonable thing for the police to do.

But that’s not the end of it. This is not only a warrantless search on the suspicion that someone might have a firearms protection order, but do you know what the trigger is for entering someone’s home, entering their car, waking up their kids? The trigger is nothing—nothing. The bill before the House says that this can be done without any reasonable suspicion that any offence or breach has occurred. I must say that I read this several times because I was flabbergasted that anyone in a democracy, somewhere where the rule of law exists, would put before the House a warrantless search on the suspicion of something that existed without any reasonable—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Oh, look, lawyers on the other side are hanging their heads in shame.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —cause whatsoever. It is—that’s right; they should. They should absolutely hang their heads. It is shameful that here, in a modern democracy, we have the suggestion—and, look, let me tell you what could happen: a police car goes past a supermarket car park and says, “I think that guy might have a firearms protection order.” So they go along and they stop that person. Do they think anything’s going wrong? No, they think he’s doing his shopping, but they stop him anyway because they want to. That’s all they need: just to want to. So they search the car. They search him. Do you know what else they can do? They can search his partner and they can search his kids. That is what this bill does: a warrantless, without cause search on the suspicion that someone might have a firearms protection order of them, their car, and anyone in the car.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The member’s time has expired.

Every person deserves to feel safe in their homes and in their communities. Similarly, every person deserves to live free from harm and discrimination. Nobody disagrees with this premise. The Green Party agrees to that premise as well, which is why we created Te Aorerekura, which was the first all-of-Government cross-party approach to eliminating and preventing family and sexual violence in our communities. That was a really good plan that got to the root cause of making our communities safer and making sure that people could live free from harm and discrimination.

But what this bill does today is it hides behind a guise of making our communities safer. Over the last few days, we’ve heard from the Government that they have a mandate to crack down on law and order and to make our communities safer. But what we know about the bills that are going through the House this week is that they’re not going to do that, because they’re targeting such a minority group in society and placing the blame squarely on that minority group in society. But this is simply virtue signalling. It does nothing to make our communities safer at all. In fact, it will have the opposite effect, and it will make things more unsafe, especially because it’s adding to the increased workload of police, who are already going to have increased tensions in their communities. It just adds to the list of potential to increase hostility in our communities, between police and between gangs and other people that they might suspect to be prospective gang members.

What is a prospective gang member? If you look at the reasons, which this Government has not been doing at all—they love to talk about gangs all day long, but they never even seek to understand why it is that people join gangs in the first place. We know why that is, because it’s well documented. The Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister said that the reason that people join gangs is because of poverty—that a majority of people are in gangs because they experience abuse at the hands of the State. Many people who are incarcerated have high rates of disabilities; they come from impoverished backgrounds. These are the reasons that people join gangs, but you’re not interested in understanding that. You’re not interested in channelling investment towards reducing those drivers of crime. You just want to pin it on a small group of people—

Hon Member: Not “you”.

TAMATHA PAUL: Sorry, not “you”; “they”. They want to pin it on people, to say they’re the problem—that that’s the reason why we have harm in our community. We know why harm happens in our communities, and I guarantee you that this bill before us tonight does nothing to address those drivers.

I don’t understand what this Government is up to when they are going to make assault-style firearms more accessible in our communities, and then, on the other hand, they are trying to do things like this bill represents. Which one is it? Is it less guns or more guns? All I can see is the gun lobby all over all of these bills that are going through the House at the moment.

This bill will do nothing but contribute to the over-incarceration of indigenous people in this country. We know that we have some of the most shameful statistics when it comes to indigenous people.

Hon Nicole McKee: The most shameful people—standing up in Parliament, backing gangs.

TAMATHA PAUL: Māori women—Māori women—a group which that member is part of, are the most highly incarcerated indigenous people in the world—in the world. Congratulations, because that member’s bill is going to contribute to more incarceration of indigenous peoples. What a legacy to have—what a legacy to have.

When Moana Jackson wrote his amazing report in the 1980s, He Whaipaanga Hou, Māori women represented only 6 percent of the prison population. How is it that in only four decades, we represent more than 60 percent of the prison population? It’s because of bills that have gone through this House that seek to target small groups of people, without understanding those drivers of crime, that we have that overrepresentation.

The Green Party believes that no one should have access to a firearm unless it is for hunting or pest control. We believe that safer communities can be achieved when we address the root causes of crime and gang membership, which this House has no interest in doing. Those things include a healthy, affordable home, livable incomes, meaningful mahi opportunities, good education, and high quality access to healthcare. If you read the report that the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister wrote about gang membership and why people are joining gangs in the first place, it is all of those contributing factors that matter. It’s not things that this bill is presenting.

Unlike other members in this House, I care about the people of Rangitata. I care about the safety of the people of Rangitata—safety which is threatened daily by the presence of gangs in our community. When the pad in Washdyke was demolished by the council, firearms were present. There is no doubt that this bill goes some way to making sure that no longer happens. Good bill; good night.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill. What I’d like to say, to the Associate Minister of Justice (Firearms), is that I support this to go to the Justice Committee. It’s a great place to put this bill and to actually go through some of the issues that are being raised from the other side of the House.

It is about improving public safety, and when I read this bill, that is the most important thing. Our concern is improving public safety. It is about high-risk people in our communities, and the firearms prohibition orders (FPOs). It’s about the three key changes that will be put forward in this bill. It is about gangs and it is about organised crime, and it’s those people in gangs and organised crime that are convicted of offences under certain Acts that the Minister has already pointed out tonight. This has widened the criteria for those people where an FPO can actually now be issued.

The second part of this bill is around the right to challenge, and that is something that, through the select committee stage, I think will be a good discussion, around that five-year review process. So that is something that is new, and I think that is something that is a really good part of the bill.

But the most important part is the third part of the bill, and it’s around our police. It’s around the police being able to search, and being able to search people who are a high risk to the public. Having that ability to search people who have been issued with an FPO is something that I think is a really good thing.

Also, in our communities, we have people who will be able to search a vehicle and actually make the public safer. That’s what this is all about. It’s about improving public safety around high-risk people in our community. I therefore commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka; tēnā tātou. So this kaupapa is one of a heavy nature, and I wish to recognise the nature of this bill to begin with. I recognise this to begin with because it is the whakapapa. It is the context behind the original development of this bill that I will discuss now.

We have become so far removed from the whakapapa of this bill and from why this law was first established that I stand here to remind us all of the foundation of our debate this evening. Next week, on March 15th, it will be the fifth anniversary of the Christchurch mosque attacks that targeted our Muslim community and claimed the lives of 51 innocent people. To those whānau and to that community, I acknowledge that this is a loss that likely remains unhealed. This attack was endured at the hands of an ideology known as white supremacy. This is an ideology that we dance around, that we do not mention within the walls of this House, and yet it is in this bill, embedded into its very foundation. I’ll repeat the words “white supremacy”. It was Labour who originally introduced laws in response to the attacks in Christchurch as a means to justify the implementation of Operation Tauwhiro and Operation Cobalt. These operations targeted criminals, criminal gangs, and organised crime groups. This was their response to the attack: to target and focus on groups who were ultimately not responsible for the events of March 15th and to those who do not hold the same ideology: white supremacy.

So this is how a colonial Government responds when a white supremacist terrorist is inspired by a world view that they have enabled, to redirect their focus on to—guess what?—gangs, of which Māori make up the majority. They will distract us from how we got here, as they do today, but we shall never forget March 15th. So this brings us here today to say where the coalition Government builds and develops on from the foundation of white supremacy. Because of the actions inspired by white supremacy, the Government, with this law, targets gang members, aka Māori and their associates, ultimately targeting Māori, which, no doubt, will lead to the increased incarceration of our people, continuing the cycle of trauma in our communities.

While the component of the bill I discuss now will certainly be discussed in greater detail in the days to come, I want to address the amendment of the Search and Surveillance Act. This Act will give police the power to conduct warrantless searches without cause. One of my whanaunga recently got arrested; I think it was called a “searching while brown” situation. It will give the police the power to arrest—and on a person that police suspect is subject to a firearms prohibition order. So what this means is that police will be able to invade our homes—our homes—and conduct searches without reasonable grounds to suspect that any offence has been, is being, or will be committed. Imagine how that’s going to turn out.

The message this sends to our people, again, is this: we do not matter. Our safety, our security, and our place in Aotearoa as tangata whenua is of no value to this Government. It sends the message to our tamariki, to our mokopuna, that we Māori will continue to have our oppressors searching our homes—what a great life! Searching our Māori identities for something they cannot find within themselves. I leave it to the members of this House to consider what that something is, and I completely reject the position of this bill, and absolutely cannot commend it. Tēnā koe.

We are here tonight for one reason. Some reasons have been put for why we’re here tonight, but we are here tonight because of the abject failure of the last six years to get on top of law and order. Serious offending through the roof. Retail offending through the roof. Youth offending through the roof. The gang numbers are through the roof, and if we look at some of the stats out of police districts: gang numbers in Auckland City Police District, up 87 percent in six years; Waitematā, up 74 percent; Wellington, up 124 percent. New Zealanders have had an absolute gutsful. They want us back in control. We tried six police Ministers in six years, and all we saw was failure and all we saw was soaring crime. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Look, in situations like this, I think it’s always good to go back to a good problem definition and look at what the proposed solution is doing to that. And that’s exactly also what the Police have done quite a good job with, with the supplementary analysis report on firearm prohibition orders (FPOs), which is tabled.

So the problem definition in this paper states that “Violent crime involving firearms is a significant source of harm in New Zealand.” We agree with that, and we agree that we would like to do something about that problem. “The objective”, as it says in here, “of the FPO regime is to improve public safety by reducing the likelihood that individuals who are high risk of violent offending are able to access firearms”, something that we also agree with.

The problem comes when it goes to assessing what the solution to this problem is, and Police are pretty frank in their advice: “Given the newness of the FPO regime”, the one brought in by the previous Government, “which only took effect on 15 November 2022, Police consider that it’s too early to evaluate if it is improving public safety. However”—this is the good bit—“there is a perception expressed in the National Party 2023 election manifesto and subsequent ministerial discussions, that several legislative design features of the current framework limit the efficiency and the effectiveness of the regime.” So Police say, “We do not know whether the previous regime is working because it’s too early” and, furthermore, the only evidence we have is a “perception” expressed in the National Party election manifesto, and that is the basis of the law change that we are here tonight debating.

The second point I’d like to make is in relation to the evidence for change. Police consider it is too early to properly assess and, in addition, the reason why it’s too early to assess it is that the majority of those individuals who now have an FPO placed upon them are in prison; so we don’t know how that will impact upon them, because they’re presently incarcerated. So we are introducing new powers tonight, new ways to a regime which is unable to be assessed largely because all of the people it would currently apply to are in prison. The problem definition of these changes, therefore, has limited evidence to support—there is “very little baseline evidence to support future monitoring of whether these changes have been effective.”

Then it goes on to look at the risks. It’s really important to look at the risks associated with proceeding with the current regime when there is no evidence or basis for changing it. “Few FPOs are issued as the impact on rights mean that they are only considered appropriate in extraordinary cases of risk to public safety. Evidence obtained by police in FPO searches may be ruled inadmissible where search powers are ruled to have been used in an unreasonable manner. Crown liability for damages may arise if FPO search powers are ruled to be used in an unreasonable manner.” So the problem is it’s still administered by the courts. You still need a judge to put one of these new things on somebody and so what the Police advice is saying is there may well be reluctance by the courts to do that.

And the fourth point I’d like to say, and this is one of my favourites—it’s titled up “Assumptions Underpinning Impact Assessment”. So the whole impact assessment is on assumptions: “There is an assumption that the current FPO regime is insufficient to mitigate firearms violence or control gang crime, which has not been rigorously tested. Given the newness of this FPO regime, it is difficult to assess if it is working effectively, or whether amendments are needed to increase its efficacy.” So that’s interesting. Then, on top of that, we have a coalition Government who’s making semi-automatic weapons more readily available to the general public. So you’re introducing new powers on controlling gun control while bringing back semi-automatic weapons: loopy, pretty damn loopy, I say. It is unbelievable that you can try and trumpet that you’re doing a tough-on-crime approach by bringing in something but, at the same time, you’re making available semi-automatic weapons, which will find their way into the hands of the criminal underworld whether you like it or not.

The last point I’d like to make is the impact on Māori and the Treaty. It says, “As these proposals will disproportionately affect Māori, under the active protection and partnership principles there is a strong Te Tiriti o Waitangi argument base that Māori should at the very least be consulted. However, due to time constraints, no consultation with Māori has been done.” But we won’t need to worry about the active principle of partnership and the Treaty principles because ACT has a bill with that as well to get rid of those as well. So, Madam Speaker, this bill is a joke.

The Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill is a crackdown measure on gangs, their associates, and criminals. It is a bill that clearly sends the message that gun crime will not be tolerated and confirms our commitment to all our local communities that we take their safety seriously. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the chance, at 11.40 p.m. at night, to say a few words on the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill. And it’s kind of a shame that we’re having this important conversation at this hour in the evening under urgency. I would have thought some due respect would have been at a more timely part of the day where people had the opportunity to maybe tune in.

Simon Court: Well, maybe if there were still FPOs, then you could have negotiated that, but we got rid of them.

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: You know, 7.30, 8.30, is usually prime time for TV watching, isn’t it, Mr Court? But, you know, 11.30, people have watched the news, they’re on to their Netflix, and they’re probably off to bed, but never mind.

Tangi Utikere: Why are we still here?

Dr TRACEY McLELLAN: I have no idea. But this bill makes, as my colleagues have said, three changes to the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Act. The first one—and they’re all quite benign on the surface. The first one amends the Arms Act 1983 to extend the group of persons against whom a firearms prohibition order (FPO) may be made; amends the Arms Act 1983 to establish a new review process that enables persons subject to an FPO to apply to the court to have that order varied, perhaps modified, or even revoked; and it amends the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 to introduce a new, without cause, search power that enables police to conduct searches in respect of a person who the police suspect on reasonable grounds may be subject to an FPO.

Before coming down to the House, I listened to my colleague the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, who is a professor of law, talk about the history of—I think it was way back in the 1700s and there was some story about a particular man who, and I don’t profess to have the legal intellect that that Dr Webb has, but I know that it was really important that not since that time have we thought about engaging these measures. So that goes to show what a potentially ill-conceived and ill-thought-out piece of legislation this is. And, look, the reality is that this doesn’t go any way to resolving the actual problem, does it? You know, the National Party, pre-election, went on and on and on about the concept, and they campaigned really hard on resolving the gang problem, and this doesn’t go any way whatsoever to doing anything about crime and anything about the issue of gangs.

So, as we’ve said, the proposed changes to the FPO add almost nothing. And that’s a bit of a shame because there was an opportunity to actually start to put together a suite of measures that could have tackled the issues at hand. But this does very little, and as my colleague the Hon Ginny Andersen has just said, you put that together with the fact that there’s loosening up of gun laws on the other hand, and it’s a bit of a recipe for disaster. So the FPO laws are already in place, and they work—they work well—and the Government is really, really planning to make military style semi-automatic weapons more widely available. And we know that the police have advised that they will end up in the wrong hands. So there’s a couple of just practical things that we have to think about. How will a person be identified as a gang member? What is the process for demonstrating that they’re no longer a gang member or they’re no longer affiliated to that gang? And what does good behaviour mean with regard to actually getting off an FPO earlier?

When you think about it, it’s almost laughable. We knew the “coalition of cuts” would cut services, and we’ve talked about that throughout the evening in various other ways, but now we’re actually talking about cutting safety and cutting protections from our communities. So that’s not really very good. Madam Speaker—Mr Speaker, my apologies; as I said, it’s very late. The firearms prohibition orders, as we’ve said, are really a back-door way of planning to introduce greater access to military semi-automatic weapons, and I think that that’s something we have to be really wary of, in conjunction with these other measures.

Now, ACT is putting our police in harm’s way, and I don’t say that lightly, but I think that that’s actually quite justified. The police have already got a dangerous job, as we know, without the risk of having assault weapons pulled on them during circumstances where these FPO orders are being amended. And I just want to finish my contribution by saying that Nicola Willis made a commitment that National would continue to support a ban on those weapons after the 15 March attack. So clearly this is a Government very divided.

Too often, senior gang members have been getting away with their peddling of misery while the young recruits—those that are often lured to the gang lifestyle for the reasons mentioned by my colleague Tamatha Paul, which I acknowledge—are the ones that are usually dealing with the stronger sentences. So this bill helps rectify this imbalance, and it will help people in Takanini, in Mount Roskill, in West Auckland, in South Auckland, and around New Zealand feel much safer. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Instruction to Justice Committee