Arms (Shooting Clubs, Shooting Ranges, and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

Thank you, members. We now come to Part 2. Part 2 is the debate on clauses 11 to 23, “Other matters”. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I just want, if possible, to clarify something that occurred—like the Minister—the last time we were there.

At the very end of the previous debate in the committee stage, Associate Minister of Justice McKee stated right at the end that two clubs have actually shut down and a series of individuals came to her—so as a result of the last changes, clubs shut down. I wanted to know if she’s able to provide the names of the two clubs that closed. Also, she stated others who indicated they were going to close, and I want to know whether they actually did close or not. There is a possibility that those clubs did close, but I think if she’s stating that in the Chamber, it would be good to know what the names of those clubs that closed are.

When I was the police Minister, I did get advice stating that small clubs were not worried about being inspected for safety compliance, but they were concerned that they were so small, with dwindling memberships, that they might not have enough members to meet the legal requirement to become an incorporated society because they have to have a minimum of 10 members. Just to clarify that, it would be good to know: what are the two clubs that the Minister said have closed?

The Minister’s just advised that a written parliamentary question would be a good opportunity for that question. Thank you.

Right—so she doesn’t have that information to hand?

Not on me, no.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Thank you. Do we have questions on Part 2?

Yeah, I do, actually, thank you very much. I’ll continue with the next point.

I’d like to raise a question with Associate Minister of Justice McKee in relation to the regulation-making powers. The last power is referred to in amended section 74A(1), in clause 13, going to now the responsible Minister in this case, which is the Associate Minister. Under new section 74(3) and (4), in clause 12, there are recommendations for the responsible Minister to be satisfied that the Secretary for Justice has undertaken requisite consultation, which now includes consultation with the Police. The changes reflect that the principal Act is now administered not by Police but by the Ministry of Justice and acknowledge the continued interest of Police. The amendments to new sections 74(5), 74A(1), and 74D(1) replace references to the Minister of Police with references to the responsible Minister—the Associate Minister—in the principal Act.

What would be interesting to know in particular is the point in section 74A(1), which gives specific powers to the Minister to make Orders in Council regarding prohibited definitions—so prohibited weapons is the term used for military-style semi-automatic weapons. The title of section 74A(1) has the words “(Order in Council relating to definitions of prohibited firearm and prohibited magazine, and declaring prohibited ammunition)”, so, effectively, this would mean that the responsible Minister could, without any consultation with the public or communities, change the definition of what is in fact a prohibited weapon in New Zealand. This is likely to be problematic, we think in the Labour Party, that people are not made aware of this and it can be done simply by an Order in Council without public consultation.

I would like the Minister to respond to the view on this side of the Chamber that there is absolutely no mandate to weaken our gun laws this way, particularly considering the recent history in New Zealand of 15 March which used one of these prohibited weapons. We are, in fact, less than two years away from the sixth anniversary of a mass shooting which used exactly one of these firearms. I would like the Minister to speak to the fact on whether she intends to use section 74A(1) in order to change the definition of prohibited weapons in New Zealand. And if she does intend to do so, what is the consultation with communities around New Zealand if she proposes to make this change?

Thank you, Madam Chair. The assertations that the member Ginny Andersen is making that I as a Minister would have sole control over making changes by Order in Council by myself is simply incorrect. I’m not quite sure what happened when that member was a Minister, maybe perhaps the large numbers of Orders in Council that went through under the previous Government without consultation is the reason why there is fear about what’s going on, when, in actual fact, there does not need to be such fear.

This Government has made it very clear what the firearms reform regime is going to look like. We have been very open with the New Zealand public and encouraged them to be a part of the solution as we change and modernise the firearms laws through reform that we have clearly outlined. I was hoping that the member would be aware that no one member of Parliament can make changes by Order in Council; they actually need the votes of the Cabinet behind them to do so.

The reason for these changes is because we are, as we have forecast throughout the election campaign, removing the Firearms Safety Authority from the New Zealand Police, and putting them into an independent agency, allowing New Zealand Police to focus on enforcement of our firearm laws. Part of the reason why we have included police as part of the consultation in section 74 of the Arms Act, amended by clause 12 of the bill, is because we need to ensure that the communication between police and the agency continue and that any potential changes that are made by way of Order in Council are ones that are going to help New Zealand Police, not hinder them.

In relation to these particular clauses and the changes that we are making, these changes that we are making right now here, through this piece of legislation, are to allow the Ministry of Justice to start the transfer of the Firearms Safety Authority away from New Zealand Police.

Maybe Associate Minister of Justice McKee didn’t hear me. I appreciate what the Order in Council process is, and I appreciate that that goes to Cabinet, but I wanted to know what consultation would be taken with New Zealand communities. Many of the processes through the four stages of firearms reforms have taken place with a list that has been hand-picked by the Minister’s office, who have gone and asked people for their views. These have predominantly come from the firearms community, and they have ignored large parts of the community who also have a vested interest in firearms safety.

With this legislation, with this section, section 74A(1), in clause 13, she is giving herself the power to determine what is a prohibited weapon in New Zealand, nearly six years after we lost 51 lives on 15 March with the same prohibited weapon, and I’ve asked today what is the consultation process that she will undertake before, once again, making military-style semi-automatic weapons available to be used in New Zealand.

The member is once again making a whole lot of assumptions that actually have nothing to do with this piece of legislation that’s in front of us now. I have clearly explained the reason why we are making the changes, and it does not say in the bill that we are removing this and giving it to the Hon Nicole McKee. It says that we are giving it to the Minister in charge of the legislation, or the Minister that will be in charge of the legislation. That may not even necessarily be me in the future. It may come under the Minister of Justice or it may come under the Minister of Internal Affairs.

I think if we look into the long range about modernising the Act, this is the first stage. When it comes to consultation, we have just closed a public consultation asking New Zealanders what they would like to see in the Arms Act. This went out to everyone, where everyone has had that opportunity. As we start to reform what will be a new Arms Act, again, we will be going out to all of New Zealand, because this is what we did in 1983 when we established the Arms Act 1983. That was after two years of consultation with everybody, where everyone got to have a say about what they would like to see. We have opened that up. Now, the reason why we went to targeted consultation for shooting clubs and ranges was also made very public at the time that we did it. It was a coalition commitment to remove the entirety of Part 6, everything to do with clubs and ranges.

When going through this and speaking with officials, I realised that there were aspects of Part 6 which we needed to keep there because it related and was influential to public safety. Now, when we talk about what we’re doing in the firearms reforms, we’ve made it very clear and very public that public safety, good regulation that people can live by, and compliance are the three main things that we’re going to be looking at as we start to reform the firearms Act. The Arms Act, the rewrite itself—a bill will be available at some stage soon, one would hope, once we’ve gone through the consultation which has just recently closed. I thank all the members of the public who have been a part of that and have given their submissions to the Ministry of Justice.

Moving forward, this is a positive thing for New Zealand because the reality is that we have had clubs close, we have had ranges close as a result of that, and it’s important that we support the maintenance of clubs and ranges as safe places for people to go to learn about firearm safety, to be educated on firearm safety, and to not be down at the riverbank trying to sight-in their hunting rifles with no oversight whatsoever. There has been an 18 percent increase in firearms charges since 2018. I’ve had barristers tell me that the law is unworkable, that there are conflicts within it. This bill here is a part of fixing some of those irregularities, and none of it relates to interference with public safety. In fact, by keeping these ranges and supporting these ranges and these clubs to continue to operate, we are increasing public safety.

As we work through the whole Arms Act rewrite, everybody will be invited to submit and also be a part of that process. In this regard, I’m fulfilling our commitment that we made to the voters that voted us in. I haven’t gone as far as we said we would, in the interests of public safety, and I stand by the decisions that have been made today.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d just like it recorded that Associate Minister of Justice McKee did not respond to what the consultation period was for reintroducing prohibited weapons. That was not responded to.

Hon Nicole McKee: It’s got nothing to do with this bill.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: My question—it is in this bill—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The member can record that, but the Minister talked about a previous consultation and talked about two years. She has said she may or may not be responsible for future consultations, so it’s a bit difficult to put her in the position of expecting her to know something that may happen in the future.

Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: Thank you, Madam Chair. My question to the Minister is in relation to amended section 74A(1), inserted by clause 13, as to why it’s in this tranche of legislation. The Minister has spoken about the consultation that has just closed, which is in the wider review of firearms legislation—to look at things like if the legislation is up to date and the role of the Firearms Registry. There has been significant commentary from experts, from media, and those who are directly affected that this section here, which transfers power from the Minister of Police and from Police to the Associate Minister of Justice and Justice, that that would have better belonged or fitted in a bill that is about the entire reform of firearms legislation. This bill we’re discussing now is about gun ranges, about regulating gun ranges, and it’s about winding back all of the changes that were brought in under Part 6 when the last Government was in power, post - 15 March.

There is quite a wide gap between the subject matter we are dealing with here and the transfer of power from one Minister to the other, because it’s a very significant change to shift the responsibility of firearms, which has always sat with Police. It sat with Police for some very good reasons. It’s because our police officers on the front line are the first ones to turn up when someone’s gone rogue with a gun. It’s them who put their lives on the line every single day and need to have real-time intelligence and real-time information. It is the Minister of Police who has always had oversight over their wellbeing and their safety. Quite rightly, the Police Association have been calling out, and front-line officers have been calling out, and they are very concerned that there is a transfer of power from the police Minister to the Associate Minister of Justice. And why is it being done under a bill that’s about deregulating gun ranges? It should have been in the consultation around the overarching firearms reform. We should have had that question in the consultation that’s just closed.

If this was actually a genuine process that was going out and discussing with our community who are at most risk from being embroiled in firearms and having to face those risks and dangers on a daily basis, we should have been consulting with police officers and with the Police Association as to whether this is a good idea to simply shift responsibility of the Arms Act from Police to Justice. I appreciate that that might be a coalition agreement and that that was something to get ticked off as quickly as possible, but that’s not a sufficient answer. There needs to be some good rigour in terms of the policy decisions that were taken by this Minister. If that is directly impacting upon front-line safety, I think that we deserve to have a clear answer as to why the power to make such determinations around firearms is sitting in an Act about gun ranges and not in the wider reform about the Arms Act.

I don’t know how many other ways to say it: the Firearms Safety Authority is being removed from the New Zealand Police. They’re being put into a different agency. Usually when you do that you make sure that the Minister in charge of that agency has some say over what’s going to happen. The changes are happening now because the Ministry of Justice—who may not be the end home carer for the Arms Act—needs to make policy changes, administrative changes, be able to have the ability to do that as we work through the other phases. It is logical that we put that in there now.

What the member, Ginny Andersen, is trying to tell the New Zealand public is that there is some sort of bad thing that I’m going to do in the background and the whole reason for making the changes is not because it’s an effective, efficient way to remove and drop into a new agency the Firearms Safety Authority but because I have some underhand thing that I want to do. The reality is, I have not said anything—but everybody else has—about what the intent is, when the intent, as I laid out just earlier, is to have firearms legislation which improves public safety, which has good regulation that is readable and enforceable, and also increases compliance. This is not a “Nicole McKee Bill” because “she is wanting to something underhand to the New Zealand public.” This is about creating good regulation.

The reality is, if we’re going to do it and do it well, we need to make sure that there is good information-sharing arrangements between New Zealand Police and the new home agency for the Firearms Safety Authority. We do that before we start to make the changes, otherwise we could compromise the safety of our front-liners. I make no apology for putting that into this bill, because that allows the Ministry of Justice to get on with their work, and while they do that they can ensure the safety of our front-liners while they work through the process of the exchange. There is nothing underhand here. This is a good legislative process. I guess it’s something that, perhaps, that the other side have not been aware of, because the last set of changes that were made were so rushed—

Glen Bennett: Public concern.

Hon NICOLE McKEE: —that we are having to clear it up. When I just hear someone yell out “public concern”, I’m not surprised that there’s public concern when what we hear coming from the other side and out through the media actually doesn’t tell the country what is happening.

Glen Bennett: Your constituents.

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I’m also being yelled at that it’s my constituents, a quarter of a million of them. It’s like the retailers that are out there in New Zealand. There are quarter of a million of them, but do we just ignore them? Every person in a democratic society should have a voice and they should be heard. That means—whether they’re licensed firearm owners or not—they should have a say in the way that they’re regulated, as we would do for other members of our society when we make bills, or laws and Acts, that will affect them.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ve just joined this debate, but I’ve had a bit of history with the Arms Act changes, particularly following 15 March. At the time, I was working for the Minister of Police and was in his office when the call came through from Police National Headquarters around the incidents that were happening down in Christchurch at the time. It became the start of a very big chapter of some very swift changes with the first bill, which were to restrict military-style semi-automatics, and that was the start, really, of what was the second tranche of the Arms Act reforms, which did go through a longer select committee period.

I just have one quick question for Associate Minister of Justice McKee first, before I take another call—if that’s possible. I’m trying to ascertain from the ministerial statement the changes for this particular bill—to the Minister: are these changes that you’re putting through now because of 15 March, the first tranche of Arms Act reforms; or was it the second tranche? I just wanted to understand that context first, before I take another call.

There are four phases in our firearms reform. The entire idea is that we have an Arms Act that is broken, that is not workable; it has been a concoction of a whole lot of legislative changes. In fact, I liken the Arms Act to being something like the Resource Management Act, where you have a piece of legislation that people have put things on top of and it’s grown out of proportion and is now unworkable.

This is the reason why we are doing these changes. The other side have said that it’s because of 15 March that I’m in here making these changes. Actually, that’s what brought me to Parliament: the fact that we had legislation that I could see was not workable. I wanted to be able to make a positive change for New Zealand and make sure that we have legislation in our future that will increase public safety, have good regulations, and also encourage compliance.

The changes that we are making are about modernising the legislation. This is one part. We will finish the modernising of it when we do the Arms Act rewrite, but the changes that we have made here today—or we’re about to make—in this piece of legislation do not affect public safety. It’s about taking away some of the doubling of some of the work that volunteers have to do. It’s about making sure that we can support clubs and their ranges to be able to open and to operate. With that, this is phase two. Phase four is the Arms Act rewrite, and this will be about a whole regime of modernisation.

I encourage all members across the House who—I have invited members into my office to say to them, and I will restate it again: if you have issues with the Arms Act, come and talk to me, because, across the House, we need to have a piece of better legislation for New Zealanders, to keep all of us safe. I will always have an open-door policy so that members of the Opposition can come and speak to me about what their concerns are and what they think needs to be addressed, so that we can try and work it out and get some support. You may not support the changes in the bill, but at least have the conversations so that we can address the concerns.

Is Tamatha Paul wanting to take a call?

Tamatha Paul: Yeah, I’d love to.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): OK, I’m going to take a call from Tamatha Paul, but what I’m going to make very clear at this stage is that we are dealing with a very small part of the bill, which is Part 2, and it’s very administrative. I’m finding that the Minister should not be having to go back now and answer questions on the what and the why, which are all part of Part 1. I’d like people to be very specific about what clause they’re looking at in Part 2 when they ask their questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate you allowing me to take a call on this, because I haven’t been engaged in the previous committee of the whole House phase of this bill.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): That’s fine, but you can’t go back to Part 1. It must be on Part 2.

TAMATHA PAUL: I wanted to ask a question based on some of the answers that Associate Minister of Justice McKee gave just now in this session, if that’s OK.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): As long as they weren’t related to the what and the why. They need to relate to Part 2 and the administration.

TAMATHA PAUL: Yeah, that’s cool. The first part of my question is around the separating of functions out from the New Zealand Police into the Minister’s jurisdiction, which was brought up by the member Ginny Andersen over there. I’m just trying to understand this some more because, to a layperson who isn’t involved in this area, it seems a bit confusing that you have the police who are in charge of licensing people and making sure that people that get their licences pass all their checks—that they’re of sound mind and are able to safely possess a firearm.

I’ve also been thinking, because a lot of the comments have been around 15 March and what happened there, and we know, thanks to the royal commission of inquiry, where the loopholes were and what went wrong—I’m wondering why we would separate out these kinds of regulations and operations from the police when they also hold lots of important intelligence around the actions and maybe offences or patterns that they’ve observed of people within their community that they might consider when they’re granting somebody a firearms licence. I’m keen to dig into that around why we would separate out this regulation from the New Zealand Police.

The other question that I had was in regard to 15 March and comments that the Minister made when the previous Government was undergoing firearms reviews following the 15 March terrorist attack. The Minister was on record making comments accusing the Government of not waiting for the recommendations from the royal commission of inquiry. I’m confused as to why this—

Simon Court: Point of order, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to ask for the Chair’s clarification. Is it appropriate for somebody questioning the Minister in the chair to refer to the Minister as “the Minister” when describing actions and things that happened before the member was elected and before the Minister became a Minister as if the Minister had said it? Just a bit of clarification from the Chair in relation to the member’s question.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Well, the questions are really related to what the Minister is doing here, today, in this piece of legislation, in Part 2, related to part events. It’s not particularly appropriate what a Minister said prior to this—this is about Part 2 of the bill.

TAMATHA PAUL: Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, and if the member over there would hold his horses and let me finish my question, you’d see that it’s actually related to the inquiry that is still continuing to this day.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): OK, well, we’ve closed the point of order now and I’ve ruled on the point of order, so let’s come to the particular clauses and the questions on Part 2. Thank you.

TAMATHA PAUL: Thanks, Madam Chair. To continue what I was saying before in relation to how it is relevant today, my question is why the same rationale isn’t applied by the Minister in the sense that the second phase of the royal commission of inquiry is continuing right now and there is a particular focus in that inquiry on firearms.

My question to the Minister is why not apply the same advice—which she herself has given in the past—to wait for the recommendations of the inquiry that is happening actively right now, and take her own advice and apply that to these changes, about which, from my short listening of the arguments that have been made today, there doesn’t seem to be a really clear rationale behind the bill, and in this session there has been constant referral to the fact that shooting ranges and clubs have closed down.

By my reading of things, there have been two closed down out of about 500 shooting clubs and ranges, so I don’t think that that justifies the bill in front of us. Not to mention that those clubs closed down not because of regulatory requirements but for other reasons—which you would know if you’d read the reports as well.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In the first instance, there is no other royal commission of inquiry stage 2. There is no royal commission of inquiry stage 2—

Tamatha Paul: It’s the coronial inquiry.

Hon NICOLE McKEE: Then that’s not what you said, and as it’s a coronial inquiry that has still not delivered its decision, it is not something that should be discussed within this House, because a decision is still pending.

In relation to the member’s first question that she asked—and the royal commission of inquiry did talk about having a separate entity to be able to do the licensing. When you remove that entity, which was not separate—it was under Police, staffed by Police, funded by Police, who report to Police, so it wasn’t separate, it wasn’t independent. We’re going to remove that. In order to make these changes that are in Part 2, we have to make the changes in order to get the policy work under way. It’s not uncommon; it happens all the time.

If people are worried that by uplifting the Firearms Safety Authority and putting it under another agency, we stop communicating with Police and that we don’t have this line of discussion open, then that is a very sad state of affairs for New Zealand, if we ever got to that point. The whole reason—and I’m reiterating this because I’ve said it several times here—that we are moving the Firearms Safety Authority is to increase trust and confidence back into a system that is incredibly broken and has no trust. It does not mean that New Zealand Police will be left on the outside. New Zealand Police have a very important role to play with the licensing system, with the enforcement.

At the moment, they do the policy, they do the administration, they do the enforcement, they do all the licensing—they do everything; they’re a one-stop shop. That is not their core business. Their core business is enforcement, and in order to allow them to get on with their core business and be able to allow the separation to occur, we have Part 2, and Part 2 then gives the ability for the Minister, or responsible Minister in charge of the Act, to make policy decisions on policy, regulations, and administration.

I move, That debate on this question now close.