Mitchell Mark; Hipkins ChrisHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Mr Chair. Quite simply what I mean Minister is that if an offender or defendant has had a firearms prohibition order (FPO) against them and they are in violation of either paragraphs (a) or (b) of subclause (1) of 42A how is a police officer meant to detect that breach? If the police officer asks that person and inquires of them and says Are you compliant with your FPO?" and the person says "Yes" but they have a handgun tucked into their belt or concealed somewhere on them how is the police officer actually meant to check and ensure that they're being compliant with the FPO?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): If the police officer has reason to suspect that someone is not in compliance with that then they have an ability to search in order to determine that. They can do that warrantlessly. In terms of the—coming back to Nicole McKee's question which again I think is a reasonable question this is an issue that the police grapple with already at the moment in terms of the lawfulness of the ownership of stolen firearms or even firearms that are perhaps "borrowed" without the consent of the owners of those firearms. There is a process that police go through to investigate that to investigate the circumstances under which they came to be in the possession of firearms from the lawful owners of the firearms and where necessary they can be returned to the lawful owners if they have been taken without consent—they've been stolen or again borrowed without consent in the case of say a family member for example.Hon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Mr Chair. Minister again I'm going to ask you because you responded by saying—first of all you sort of had a go at the intelligence of a front-line police officer but actually you've brought legislation here that in my view and in my experience police officers will always stay within the spirit of the law and the laws and the legislation that they have to operate inside. And I asked you and I said to you "If a front-line police officer happened to be on the beat and came across someone that they knew had an firearms protection order and a history for carrying firearms and they stopped and spoke to the person and they inquired and said "Are you being compliant with paragraphs (a) and (b) of subclauses (1) and (2) of 42A?" and the person said "Yes." how is the police officer meant to actually check and ensure that they are being compliant with that firearms protection order if they have no reasonable excuse?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): The issue here is very clearly that if they have a reasonable suspicion that someone is not in compliance with the legislation then they can conduct a search and they can conduct a search without a warrant. We've covered this ground several times before. The issue is that their firearms prohibition orders are in place for 10 years and if the member is suggesting that someone who's subject to a firearms prohibition order should be able to be randomly searched as many times—well in an unlimited way—for the entirety of that 10 years then I think that that is a bridge too far."