Andersen Ginny; McKee NicoleHon GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour): I'd like to ask a couple of questions in relation to this Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill. I note that this is tranche one of four different elements to the overarching firearms reforms that have been part of the Government suite of changes. Before I get into that I would just like to have some feedback from the Minister in relation to some of the issues that have been identified in the regulatory impact statement in particular the limitation and constraints on analysis that have been unable to be completed given a short period of time. In particular it does note that no public consultation has been conducted on these proposals and that Police relied on previous statements in 2020 consultations and the 2022 Justice Committee regarding firearms prohibition orders (FPOs) to indicate stakeholder views. So from my understanding and the Minister may want to clarify that's the previous FPO regime. So the previous consultation on the last regime is what's being applied to this one. So if the Minister could explain why that has happened given that this one is supposed to be different to the previous one.It's also noted here that those views may no longer be accurate and proposals previously consulted on have a number of key differences from current proposals." So given it appears that there was no consultation undertaken with this regime why was that the case?I'd be interested to have some information from the Minister in relation to the fact that it states that "Police consider it is too early to properly assess how effectively the current FPO regime is achieving its objectives." So that would be the FPO regime introduced under the previous Government. So the current regime only took effect from the end of 2022—so that's November 2022—and only comes into place at the point of sentencing for those offenders who would receive a firearms prohibition order. And in addition to that only coming into effect in November 2022 and at sentencing many individuals had an FPO imposed on them but they're also in prison because it's at sentencing and so they're receiving an imprisonment term. And so the impact of that regime—I'd be interested to know how the Minister assesses that it's ineffective enough to warrant it being changed or this new one coming on top of it when there seems to be quite clear advice from Police that it's not been in operation for long enough given that it only came in in November 2022 and those it does apply to all largely received a custodial sentence and so would still be largely serving time.In the problem definition for the changes that we're examining right now it does appear that there's limited evidence to support it and there's very little baseline evidence to support future monitoring of where these changes have been effective. So given the fact that analysis has not been undertaken for the FPO regime in place now how do we track whether this one's actually making a difference or not? That would be interesting to understand from the Minister. And so there is still quite a lack of a lack of certainty regarding how many firearm prohibition orders will be issued under these new requirements. And that appears to be largely due to the fact such as that it's a judge who is able to put one of these on somebody. And while the Minister has provided some modelling of what she anticipates to be the number of FPOs and how that will increase I'm interested to understand how she arrived at that modelling given that there's been no essential analysis of the existing regime. And so I'm interested to hear how the analysis will be undertaken given the lack of consultation on this and also the lack of real I guess analysis of the existing regime and how its operating to date.Hon NICOLE McKEE (Associate Minister of Justice): I thank that member for her questions. There were quite a few there so I've tried to capture as much as I can in order to answer. The limitation on data that was produced in regard to giving the Police the ability to make sure that they can monitor the compliance of the regime. Now yes the programme has only been in place since November 2022. We're coming up close to two years of that but at the end of the day if the Police are unable to actually monitor the compliance of the regime then it's unknown how the regime is being effective as well. So I think it's great that we are introducing this at this stage because it will help Police to know whether or not those individuals with a firearms prohibition order (FPO) are actually complying with the conditions of that FPO. And the consultation that was held in 2021 actually addressed these issues the requirements that we're putting into law now. And we feel confident that there has not been that much of a change if any because it wasn't that long ago when those were canvassed.Further the member is talking about people that are incarcerated. The FPOs do not take effect until a person is released from prison and one of the benefits of this bill as it goes through is the ability for those that have been rehabilitated to apply after five years of having that FPO upon them to have variation or reduction in time. So those that do rehabilitate and do well when incarcerated once released will have the five-year possibility of reduction instead of having to go through a 10-year regime.The FPO numbers are currently sitting between 80 and 100 per annum which could relate to about 800 to 1000 more people with an FPO placed upon them over 10 years. I think what's important here is what the member herself actually alluded to which is that an FPO is not placed on a person unless they are convicted of a serious violent assault—or crime I should say rather than assault. At the moment those crimes are those that are considered serious violent crimes under the three-strikes regime. This regime will allow us to open it up to some other further violent and serious crimes. And again if I come back to the fact that these people would already have been convicted of this an FPO is additional to the conviction that they have; it's not an incarceration. And further to that those numbers could actually reduce effectively if the five-year regime is implemented where somebody who has been convicted ends up applying and is successful in having their 10-year FPO reduced down to five years those numbers actually have the ability to reduce."