5. Question No. 5—PoliceGINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister of PoliceQuestion No. 5—Police5. GINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister of Police: What recent progress has been made on the implementation of firearms prohibition orders in New Zealand?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): Good news: I am advised that the bill has been reported back to the House. It was reported back last Friday and I thank the Justice Committee for reporting the bill back several weeks early. I intend to take a proposal to the Business Committee this afternoon that will see us agreeing on a timetable to have the bill passed into law by the end of next week. This is another step in the Government's response to criminal behaviour and it reflects our ongoing goal to ensure that police have the right tools they need to keep our community safe.Ginny Andersen: What is the purpose of the orders and how will they help to reduce gun harm in our communities?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Firearms prohibition orders will help to further reduce firearms violence in our communities by prohibiting high-risk offenders from accessing being around or using firearms or ammunition. The bill gives the court the power to impose an order lasting 10 years and it makes it a further criminal offence to breach the conditions of the order. I am concerned about the potential for further gun violence in our communities and this bill targets those people with a history of serious violent offending and gun crimes barring them from accessing the most dangerous of weapons.Ginny Andersen: What will this mean for individuals who breach prohibition orders?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: A breach of firearms prohibition orders will attract stern penalties including up to two years' imprisonment if a person breaches a certain condition and is found for example to reside in a location where there are firearms or visits a prohibited location such as a gun shop; up to five years in prison if the person is found to be in possession or control of a firearm; up to seven years' imprisonment if the firearm was a prohibited firearm such as a military-style semi-automatic; and up five years in prison—or up to seven years' imprisonment if the firearm was a prohibited firearm—for knowingly supplying the firearm to a person subject to a firearms prohibition order.Ginny Andersen: What alternative approaches to firearms prohibition orders did the Government consider in bringing this bill before the House?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Government did consider previous proposals that were considered in 2014 and 2016. We also considered previous bills that have been considered by the House to limit firearms prohibition orders to only gang members and also to have the police issuing the firearms prohibition orders. We ultimately decided on this course of action because we thought it was justified to have a wider scope a wider coverage than just gang members—that in fact there were examples where other violent offenders should also be covered—and we felt that the most appropriate body to be issuing the orders wasn't the police but was the courts and so ultimately we feel we've reached a better balance.Hon Mark Mitchell: Will the implementation of the firearms prohibition orders include the search powers that the Police Association recommended saying that without them the bill would be useless?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Welcome back to the member. I was worried—I hadn't seen him for a while. As has been well canvassed—and we canvassed at the select committee—the Government doesn't intend to provide the police with additional warrantless search powers. There are additional warranted search powers that the House will be asked to consider shortly that deal specifically with gang-related tensions. In terms of warrantless search powers we did consider a range of advice on that and ultimately one of the risks that we were weighing up there was that they could end up being used against law-abiding firearms owners and that is a group that the Government does not want to target with this legislation.