Webb Duncan; McKee NicoleHon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Madam Chair. It's a good point with that discussion from the Minister the Hon Nicole McKee about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. She quite rightly observes that the committee had concerns at the threshold that would trigger a search and certainly reasonable grounds to suspect" that a person is subject to a firearms prohibition order was considered woefully inadequate. And the committee—by majority I think it was—replaced that with "reasonable grounds to believe".Now my tabled amendment marked "E" suggests that the only people who should be subject to a warrantless search are people who are in fact subject to a firearms prohibition order. I think it's really important to recognise and just state bluntly what this is. This is a right of the police to either stop a person at any time or to enter their premises at any time without warning. This is entering someone's home at 3 o'clock in the morning. If the police are wrong about them having a firearms protection order it should be recognised that the search is illegal. If the police make an error and think that I or someone in my house is subject to a firearms protection order even if they have reasonable grounds to believe that's not good enough; the police need to be sure. Now errors will be made but let's not think that that makes it a legal search; it's an illegal search without authority in law because there is no firearms protection order in place and it's only the firearms protection order that warrants that entry into property.So my tabled amendment suggests that the wording of section 18AA(1) as amended should read "that a person who is subject to a firearms protection order made before on or after the commencement of this section may without a warrant be subject to any or all of the following for the purposes of checking"—and so on. The police have all of the tools at their disposal and I asked the Minister earlier in this debate how we could be sure that the police wouldn't make an error and the tenor of her response was "Don't worry. The police get it right. They know what they're doing." I believe her almost all of the time but if they get it wrong let's not give it some colour of right; let's not make it legal. Let's recognise it for what it is: an illegal search and all of the things that follow from a search being illegal and a home being invaded without cause should flow from that. We shouldn't be authorising illegal warrantless search with no foundation in law.Hon NICOLE McKEE (Associate Minister of Justice): Thank you and thank you to the member for his question. The member referred to a tabled amendment that he's made marked "E". I've not actually seen that paper myself just yet but I do note—oh sorry it's right here—that the member kept referring to "firearms protection orders" and they're actually firearms prohibition orders (FPOs). We're not protecting them; we're trying to prohibit them.Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Very substantial criticism.Hon NICOLE McKEE: Well it's not a criticism. I actually wanted to correct—because I was going to ask whether or not you had the right wording on your tabled amendment and I see that you do. So that answers that one.When we talk about entering a home at 3 a.m. to check on the compliance I think we come back to the reasonableness again. Because many of these people would have committed some serious crime quite possibly a number of them would have had to have left prison before the (FPO) is placed upon them. They're likely to be bailed they're likely to come under some of those conditions anyway and quite frankly at the moment people on that regime are still getting door-knocked at 3 a.m. in regard to ensuring that they are where they're meant to be.So ensuring the compliance of having a firearms prohibition order I think is just. If it's unreasonable then there will be a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA) issue with that. We need to make sure that the police can comply with or can check on the compliance of individuals with an FPO because the regime that was enacted back in 2022 didn't allow that. We put the firearms prohibition orders on people but we weren't able to check whether or not there was compliance.The reality is and I've mentioned this before licensed firearm owners are subject to a search at any time—and they hold licences. They have been deemed to be fit and proper by New Zealand Police and yet they can enter their homes when they want and search them when they want. I don't understand why there's an issue with searching somebody who's deemed to be or have an issue around with or using firearms illegally also not being able to be searched in case they do have continued possession of illegal firearms. I think on the balance of whether or not we are utilising NZ BORA 21—section 21—in the right way is actually going to come down to New Zealand Police and the way that they implement it; and the reasonableness the belief about it as well. I think the Justice Committee have done a good job in trying to find that balance.At the end of the day we want our front-line police to be kept safe. We don't want them having firearms presented at them. We do not want our police being shot at—and it's not the licensed firearm owners that are doing it; it's the criminals who the judges have decided to require have a firearms prohibition order placed upon them because they have deemed that they are a danger to society with firearms. It's so important that we give police that ability to be able to go and search those people but to do so reasonably because they'll be held to account if they're not."