Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to stand this evening and take a first reading call on this the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill. I want to put on record first of all to the Minister that I don't believe that there's been any real focus or commitment or will on her part or on the part of the Government to address what's been happening in this country in the last four years. It is a shameless stain on the performance the support and the introduction to this House of bills that would actually take serious and positive action against what we've seen in this country and that is a massive growth in gang numbers. The 501s we know that they have been a big contributor to that. We know that there is a more sinister element to what they do. They've got international networks they're well-funded they're violent they're willing to carry firearms and they're also willing to use them.But we've had two members' bills come into this House two firearms prohibition orders bills come into this House both sponsored by members of the Opposition—Chris Bishop when he was police spokesperson and then Simeon Brown when he was police spokesperson. This Government voted both of them down and they voted both of them down on the promise that they'd introduce their own bill. Call me cynical but this bill was introduced on the last sitting day of last year. Their priorities are all wrong. The messages that they are sending to our front-line police staff is that this isn't important enough.I want to acknowledge Greg O'Connor and I do want to acknowledge him as also a colleague in the police service. I was very proud to have had 14 years in our police service what I consider to be the world's most professional the best police service and police officers that serve every day without fear or favour. But I had several conversations with Greg over the last three or four years and I was extremely disappointed to have them dismissed just saying Oh tub-thumping and trying to be tough and no there's no issues and that's the wrong approach." And that type of response—and I was extremely disappointed that from a serving member with the experience that he's got that he could not communicate to his own team to his own caucus to his own Cabinet that we had a growing issue in this country. And now as we see and we heard the—Greg O'Connor: It started in 2013.Hon MARK MITCHELL: It started when Greg? When did it start? I'll tell you when it started. It started in 2017. It started in 2017 when we started to see a rise in violent crime. And not only did we start to see a rise in violent crime—[Interruption]ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! Interjections should be rare and reasonable. Thank you.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Thank you Madam Speaker. Not only do we start to see a rise in violent crime in 2017 but sitting right alongside that we started to see a decrease in action being taken. So you had a rise in violent crime right through the country and at the same time arrests started to drop off and go down. And the reason for that is because the signals that were been sent from this Government to the police is that we don't want you making arrests. We don't want you dealing with this. We don't want you bringing people into the criminal justice system. And what you've done is you've overseen and created an environment for gangs to feel emboldened for gangs to be able to get out there and take over public spaces for gangs to be able to get out and abuse members of the public and ignore laws that other law-abiding members of the public have to stick to and with gangs that are now regularly carrying firearms and are willing to use them. Our police officers every night and every day have to go out now and they have to face and deal with gangs and gang bangers that are carrying firearms and are willing to use them. And it's all happened under the watch of this Government.Support your police give them the tools that they need. This is good. We're going to support it. We'll support it through select committee. We have to make some changes because you haven't got a warrantless search power in there. What do the front-line police officers say? I'll tell you what they say because I was talking to the police officers that worked on the Matthew Hunt case and the David Goldfinch case. Just to remind the House Matthew was shot and killed in broad daylight on the streets of West Auckland by a gang member that had two military-style rifles. And David was shot and was able to get himself and remove himself out of that situation. He showed resilience and bravery to actually extract himself. He's a father of two young kids and thank goodness he's still around. But the reality of it is Mr O'Connor that they needed to have these types of orders. They needed to have this sort of ability two three years ago in 2018 or 2019 not 2022. It's late. Let's get it through as quickly as we can. We see you keep bringing bills into this House and trying to pass them as quickly as you can. Let's get this one. This one here should be passed as quickly as we can. We should be giving them the tools that they need now. But what you've failed to do—and coming back to my original point is that I was speaking to some of the officers that worked on the Matthew Hunt and the David Goldfinch case and they did an outstanding job. We saw a conviction and we saw a very good sentencing but I talked about this and do you know what they said? They said without a warrantless search capability this is meaningless. It's toothless—it's toothless.The Police Association is saying the same thing. I've spoken to Chris Cahill—very clear about it. They know and they understand. They're speaking to the front-line police officers every day. As a past president of the Police Association you should be listening to that Mr O'Connor and I expect when you stand to take your call that you will acknowledge that. If you're serious on the Government side of the House when we go into select committee I'd expect us to work together in a bipartisan way to make sure that we strengthen this bill and that we give our front-line police officers that go out there every night every day and deal with these gangs that are armed up that are well armed better armed than they are willing to use them that we actually give them legislation that has some teeth to it and that they can actually use to start making some inroads into what has now become a massive problem and is going to be extremely difficult to deal with in the future.I don't have any confidence at all in the police Minister currently Poto Williams—zero. I have no confidence at all in the Labour Cabinet. I'd like to have some confidence in the broader caucus and the member sitting across from me because he has got a wealth of experience. But right now I've got zero because they've created an environment where police don't feel supported. They don't feel like this Government's got their back. There are massive issues around leadership. And they want to protect their community; that's why they joined the police.I don't like harking too far back. Like I said I had a policing career and I loved it and I'm very proud of the police service. Recently I've been to a couple of graduations at the Police Dog Training Centre one for Grant Diver a very close friend of mine who I worked with on the armed offenders squad (AOS) for a long time and who was shot in the line of duty. He'll never fully recover. He'll never fully come right. Or Bruce Lamb I attended his son's graduation. He's following his father's footsteps. He was shot in Christchurch.These things were very rare they didn't really happen too much in my time. In my time we were more dealing with sharpened knives and things like that. Occasionally yes there'd be firearms that we'd have to deal with. But it was rare. Our police officers today are working and operating in a very different environment. They're operating in an environment where we've seen a huge proliferation of gangs. In my own electorate where we've been gang-free and where my police area commander worked very hard with his staff to try and keep the gangs out we now have the Hell's Angels who have bought commercial property in Silverdale and set up a pad. We've now got the Comanchero Motorcycle Club that have moved in. They're now actively recruiting within my community and I'm working very closely with my area commander and with our other elected officials the local board and the councillors to try and come up with a local plan to push these guys out and purge our community—get rid of them.But it's time for this House to get serious. My expectation with this Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill is that we genuinely work together on the Justice Committee with the chair—who is a very good chair and I acknowledge her; she's in the House. I served with her husband—and I acknowledge him Geoff Gwyn; we did our AOS qualifying course together—and he has a clear understanding of the challenges that are faced by front-line police officers.But I would ask that when we start to consider this bill that the first thing that we do is we bring a warrantless search power and we give that to our front-line police officers because without it this bill is meaningless. There are other things on the fringes that we'll discuss and we'll try to make it stronger but I'm putting a line in the sand on this which is that that is something that we feel very strongly is required inside this bill to make sure that our front-line police officers can actually use a piece of legislation that is effective and will make them safer and will make the public safer. Thank you Madam Speaker."