Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I live in Auckland as about a third of New Zealanders do and I think anybody who lives in that city at the moment will be very conscious of the almost constant sound of sirens somewhere in the distance and the ever-present noise of the chopper flying around trying to find somebody and a sense that something is going down in the city and there is a big crime wave under way.I'm just looking at a map of the shootings in Auckland during 2022 and there were a few yellow dots for earlier in the year and a very large number of dots from May to July. I've counted 36 I think so far but there may be more—they are just dots on the screen most of them around West Auckland and South Auckland but also some in central Auckland and on the North Shore. Each of these shootings—more than thirty; near probably about 40 this year but a particular spate of them in the last couple of months—are frightening Aucklanders frightening many people in their homes. Obviously the shootings are the top end of the scare in terms of the sense of lawlessness that is creeping across our city. There's the smash-and-grabs the ram raids. I was visiting a shop just last week just around the corner in the Epsom electorate where the shop had been attacked and the person who attacked it wielded an axe. You can just imagine the fear involved in being in a shop going to work minding your own business—we hear from this Government you know it's a lot about safety at work and all that sort of thing; you go to work and somebody attacks your workplace with an axe. How terrifying that would be. That's just happening day in day out—attacks everywhere you go and we're talking about shooting. So finally after this very significant increase in violent crime and gang membership in this country in the last four years it's time the Government responded. Now they've voted down a couple of member's bills trying to deal with this issue of firearm prohibition orders (FPOs) that have been put forward. They voted them down over the last few years; they've said No we're not going to do that." And finally now we are grateful that the Government has finally appreciated that there is an issue here and we need to do something more effective to deal with what is a major concern of many New Zealanders which is—you know the first duty of any Government is to try to keep New Zealanders safe and to enforce the law and make sure people aren't running around shooting each other. It's pretty basic.So the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill we are supporting but we just wish it would go further so that it was more effective. So the bill as introduced brings in this new firearms prohibition order that would be placed on somebody who had carried out specified offences under the Arms Act or a serious violent offence or an offence which relates to a particular organised criminal group or another one related to the Terrorism Suppression Act. So if you've committed a serious crime in those areas you could have a firearms prohibition order placed on you and when that's placed on you the person who has the FPO is not allowed to be around certain places—not allowed to go to places where firearms are be around firearms not to reside in the premises where firearms are located not to join a shooting club not to attend an activity that uses firearms or visit places where firearms are manufactured. And this FPO would be introduced after a court has imposed it and will last for 10 years. So far so good.The issue is of course that is based on an Australian piece of legislation and the big difference there was that they came with more effective search powers for the police. Nobody in an open society likes the idea of unreasonable search and seizure. We're not sort of running around excited at the prospect of impinging on New Zealanders' rights in this way. No one is excited about that prospect at all. But what we are deeply concerned about is a sense of lawlessness in our city and that has changed dramatically in the last few years under this Government's soft-on-crime approach and also its inadequate response to the increase in gang membership and 501s coming into this country which has made a bad situation more difficult. So we need to have an effective response and what we haven't seen is an effective response so far. So the question and debate is about whether or not—and the Police Association came out saying that to give it teeth you need to expand the search powers because at the moment you can only search if you have reason to expect that something is going wrong. But remember we're talking about people with firearms prohibition orders against them. I would have thought there was reasonable grounds if you've been given one of those prohibition orders that you might be up to no good with firearms. And our suggestion is—at the moment under the bill if you're driving along in a car and you're pulled over by the cops for a traffic violation or something like that you've got an FPO the police cannot search the car unless they you know presumably see one on the back seat and that gives them reasonable grounds. So we believe that it would be more effective to give them those extra abilities so as to more effectively harass those people who are causing mayhem in our country. Members on the other side seem to sort of operate as if nothing's changed and there isn't an issue. I've just been debating with the Minister of Justice who in relation to the very significant increase in ram raids and smash-and-grab incidents suggests that "Well perhaps it's just because people are reporting them more." and tries to argue that youth crime has decreased. Well I'm sure some elements of youth crime may have decreased but ram raids for example have clearly increased on a colossal scale. They're mainly done by young people and they're mainly done because people in that age group know that there are no consequences for their actions. So it must be I would have thought so infuriating for the people who are on the front line on the receiving end of this violence and harassment by criminals to be told "Oh well actually what you are experiencing is part of a reduction in crime and there's nothing to worry about and maybe it is just because you are reporting things more often." They can see and hear what's going on just like Aucklanders can see and hear what's going on in their city. They see it; they hear it. They know that there has been well over 35 shootings in our city this year. They know that we've lost control of firearms crime and they want to see a more effective response from the Government. So we support this bill; we just wish it was doing more to be more effective. It will go so far to make a difference: it will provide the police with an extra tool to deal with some of our worst firearm offenders. But it could have been more and it is a missed opportunity mainly because I think a combination of complacency and a tendency on that side of the House to have and send mixed messages around gang members and violent criminals in this country. Where in the past Governments have been unequivocal in their condemnation of violent crime and the impact that gangs have had on our community this Government of course is much more mixed in its views and it you know in fact hires gang members to do drug rehab and pays them millions of dollars. That confuses everybody sends a very confusing signal. Allied with that is the message that this culture of excuses that exists in this Government where there's an excuse for every action under the sun and maybe it's not your fault and that message percolates through and I think has added to this sense of imperviousness to the law. And so—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): The member's time has expired."