Mitchell Mark; Hipkins ChrisHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Mr Chair. Just a question to the Minister in relation to Part 7A section 39A(2): The court may make an FPO against the offender if the court is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the imposition of the FPO is necessary reasonable and appropriate to assist in managing the risk that the offender poses to public safety." And I just bring the Minister back to his last comment that this firearms prohibition order (FPO) is meant to be a tool that is used by the police and helps them deal with gun-related crime.But one of the greatest frustrations certainly—and it's not a new one—often for the police is an opposition to bail in front of the courts. The judge by no means is in a position nor is he compelled to support police opposition to bail and unfortunately we've seen some tragedies unfold in this country with homicides where there's been an opposition to bail by the police that has not been upheld by the court.I'm concerned that the police now are going to have to make an application to the judge to try get an FPO. It's another hurdle for the police to jump over to try get an FPO in place for what is a violent offender because as the Minister laid out these offences are serious. And I'm wondering what advice the Minister has received in relation to section 39A(2) from the police and how they think that that will work—whether there were any concerns raised whether any of these other issues were discussed around the fact that the police effectively can't have an FPO applied to someone that they see as a danger to the public or with gang affiliation or a gang member or even just a lone wolf. And so I'd like the Minister to sort of discuss with the committee and share any information with the committee in relation to that advice that he got.And also the other point is whether or not there's any sort of measure of success: what targets what goals has the Minister set with advice from the police in terms of being able to measure the success of this FPO when it is actually operationalised.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Police): A couple of things in that. First of all these days there are women on the judiciary as well—they're not all just men.The other thing in terms of the issue that the member has raised in terms of how we would measure the success of firearms prohibition orders that of course is a challenging one because preventing crime means that there isn't something to measure in the first place and ultimately that's what this is designed to achieve. If you stop someone who has been a previous offender using a firearm to offend again or to do a different type of offending that would be quite difficult to be able to measure that but it's a successful outcome none the less.In terms of whether or not the courts are the right people to make the decision about whether or not someone should be subject to a firearms prohibition order the Government's view is that they should be. If you took the member's implied argument in that question to its logical conclusion the judges would have no discretion and there would be mandatory sentences in legislation. But we don't do that as a Parliament by and large because we acknowledge that you know the judges have a difficult job to weigh up all of the circumstances of a case and to make sure that the sentence is proportionate."