Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Speaker and thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill. I think there's a very important question which the Government actually needs to give an answer to. My colleague Andrew Bayly was asking it before and members opposite have failed to actually answer it and it is this question: if this piece of legislation is so important as the Government is stating it is—and this side of the House agrees it is—why have you not supported bringing this legislation to this House sooner?The Government was recommended by the police in 2017 in the briefing to the incoming Minister that the police needed firearms prohibition orders (FPOs) to help arrest the growth of gangs and the growth of firearms violence in our communities. This Government has sat on its hands under Stuart Nash and then under Poto Williams. This Government has sat on its hands and ignored the real issues facing our community when it comes to guns and gangs. The fact is that they have peddled their soft-on-crime philosophy through this country and New Zealanders are the ones paying the consequences of those decisions. This bill is something which unfortunately has come far too late for many New Zealanders. We've seen the stories in the news. Day after day there are shootings—whether it's at shopping centres at bars in the late night or wherever it is—and even innocent families are having their houses shot because the gang forgot they got the wrong address. That's the kind of violence too many New Zealanders are actually being perpetrated by far too often.If the Minister spent a bit more time actually on the front line talking to front-line police officers and asking them how they feel they are going with their job they would be telling this Government that they feel like they're losing the battle when it comes to crime at the moment in New Zealand. They'd tell her that they feel like things are going backwards far too quickly. They might talk about how many extra police they've recruited—well they can talk about it; they've failed on the 1800 police they promised. They said 1800 by 2020; they've got only halfway there. That's a failure. They can talk about all the different things that they've tried to do but the reality is that if you talk to police on the front line they say New Zealand's law and order is going backwards under this Government and they feel like they're losing. That's not how I want our front-line police officers to feel. I want them to feel them to feel confident I want them to feel equipped and I want them to feel like they've got the tools they need to be able to enforce the law rather than sit by and watch while others perpetrate violence.I ask members on the other side to actually answer this question: National has had two pieces of legislation come before Parliament—there was Chris Bishop's and there was my bill which came to Parliament to address this issue. Now my bill went to the Justice Committee and the members on the other side could have worked with the National Party to actually make sure that bill had what it needed to be good law and to make sure that it would be in the best interests of New Zealand. The committee did its best. We made that law as good as we could and the Government voted it down. They could have worked with the National Party to actually make it happen. In fact while it was going through select committee the Government just announced they were going to bring their own legislation through—while it was going through select committee. That is something which just shows that they're acting in bad faith on an issue where they should be working with the Opposition to make sure that the police have the tools they need and that New Zealanders can be kept safe. We heard the previous member say New Zealanders deserve to feel safe in their homes and in their communities." We fundamentally agree with that statement but why did you sit on your hands for four years? Now how long is it going to take for this to actually go into law? They could have worked with us and had that law in place by the end of last year. Now this has to go through a whole other select committee process. Submitters have to put their submissions back in again. They have to scrutinise a new piece of legislation. Officials have to be involved—when that process could have been sorted and actually made sure the law was in place by now to help keep our communities safe.So the National Party will be supporting this bill because we want to make sure New Zealanders are kept safe and we want to make sure our police have the tools that they need but there are a couple of areas in this piece of legislation which from my perspective do raise some serious concerns. The first one is around the fact that there is a lack of search powers in this piece of legislation and it was very clear in the submissions which came through—particularly from the Police Association—where they made it abundantly clear that if you bring in place firearms prohibition orders legislation without giving the police new search powers effectively the powers will be toothless. So I can imagine the Police Association—they may have already written their submission on this bill and they'll be saying that point to the select committee again. The question I've got for the Government is: are they actually going to listen to our front-line police officers? Because otherwise you're going to pass this piece of legislation and it's not actually going to give them the tools to actually go in there and fix the problem which actually needs to be addressed.The other issue which is in the bill which is very different from the bill that I brought to Parliament last year is the fact that this bill now requires someone to go and commit an offence prior to the courts being able to put in place a firearms prohibition order. Now I don't know about other members on the other side of the House but I would've thought the police should be given the ability to put these in place against people who have already committed violent offences so that they have less access to firearms so we can protect the public. But in this bill it's saying "No no no. We want these people—before we're going to put in place the FPO—to actually go out and commit another serious offence and create more victims of crime." So instead of actually trying to be preventative and trying to prevent crime we are actually saying "Well if you commit a serious violent crime we'll give you an FPO. But until you've done it well fair game!" I mean that's the reality. So I just think that's something which actually New Zealanders will be very concerned about it and I think people are going to be submitting on that point because actually this bill should be preventative. I know that members may not like the idea of the police—because the bill I brought allowed the Police Commissioner to be able to put in place with some very strict tests as to whether those FPOs could be put in place. They might not have liked that but it was about looking forward and trying to prevent harm whereas this bill is saying "Actually well if these people go and commit a very serious violent offence and cause more victims of crime the courts may impose an FPO at that point." Well it's too late then because more harm has been done.So the National Party will be supporting this bill and I know that my colleague Mark Mitchell will be working very hard on that committee to make sure that we improve this piece of legislation so that it is the best it can be to keep New Zealanders safe. We just hope that the Government actually also acts in good faith and works with the National Party so that we can have an enduring piece of legislation which actually works for New Zealanders and supports our police for years to come and keeps New Zealanders safe. Thank you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break and the House will resume at 7 p.m.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m."