Webb DuncanHon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Mālō e lelei Madam Speaker. And I want to see that note! I think it said Cameron stop dribbling. Sit down."Rima Nakhle: No it had a love heart.Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: No it might not have said that. It said "If you don't know what you're talking about sit down."—"If you haven't read the bill sit down." Or perhaps it just said "For God's sake your taxi is here."But look the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill is actually a serious bill. I'm going to put that little bit of levity aside and talk about this and I really want to focus on warrantless searches because invasion of privacy is important. It is very easy to say "We hate gang members and their privacy doesn't meet the same standards or have the same protections as ours." And don't get me wrong; on this side of the House the vile conduct of gangs is abhorred as much here as it is over on the other side of the House. But we do need to be very very cautious when we're talking about warrantless searches because we've got to remember the invasion of privacy the invasion of personal space of home of vehicle of personal property should be by law and not by discretion.That's why we have warrants because warrants are a judge saying the threshold is met—that there is a reasonable grounds for a police officer or other authorised person to enter into someone's home to disrupt their personal space and to search for some evidence of wrongdoing. Warrantless searches do away with that check entirely right? They do away with it entirely. So all we have now is a member of the executive essentially—a Government agent—a police officer in this case a constable who is entitled to exercise their own judgment. So it's rule by discretion and not rule by law. And that is a very very dangerous thing. It's not to say it's never appropriate. We know that when police are in hot pursuit or they think there's a crime occurring on the premises they already have the power to have a warrantless search and that's appropriate. That's the balance that's been struck. But here there's no issue of an immediate and violent crime going on. It's that they've breached an order.But wait it gets a bit worse and I think this is really important. The Act does not say "If there is a firearms protection order in place there's a power to have a warrantless search." It says "If a constable has reasonable grounds to believe". So you don't even have to be sure. Now if you're going to bust into—and let's be absolutely upfront about this; these are not going to be doors knocked on at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a sunny Saturday. These will be catching people by surprise in the dark of night. And there's a reason for that right? You do want to surprise people. You don't want to forewarn them. I'm not even sure—because the Justice Committee changed the word "reasonable grounds to suspect" to "reasonable grounds to believe". And certainly in the committee stage I want to interrogate exactly what that means because it's still a very vague test. It's basically an honest reckon.And I'm not sure we should have invasion into private spaces on the basis that there's an honest reckon that an order is in place. Either it is or it isn't. And if my house or your house or the house of a member of the other side of the House gets busted into in the dark of night because they thought but we're wrong that there was a firearms protection order then that's an illegal search. It should be recognised as an illegal search. It shouldn't be just "Sorry. I was empowered to do it because I honestly thought on some grounds but not very good grounds that you had a firearms protection order in place."At let's just expand that because the other one that really bites is a vehicle. If there is a vehicle and the driver or any other person in it has a firearms protection order that vehicle can be stopped and searched. Now that has the same problems but the next stage is concerning because anyone in it can be searched as well. Now I know the picture in our mind and the picture in our mind is of a car probably a beaten-up one with a group of thugs driving round. But that's not what the test is. It's anyone in it. So a spouse or a child can be searched. I think it was Tākuta Ferris who referenced the good work that the police have done talking about biases within their own system and the fact that Māori and other people of colour are much more likely to be picked up and when discretionary decisions exist they tend against Māori. That is a concern and that is a concern when you have powers like this.And of course the chair of the Justice Committee James Meager mentioned that the right to search premises is loosely defined: an entire premises that a person occupies or controls. Now those words do have some meaning but we did run into the problem of when a person is at the pub or occupies a hotel exactly what the bounds of that are. And I'm not comfortable that the power is constrained by the statement in section 18AA(1) that the warrant is "for the purpose of checking whether the person is complying with the conditions of the FPO". And yes this is a so-called tool in the toolbox. It's a pretty significant tool. It's a very extensive power and I'm concerned that police given this power will use it as a pretext.We know that police do like to keep close tabs on people who they think are criminal offenders or likely to be criminal offenders and they're entitled to do that in given ways. The vagueness of this warrantless search power is essentially if misused a licence for harassment and that's a real concern. So I do think we need to think extremely carefully about that. And you've got to remember this is essentially a civil power. If you go back to the Arms Act and see the basis upon which it can be imposed although it's almost penal in nature the test for whether it should be imposed or not is on the balance of probabilities. So it's a very significant curtailment or infringement of liberty that a court imposes simply on the balance of probabilities. And I think we need to hold that in mind as well.I do think—and Mr Brewer I think it was sort of guffawed that the Labour Party and others agreed to amendments but opposed the bill. I can't use the language I'd like but our view is that we worked hard to make this bill as least bad as we could. But it's still pretty bad. We still oppose it. And we oppose it for two reasons as Ginny Andersen very eloquently said. The first is that extremely wide warrantless search power. And the second is this: firearms protection orders were put in place by the last Government. They haven't been in place very long. There's not very many of them out there. They seem to be doing a pretty good job. Why do we need to crank up and do this kind of legislation which is very heavy-handed—if it's in the toolbox it's a sledgehammer—when we haven't even seen whether the other ones are working?And I concur with some of my other colleagues on this side of the House who have said it's a bit of window dressing. On the one hand you're saying we're going to crack down on guns and where they are and on the other there's a narrative from one party in this House the ACT Party that they're going to liberalise gun laws. On the one hand we want to know where the guns are; on the other hand we don't want a gun register. On the one hand we want to be able to enter someone's house and search for these guns; on the other hand we're going to have military-style automatics which people can do sports shooting with. Now that is a double narrative. That is cognitive dissonance and it doesn't work.So I appreciate some of my colleagues on the other side of the House the National Party are trying to be moderate in these things but in respect of this particular part of their legislative programme the little magenta tail is wagging that blue dog. Kia ora Madam Speaker."