Kuriger Barbara; Xu-Nan Lawrence; McKee NicolePart 2 Amendments to other ActsCHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members the committee has resumed. Before the dinner break we were in the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill. We had just completed Part 1 and now members we come to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 10 to 14 Amendments to other Acts". The question is that Part 2 stand part.Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. I would like to first ask the Minister for clarifications around clause 14 and particularly the subsequent new section 18AA addition. Now previously the Minister has mentioned if I remember correctly that there's no violation in terms of the search and seizure when it comes to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. However if I'm going to the Attorney-General's report and I want to draw attention to paragraph 30 of the Attorney-General's report where it says that "We consider the unfettered ability for police to search any other person present in a vehicle with the person suspected of being subject to an FPO amounts to an unreasonable search and therefore a breach of [Section] 21 of the Bill of Rights"—so I kind of want to get some clarifications from the Minister regarding what she mentioned before that it's not a violation of Section 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.I think in this particular case I also want to draw attention to a few subsequent paragraphs in the Attorney-General's report which I've noticed isn't part of the commentary of this particular bill. I think one of the things that really drew my attention is new section 18AA(1)(c)(i) and (ii) which is the big concern there partly for the first part the first question. The concern there is we've seen this previously with an amendment that was added to 8A of the Gangs Legislation Amendment Bill where anyone at any stage could be going into a property if there is a firearms prohibition order (FPO)—I think in that case if there has been a gang insignia order etc. My second question: I want to get some reassurance from the Minister that this new section 18AA(1)(c) isn't going to be used as a way for police to unreasonably search gang members' houses or property particularly new section 18AA(1)(c)(ii) if a person has an FPO. So the third part is in new section 18AA(1) when we said "A constable who has reasonable grounds to believe that a person is subject to an FPO". Now this is very similar to the recommendation that was made in the Attorney-General's report paragraph 32 where it says "As above we understand this element of the search power may be qualified by Cabinet before the Bill is introduced by introducing a requirement that the constable have 'reasonable grounds to believe the person is concealing a firearm.' " Now those two "reasonable grounds" are very different. One is around the reasonable grounds to believe that the person is subject to an FPO and one is reasonable grounds to believe that the person is concealing a firearm. And I think this is with regards to particularly new section 18AA(1)(b) and (d). Oh here we go—nope I take that bit back. I think it's now in new section 18AA(1)(d); I did see the second part of reasonable grounds. Sorry Madam Chair and sorry Minister I did answer my questions for part of that but I would still like the Minister to answer the question around 8A: what is the comparable to 8A of the Gangs Legislation Amendment Bill around search any premises; whether that's going to be used as a tool to conduct unreasonable searches of premises for those who have an FPO. Thank you.Hon NICOLE McKEE (Associate Minister of Justice): Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you to the member for the Greens Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan for your questions. I'll try to answer as clearly and with as much information as I can on there.There were concerns through the select committee stage about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA) specifically around the searching priorities. This is where the Justice Committee actually made the recommendation to make a higher threshold around when a search can be conducted. They amended—and I have agreed with this amendment—where instead of police suspecting a person they need to have that belief that a person has a firearms prohibition order (FPO) upon them in order to initiate that search to monitor the compliance. The raising of that threshold from "suspect" to "believe" I think adequately meets—and the Attorney-General has also confirmed that it adequately meets—the section 21 BORA condition there.But of course it comes down to reasonableness of the searches. If police undertake these searches and do quite a lot of them and there's no reasonableness in them then that in itself holds the police to having a look at whether or not they are committing any offences themselves against section 21 of BORA. So I think the select committee have done a really good job in being able to raise the threshold from "suspect" to "believe" and they've actually made some key changes in regard to the search.And of course as you questioned—and I guess an example that I can give you—originally as the bill was drafted it meant that police could actually search anybody that was associated or around the person with the FPO. But the changes that have been made mean that they cannot as an example search passengers in a car without having reasonable cause to believe that they are hiding a firearm. That does not mean that they can search people in a vehicle because they suspect that they might have drugs on them or they suspect they might have a knife on them—this is about monitoring the compliance of a firearms prohibition order so it's about ensuring that the person with the firearms prohibition order is the one that is being monitored as to compliance.But if they're say in a vehicle and the police believe that there is a firearm in the vehicle that's been moved away from the person with the FPO and they have reasonable belief that it's actually moved to someone else in that vehicle then they have the right to be able to search them. Because ultimately we want the same outcome I believe which is to get the illegal possession of firearms out of the hands of anybody that should not have possession of them in the first place. To enable police to do that we've got to give them the power to be able to monitor that compliance. I think that that's really essential in that it's reasonable.But we also made a change to make sure that not everybody anywhere can be searched. I think the select committee realised that well hey wait if somebody's in a hotel—as an example—does that mean that the police have the ability to go through every room within that hotel? And of course the answer is no because the select committee made changes to ensure that that wouldn't happen as well because we don't want innocent people being caught up in the regime and also being searched. We want to make sure that the target is the person with the FPO. This is about the monitoring of compliance of that FPO not about going around searching for any other item that they may have whether it be drugs or whether it be other weapons. This is about the monitoring of the compliance of the firearms prohibition orders and we want to make sure that innocent people are not inadvertently caught up because that to the member would then create issues with BORA in section 21."