Williams PotoHon POTO WILLIAMS (Minister of Police): Thank you Madam Chair and I thank the members for their questions. The member from the ACT Party I'm just getting that information because it's quite specific so I will be back to you with that. Firstly can I thank the chair of the committee and can I thank the committee for all the work that they do. It's not an easy area of work but I know that the committee works tirelessly and diligently around that.Can I first come to the member from Te Paati Māori. I think we've had some conversations about this in the past. The issue of the impacts on our most vulnerable communities in terms of the interaction that they have with the police—I have never and I will never term that in the way that the member has characterised it. The reason for that is that the police are going through a significant process of culture change at the moment evidenced by being very clear that they want to be the face of Aotearoa New Zealand. When you come to the graduation—I hope you will take that offer up from us to come to a police graduation—you will see that police are increasingly reflecting back to us who we are as a nation.At one of the graduations I went to—in fact the very first graduation—more than 50 percent of graduates were woman. There were something like in the region of 13 different languages spoken and what that speaks to is actually being reflective of our nation. If we are in situations where we are faced with some of the most difficult times do we not want to be supported or engaging with people who are like us and who understand us? So there is definitely a lot of work that the police can do to shift who it is that they stop how they make the decisions around charging for example and that is a piece of work that they're going through at the moment. I support wholeheartedly that work because there is no doubt that our Māori and Pacific are much more likely to be arrested and charged and there is something that we have to do about that disproportionate rate.There is also something in the fact that Māori and Pacific tend to be more victimised as well. So while I will not characterise it as racism what I will say is there are processes within the police that disadvantage Māori and Pacific. There are probably people with some attitude within the police that need some changing and I know that the police are working on that.To come to the matter of the $23.5 million I've had the breakdown of that. It's a new allocation of funding. We are in the process of building the ring-fenced entity within the police. We're building the team up as we speak moving from casual to full-time permanent staff. Resources also allow for the development of a business case to establish a firearms registry which will come into force in June of 2023. I do want to say that if there is one thing that we can do in terms of safety of our communities it's having the arms register in place knowing who is licensed being very clear about the weapons that they have. Actually having an understanding of how many weapons are in our community I think is one of the most important—perhaps the single most important—safety aspects that we can get to and also making sure that those who sell firearms are very clear about the controls that need to go in place around that: that we secure them properly that we are very clear about you know currently why someone would need to have several weapons.I will come back to Mr Brown's question that he keeps—Simeon Brown: It's a very good question.Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Well it's an important question to police. Madam Chair I'm going to seek another call if that is OK with you.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): In six seconds you can.Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Thank you. I shall do that. There's no doubt that gangs—[Bell rung] Madam Chair?CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Hon Poto Williams.Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Thank you—have a huge impact on our communities and that's why I completely support the work that the police are doing particularly around Operation Tauwhiro. If there's one thing that Jarrod Gilbert talked about it was the ability to really get hard and fast with gangs and disrupt the violence and the impact of gangs. Operation Tauwhiro has been successful and the member—the chair of the committee actually—talked about what we had reported at the Estimates at select committee and I just want to update the committee of the whole House that since the start of Operation Tauwhiro we've seized 855 firearms $4.87 million cash seized 30 kilograms of meth and arrested 744 people. That's on top of the work that's happening in organised crime work.Simeon Brown: No good stuff—good start—but how's the FPO legislation going?Hon POTO WILLIAMS: The firearm prohibition orders will be introduced by the end of the year and that is part of the suite of measures to disrupt the gangs. One of the most important things around disrupting gangs though is around the proof of assets. The Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act amendment was introduced by the Minister of Justice and what that speaks to is ensuring that they have to prove where those assets have come from. As the chair described it that is actually how we will hit the gangs where it hurts the most and that's in the pocket. We are talking about an economy that we can disrupt and we are also talking about taking the ability to recruit our young people into the gangs by use of enticement which actually has proven to be very successful. None of us want to have our people in the gangs so anything we can do to disrupt that is really really important.But along that journey too we have to look at opportunities to help people to exit from the gangs. This is not something that the police do alone. They do a great job in terms of having alternative resolution pathways such as Te Pae Oranga which we have increased the support for by the tune of $70 million. Now that's a programme that's endorsed. In fact the patron of that is Kingi Tūheitia.Simeon Brown: Forty percent failed to turn up.Hon POTO WILLIAMS: He is so—Ginny Andersen: Cheap seats.Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Yeah. He's—Simeon Brown: It's true. It's in the paperwork.Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Excuse me actually you shouldn't be speaking across the Chamber to each other. That is definitely for—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Would the Minister care to continue with her speech?Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Yes thank you I will. I would actually like to continue with my speech without disruption from that member who just keeps barracking. I'm just happy to stand here and respond in that way if that's how you want to use your time but you could also use your time—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): If the Minister could leave the Chair out of the debate.Hon POTO WILLIAMS: Thank you.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members the committee is suspended for the dinner break—normally a very popular announcement—and will resume at 7 o'clock.Sitting suspended from 6.02 p.m. to 7 p.m.