McKee NicoleHon NICOLE McKEE (Minister for Courts): Thank you Mr Speaker. When we boil it all down one of the central purposes of Government is to keep their citizens safe from threats allowing them to go about living free and productive lives. During their previous six-year tenure Labour shirked this responsibility and failed Kiwis. Everyday citizens were exposed to harm daily and their individual freedoms were being constantly attacked by others. During that time we saw a ram-raid epidemic explode with the number of ram raids committed increasing by 465 percent in just two years as of March 2023. We saw liquor stores and corner dairies being raided by machete-wielding thugs with innocent New Zealanders bearing the cost of this violence. We saw gangs taking over our streets. In the case of Ōpōtiki last year we saw the takeover of a whole town. We saw convictions for firearms-related offences increase by 24 percent between 2018 and 2023. It is safe to say that Labour failed to protect New Zealanders from crime and failed to uphold New Zealand's reputation as being a safe country in which people can freely pursue their dreams without the fear of violence.This Government has said Enough is enough." The coalition Government has made a firm commitment to restore law and order and we have wasted no time whatsoever in taking action to fulfil this commitment. First we will strengthen the firearms prohibition orders (FPOs) to get guns out of the hands of gangsters and violent criminals. By expanding the qualifying criteria for the issuing of an FPO this Government will make sure that gang leaders who often avoid serious offending by getting others to do their dirty work for them would be more likely to be eligible to receive an FPO. We also plan to give police new specialist search powers so that anyone subject to an FPO can be searched at any time. This means police will be able to search offenders with an FPO their vehicles and their premises for firearms at any time to ensure they are complying with their FPO.Next my colleague the Minister of Justice has taken steps to ban gang patches in public. Gang members use their strength in numbers to intimidate others and disrupt the peace. This Government has taken action to address this issue instead of dropping it in the too-hard basket like Labour did. The Gangs Legislation Amendment Bill will achieve this by doing four key things: creating a new criminal offence prohibiting the display of gang insignia in public places creating new dispersal powers creating a non-consorting order and finally giving greater weight to gang membership as an aggravating factor at sentencing.Further this Government has taken much-needed steps to end the cottage industry of section 27 reports which were costing taxpayers millions of dollars and allowing some violent offenders significant sentencing discounts. Taxpayer funding of section 27 cultural reports was an absolute insult to the victims of crime—even more so when we consider the fact that notorious gangsters such as the Mongrel Mob member Harry Tam were not only writing reports but were being paid taxpayer money to do so.But most recently I have introduced the three-strikes regime to hold serious violent and sexual offenders to account. The new three-strikes regime builds and improves upon previous legislation applying only to sentences of more than 24 months. Our intention is to focus on serious repeat offenders without capturing the lower-level offending.We have listened to New Zealanders who told us that they were concerned about law and order. They told us they want appropriate consequences for serious repeat violent and sexual offending and this new regime will provide it. Three strikes is this Government putting victims first and we make no apology for that at all. We also have a simple message to anyone who wants to avoid a lengthy prison sentence: stop committing violent and sexual crimes."