van de Molen TimTIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you Mr Speaker. Look it's a privilege to take the final call for the National Party on this debate and I think it's been interesting to follow the last few speeches that we've heard and some of the contributions. I just want to touch on a few of those highlights for me. I do agree with previous speaker here Arena Williams that there has been a little bit of hurly-burly. That's not a term I've heard particularly often—but perhaps hullabaloo or whatever reference you might make. There have been some differences in opinions and I think the contribution from the Green Party just highlighted to me a large part of why we're seeing such a level of lawlessness. Criminals are emboldened because that sort of response that just puts no regard whatsoever on victims and indeed tries to shelter offenders and suggests there should be no consequences. This response is just frankly disgusting and totally out of place. Now I can understand the Government's finally coming to the table and putting this forward with their view. Unfortunately we don't share that and I want to read just one excerpt from our differing view—our minority view—that we put into the select committee report and that is that The National Party is disappointed that the Police Commissioner the Police Minister and the current Government have not sought or recommended that stronger warrantless search powers be included in the Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill noting that the Police Association shares our view that these are critical to disrupting the dangerous people who will be subject [to these] firearms protection orders (FPOs)." And for me that was really disappointing to hear from Mr O'Connor as a former president of the Police Association perhaps being a little bit out of touch now with the front-line personnel who are desperately calling out for stronger measures to enable them to get on and do the job of protecting New Zealanders. And quite frankly this Government is letting them down time after time. It's no wonder we're seeing a 47 percent increase in firearms-related offences. It's no wonder we're seeing ram raids and thefts increasing all around the country and sadly the mighty Waikato is not immune from that either. When you have a Government that is sending all the wrong signals emboldening gang members and criminal activity in general you end up with these sorts of consequences. This legislation was a prime opportunity for the Government to say "No. No we've had enough. This is it. We're putting this in place. We're giving the power back to Police to help improve the safety of New Zealanders in their daily lives." Sadly they've missed that opportunity. We've made it clear that we will be introducing a Supplementary Order Paper in the committee of the whole House stage to look at introducing those warrantless search powers I'd encourage the Government to reconsider their stance in the intervening time and I would hope that Mr O'Connor in particular might go some way to helping to sway that discussion and actually getting something meaningful in this legislation because we heard from the Police Association quite clearly that without the warrantless search powers in this FPO bill then effectively you're not achieving much at all. I know that's the modus operandi for this Government in terms of effectively making an announcement but delivering nothing but actually this sort of stuff matters. We have sadly seen a Government that has dropped the ball on police on law and order for five years. Frankly I was disappointed that this has been the case for what is such an important issue for New Zealanders around the country who are feeling threatened or unsafe or being harmed in their homes their businesses their areas of recreation and their communities. The Government have politicised this issue and that quite frankly is disgusting. We all come into this place to try and make New Zealand better and of course we have different views around how we might achieve that and that's all well and good. But fundamentally for big issues like safety and security of New Zealanders—one of the key reasons we are here—you would expect that this House would come together and make the appropriate legislation to ensure that safety can be protected. And yet even now we hear the Government trying to say "No we don't need that sort of thing." The Green Party's laughing away because well as we know from their contribution they actually don't care about victims at all. So it's been really disappointing to see some of the debate as we've gone through with this—Hon Andrew Little: They say "We don't want to politicise it; let's not politicise it." What an outrageous speech. What a hopeless hopeless speech.TIM VAN DE MOLEN: There's the Minister over the back there who's now barking away as he does every time he gets hauled up and found to be wrong yet again as he is in health time and time again.We're seeing from this Government that they get their backs up when they realise they've got it wrong. Instead of just acknowledging that and saying "Hey we'll fix it." for example in health all we do is see people lashing out with silly comments like "forked tongue" and so on. So in terms of this particular piece of legislation really what we need to see is a bill that gives the police more teeth—right? We need the ability to have some sort of pre-emptive option in there as well because ultimately if we're sitting back waiting for someone to offend and to cause harm before we actually acknowledge the risks that they have presented—and in most cases expected to present because of their affiliations or their backgrounds or whatever it may be—we're letting our victims down. Unfortunately as we heard actually from the ACT member we already have the ability for police to come and conduct warrantless search powers of law-abiding New Zealand firearms licence holders. Yet here we have a Government saying "No no you can't do that to criminals but it's fine to do it to law-abiding people." That just sends the wrong signals. It's really disappointing. For me I trust police. I trust that they will use the legislation appropriately. I trust that they will protect New Zealanders if they are given the support from a Government to actually get on and do that. In the Waikato I have had many phone calls from police officers who are frustrated that they are not being given the tools to do their job—to protect our communities and to keep us all safe. This was an opportunity to do that. The Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Bill could have helped to keep our community safer but the key aspect of those warrantless search powers was missed. Now as I said we'll be bringing that up as a Supplementary Order Paper and we want to see that supported. We're not politicising this issue because we're prepared to support the bill today—all right? Hon Andrew Little: No of course not!TIM VAN DE MOLEN: And that's the appropriate thing to do. We come to this House to make laws for the safety of New Zealanders—Ingrid Leary: Sanctimonious.TIM VAN DE MOLEN: —and some Labour members might not like that. They might have wanted us to oppose this just for the politicisation of it and Mr Little is always up for something like that. But actually the rest of us who are prepared to be a bit more reasonable understand that any step that helps to give a little bit more power or sends even the right signals to police and to the criminal fraternity is the right way to go. And so on that basis we are supporting this piece of legislation. Ingrid Leary: Oh finally; doesn't sound like it.TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Yeah the member says it doesn't sound like it. Well I would encourage her to go and talk to some of the people in my community who are suffering from these sorts of criminal offending instances—Hon Andrew Little: Because they want a better MP.TIM VAN DE MOLEN: —people who understand that this Government has let them down time and time again. Now Mr Little wouldn't understand that because as a list MP he's clearly not engaging with the community. He's certainly not doing it in health and I suspect that no other steps would be taken with the rest of his constituency or people in his area. But we do connect with our communities and around the Waikato I hear time and again that people are not feeling safe now they want to see more support for the police and they don't feel like they have it at the moment. I just met on Monday with our district commander as I regularly do and also with our area commanders to talk through some of the issues that they're seeing where they want support what's happening in our region. It's part of being connected with the community Mr Little; you might like to try it. What we're hearing though in general is that there are concerns around that level of support. FPOs are a good opportunity. We haven't taken it up. We're really disappointed by that. Now we've sent some pretty clear signals around our views on helping to reduce the impact of gang offending as well because we see a lot of gang-related firearms offences as well and we need to crack down on those gangs to help again send the right signals. I do agree with Mr O'Connor's comment that there is no single solution to some of these challenges. They can be complex and they take time to fix. But making the right signals and putting incremental steps in place is really important. This bill doesn't go nearly far enough to achieve that but we will support it because it at least takes a baby step.Coming to another comment that Mr O'Connor made about the implementation of the firearms registry now that is an area where yeah I understand his logic. Hey if you've got firearms registered and you find them in an offender's hands then you can track that back to where it came from. That's all well and good but it doesn't stop the offending that led to the police discovering that firearm. Generally some offence has occurred and that's led to police being there because we know they don't have warrantless search powers to go and proactively find it from anyone with one of these FPOs in place. And of course the idea of a registry—any time we're creating law you're only going to impact law-abiding New Zealanders and this simply is not targeting the right people."