Let’s talk about the Police begging the PM to dump a far right gun lobbyist

An Open Letter To Prime Minister Christopher Luxon – Police Association

The New Zealand Police Association, Te Aka Hāpai has serious concerns relating to the current restricted consultation process for proposed firearms legislation reform, particularly the review of the Firearms Registry.

The association represents 98 per cent of all sworn police and 75 per cent of Police employees. We were established nearly 90 years ago and remain the acknowledged voice of policing matters in Aotearoa.

It is our members who are literally in the firing line, combatting the threats posed by criminals all too willing to use firearms. It is police officers and employees who are responsible for administration of the Arms Act and ensuring compliance with this legislation.

However, the association has been deliberately excluded as a voice in the review of crucial aspects of firearms reform legislation. Given our lengthy history in promotion of the safety of our members and the protection of the public, we consider our exclusion raises serious concerns about the integrity of the reviews and the independence of the Associate Minister of Justice, Nicole McKee, designated as responsible for firearms legislation.

The association lobbied for the banning of semi-automatic assault rifles and for the introduction of a firearms registry following the 1990 Aramoana massacre in which Police Sergeant Stuart Guthrie was amongst the victims. Despite Justice Thorp’s 1997 recommendations of a buy-back of MSSAs and the registration of all firearms, nothing was done as politicians succumbed to gun lobby pressure.

In 2016 the association secured a select committee hearing into firearms laws – a process driven by police officers’ testimony to criminals increasingly arming themselves and being willing to pull the trigger. Despite the committee’s clear recommendations for law changes, then Police Minister Paula Bennett, under pressure from a gun lobby headed by Nicole McKee, ignored all significant changes proposed. The changes that should have been made could very well have meant a much different outcome for New Zealand on March 15, 2019.

After that tragedy Parliament finally voted, almost unanimously, for widespread change including the establishment of a firearms registry and the banning of semi-automatic assault rifles of the type used to kill 51 people.

Yet, five years later, the gun lobbyist who was active in the 2016 gutting of select committee recommendations now leads the coalition government’s review. In doing so, as minister she has deliberately excluded the association, an established key stakeholder in the firearms debate, because our voice is not in lockstep with her desired outcome. Why else would the only body whose members deal daily with the consequences of illegal firearms, and who understand the safety value of a registry, be shut out of this process?

Constable Matthew Hunt was one of those members. In March 2020 he was gunned down by a criminal using a ‘diverted’ semi-automatic assault rifle. The registry is designed to combat such diversion of guns to organised criminal groups and make frontline Police staff safer. Why would we abandon the tools fashioned to mitigate a repeat?

It is implausible to consider the association is not an interested party in this policy formulation, and yet 17 firearms interest groups are, outnumbering the eight selected groups likely to support the status quo. Our evidence is credible and our experience of working with firearms legislation is found nowhere else in the country.

The association is also concerned about a glaring lack of evidence driving the reviews with the minister citing little more than expressed concerns from firearms owners.

It is important to bear in mind that the registry will not be fully operational until 2028, so while this review at the 20 per cent-built stage was a coalition condition of the Act Party, it is nevertheless a pointless waste of time and money, and the review process itself is anything but independent.

The association calls on Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to intervene and acknowledge the association as an interested party, vital to any balanced consultation process for firearms reform legislation and the review of the Firearms Registry. We do this not just because Mr Luxon heads this coalition government, but also based on the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s definition of the role of Prime Minister in determination of the title and scope of each portfolio, its area of operation and the legislation administered within the portfolio.

We also ask that Police Minister Mark Mitchell is given oversight of this process, given the men and women he is responsible for will be most affected by the outcomes.

Yours sincerely
Chris Cahill
President
New Zealand Police Association, Te Aka Hāpai

Wow.

Just.

Wow.

I grew up on a farm, there was a home kill shed across from my bedroom!

I am well aware of the reality of guns in rural NZ. I’m not an anti-gun liberal.

I have no beef with Farmers and Hunters having guns, they are tools and for the vast majority of Gun Owners, they are used carefully, but we need a gun register to ensure guns don’t fall into the hands of the criminal class, especially when they are arming themselves to protect against 501 stand over tactics in the ongoing meth war.

A gun lobbyist removing the gun register from the Police is so insane that it must be challenged and the Police Association has done that here!

Where the fuck does ACT, the party of freedom and small government,  get off intellectually arguing they should micromanage beneficiaries and what they can spend money on, but pull a total blindspot over the owners of semiautomatic weapons?

ACT are totally beholden to the Gun Lobby, that’s the only reason Mckee got the spot she did on the Party list.

Seymour sold ACTs soul to the Gun Lobby and now has to dance to whatever tune they demand.

This ugly convergence of lobbyists and corporate consultants gaining access to NZ Parliament via ACT to implement policy for their Masters is sickening and continues to warp social policy away from the common good!

At some stage, Kiwis need to take a hard long look at themselves for the hard right climate denying racist beneficiary bashing Government they elected, all because a bitter post-Covid electorate hated Jacinda for having the temerity to save 20 000 lives during a once in a century pandemic.