Ginny Andersen: Labour's Justice Spokesperson on the proposed Firearm Prohibition Order laws

There’s concerns a crackdown on gangs could go too far. 

Proposed Firearm Prohibition Order laws would expand bans on holding a firearms licence to people committing lower-level offences, and allow warrantless police searches of suspects. 

The Justice Select Committee is asking for it to be scaled back, concerned it gives police too much power.  

Labour's Justice Spokesperson Ginny Andersen told Ryan Bridge the proposal is still too broad. 

She says it's designed to look tough, but it's not clear what problem it's actually fixing. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Justice Select Committee has recommended several changes to soften
the Firearms Prohibition Order's Legislation Amendment Bill. It says the
order will give police too much power for warrantless searches.
As it stands, someone with an FPO a Firearms Prohibition
Order cannot hold a firearms license, use firearms, or associate

(00:21):
with anybody who has a firearm. And the new bill
would give new warrantless search powers to anyone suspected of
being under a firearms Prohibition order. Ginny Anderson as Labour's
Justice spokesperson, and she's with me now, Jenny, good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Could you give us an example of where you think
this power could go and what's wrong with it?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Right, So, say, just for the sake of it, let's say,
Mike Costkins, your friend had FPO put on by the courts.
You don't know about it, but are you invited around
to your house and he's run at your house either
for dinner or doing something else, so that you don't
even know that he has an f PO on him
and police would be able to search your whole house.

(01:08):
And the way that the bill was originally written that
police just had to suspect that he might have an
FPO on him in order to search your entire house,
or if he was in your car, your whole car.
So it just is quite wide in terms of not
just only the people who it's intending to capture, but

(01:29):
also who they're associating. Was immediately whether or not that
associate necessarily it was in a gain or not.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Right, But how why would the cops be coming to
my house or to my car in the first.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Place, Because if the person was an FPO on them
is in your house, then that can be searched too.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
But how do they know he's in my MIC's in
my house? Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Like, it's surely they're probably blotting outside.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
I mean, when you get into scenarios, that's hard. But
if they've been more uttering someone, all they have to
do is is we've changed it now that you used
to just bespect that he had an FPO on them,
and they're checking on the conditions. So when you have
one of these on you, it enables police to continually
check that the conditions of the SEO are being complied
with right right, and they can do that at any time,

(02:19):
like a bail check, they can come around and check that.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Right, And if I have so Mike's got an FPO,
if I have a firearm illegally a firearm in my house,
he can be arrested for just being in the same house.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Right, that's absolutely correct. And you might not know, you
might have stored a firearm for someone else. And if
he's anywhere there, that's exactly right. He would be arrested
for a period of time if he was in and
around firearms. That does depend on the conditions of the SEO.
These are put on by the courts, and so the

(02:52):
judge at the time can put on special conditions that
might be different from time to time. So we thought
that that was a much and it's been changed to
the police has to believe that there is an SPO
on this person in order to conduct those searchers. But
we still think that we're the balance about right. The

(03:12):
previous spos about who she has been done, about a
third of those are gang members. We also had that
Criminal Activity Intervention Bill which for a period of fourteen
days if there was tensions between gangs, then police had
the ability to go and search in a whole range
of different areas while those into gang tensions. Both those

(03:33):
piece of legislation we felt was working really well, and
this is sort of another thing. Design's a lot tough,
but it's not quite clear what is the problem it
is actually fixing.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
All right. That's Jenny Anderson, Labour's Justice spokesperson. The Justice
Select Committee has recommended to send several changes to that
bill to soften it up. For more from News Talks'
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