Nicole McKee: Associate Justice Minister on government's plan to change gun laws by 2026

The government will change the Arms Act by 2026 - as part of its planned firearms reforms. 

Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee said New Zealand’s gun laws had been in place for over four decades. 

McKee told Heather du Plessis-Allan “We want to remove NZ Police from the administration, regulation and policymaking of firearms.” 

She said this will allow Police to focus on enforcement - and get the gangs away from guns. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good afternoon. The government has committed to completely overhauling our
gun laws. In the next steps, the Firearms Safety Authority
will be transferred from the police to a government department
and the entire Arms Act rewritten. Nicole McKee is the
Associate Minister for Justice Responsible here.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hey Nicol, Hi, how are you doing, Heather?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm very well, thank you. So do you want to
take the cops out of the licensing process?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yes? What we want to remove New Zealand Police from
the administration, regulation and policy making with firearms and allow
them to focus on enforcement of our laws and getting
the gangs away from the guns.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Why do you want to take them out of it?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Well, there is quite low trust and confidence with New
Zealand police and the licensed firearm owning community. I want
to make sure that when we do a full rewrite
of the arm Fact, that we have something that's fit
for purpose and that people can feel trust and security in.
At the moment, I don't think that they feel that,
and nor has that trust and confidence been rebuilt over

(00:59):
the last or five years. In fact, it's got worse.
We're seeing gangs with guns commit more crimes than ever before,
and we want police to focus on that as part
of their core business and move away from the policy
and regulation, so.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
You'd be transferring it to is it THEDA.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
We're going to look where the best fit is going
to be, and that could be the Department of Internal Affairs.
That's the first stop that we're going to look at,
but it may not be the end place for it,
but we will ascertain where the best fit is going
to be because we've got to make sure also that
police are able to access information to go after the criminals.
So we've got to make sure that we can have

(01:37):
those lines of communication open so that police can still
do their job.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Part of assessing whether a person can get a license
is to see whether they're a fit and proper person
to be able to handle a gun and be trusted
with a gun, Right, isn't it Isn't a police officer
a better place to make that kind of a judgment
call rather than a gray suit from the DIA.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, at the end of the day, we have the
crime carrier that they need to serve into and a
lot of that comes about by filling in the application
form and then doing the interviews. So really, if anybody
can ascertain whether somebody sit and proper by looking at
past history and also looking at the people that they're
working with. Now, it doesn't need to be a police officer,

(02:18):
it needs to be an intelligent person.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Now, listen on you. Are you still committed to getting
rid of the gun register?

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Look, I would love to get rid of the full registry.
The way that it's being implemented, I personally don't think
that it sits for purpose. But at the end of
the day, we're in a coalition government and some of
my coalition partners think that it is. So we've we've
committed with each other to have a review to check
whether it is cost effective, whether it is contributing to

(02:46):
public safety, whether we are getting full compliance, and whether
it's fits for purpose. So at the end of the day,
I've committed to looking at what the review shows us
and whether or not we need to make changes, and
I hope my coalition partner will be on the same
track with that.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah. The reason I ask you that is because there
is a story in the papers. It was in the
Herald just about I think it might have been Monday,
and it was a case of a seventy five year
old Aucklaman and his daughter who bought thirteen firearms in
three months from Gun City as straw buyers. Right, So
they go in, they buy the firearms and really they
just give them to the gangs and stuff like that.
That's the kind of thing the gun register should stop, right,

(03:24):
So isn't there some value in that?

Speaker 2 (03:26):
I think that there is. And when I said that
A campaigned on having a full registration system, I'd also
said that it was really important that we continue the
registry for pistols, endorsements holders as well for the collectors,
and make sure that we get the dealers into a
digital system. So at the moment, the dealer's registry has

(03:47):
been paper based, and I think the straw buying that
we're seeing we need to have that digitalized. What I
don't agree with is the full registry of firearms, which
is your a category ANDed firearms, because we're hearing from
police that half the firearms that are being seized don't
even have serial numbers on them anymore. So are we

(04:08):
trying to create an ambulance at the bottom of a
hill or if we just had a mudslide and actually
everything's getting buried. So we need to have a look
at what's fertile purpose, but hither I do agree digitalizing
the dealer licensing system into a registry will be helpful
not only for police, but for community safety as well.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Call Nicole, thank you so much, appreciate your time. That's
Nicole McKee, Associate Minister for Justice.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
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