Nicole McKee: Associate Justice Minister defends proposed Firearm Prohibition Order laws as part of gang crackdown

The Government is backing its gang crackdown.

The proposed Firearm Prohibition Order laws would ban people from holding a firearms licence, over lower-level offences - and allow warrantless police searches of suspects.

The Justice Select Committee is asking the Government to scale back the plan, citing concerns it gives police too much power.

Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee is firm, but says she's taking suggestions on board.

"At the end of the day, we need to stop the drive-by shootings of innocent families that are being held to ransom by gangs - and their illegal use of weapons."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is a twelve after five, all right. So the
Justice Select Committee is pumping the brakes on changes to
expand firearms Prohibition orders. They're called FPOs now. The committee
says the new orders would give police too much power
for warrantless searches. The committee is made up of Labor
Party members and it's a select committee. Now, the new

(00:20):
rules would allow police to search anyone suspected of being
under an FPO without needing a warrant. So Nicole McKee
is the Associate Justice Minister. She joins her right now,
Hella Nicole.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Good evening, Andrew.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
So the Selectmmittee doesn't like it. Did you screw up
the law or did you believe that going hard on
guns was needed in the war on gangs?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Definitely going hard on the illegal possession of firearms by
those that are not licensed as a priority of this government.
And I don't think that we got it wrong. The
whole point of going to Select Committee is to make
sure that one they get to listen to the people
and what the efforts are on making good law, and
then two they try to change the law or change

(01:02):
the causes within it to tighten it up so that
the will effectively be more efficient and effective once it's
been brought in. Some of the things that they have
talked about is they're looking at who's captured by farm's
prohibition orders, They're looking at the well, they want to
decrease the number of eligible offenses, and they've got some

(01:23):
concerns around the warrantless searches. And I take on board
what they say. Some of it I agree with some
of it I don't. But at the end of the day,
we need to stop the drive by shootings of innocent
families that are being held to ransom by gangs in
their illegal use of these weapons.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
So there will be changes made to the law.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, we need to actually go away and talk about
this as a government. What is the Select Committee looking
at changing and do we agree with this or not.
Once the government has agreed or not agreed on some
of the changes, we would then look to implement perhaps
supplementary order papers at the Committee of the whole stage
to make some changes ourselves. But that's still the discussion

(02:06):
as a government that we need to have.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
And do you think that this law stood at contrary
to the position that actors had and you have had
and the government has had for a while in saying
that under labor gun laws became too prohibitive.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Under the previous government, the firearms legislation that they brought
in did not keep our communities safe. It demonstrably showed
a less safe community because of those changes, and part
of the reason why if they targeted the wrong group
of people, they went after the law abiding while the
criminals went about doing their drive by shootings. This government's

(02:41):
going to make sure that that stops. The best way
that we can is do that is through legislation and
empower police to be able to take those firearms away
from the criminals by giving them further search powers.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
All right, Nicon the Key, I thank you so much
for your time, Nicole as the Associate Justice Minister.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
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