Nicole McKee: Associate Justice Minister on the Government's new gun law changes

The Associate Justice Minister admits some ideas in her Arms Act rewrite didn't make it past the cutting room floor. 

She's revealed details of changes to the 1983 Act - delivered under an ACT-National coalition agreement.

It doesn't include Nicole McKee's bid to allow greater access to military-style semi-automatic weapons.

She says she's also not ruling out scrapping the gun registry, which she didn't get this time.

"I haven't changed my mind on the gun registry - I still want to scrap it, but I did not win the argument. Hence, we had to agree to disagree with the coalition partnership."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now to the big shake up of the gun laws.
It's been revealed and it is a little bit of
a fizzer. The gun registry is safe, it's not going
to be scrapped, and military style semi automatic weapons will
not be made available to more people than the few
who are allowed to have them currently. The Associate Justice
Minister n Cole McKee is behind the reforms.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Heinekol, Good afternoon, Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Why go soft?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well, I don't think I have gone soft. Actually, what
you will see is an entire rewrite of the Arms
Act that makes things quite clear. However, I did not
win everything that I wanted to, but I did win
about ninety five percent of what we wanted. So while
some people may be upset that we didn't get the
winds in the areas I fought for, there actually are

(00:41):
wins for every licensed farm's owner and every member of
New Zealand society within my Arms Bill.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Okay, what made you change your mind on the gun
registry because you wanted to scrap it.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I haven't changed my mind on the gun registry. I
still want to scrap it. But I did not win
the argument, and hence we hadn't agree to disagree with
the Coalish partnership, but the biggest things I needed to
achieve are there in the Arms Act, and of course
we can always look at it again when we look
at whether or not the review of the Arms Registry,

(01:12):
which is meant to happen again late in a couple
more years, gives us any more information. But at this stage, Heather,
I'm still against the Registry. I just did not win
that debate, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
And then with the ban on the semi automatics, you
wanted to partially lift it. What happened there.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
I wanted to enable sporting shooters to be able to
use large capacity magazines with semi automatics under strict controlled
range conditions, and again I could not get that past
my colleagues. However, there are some other really good wins
in there, including for pest controllers who use large capacities

(01:48):
with semi automatics. And I also managed to close another loophole, Heather,
where in the twenty nineteen and twenty twenty changes, the
government of the day Labor Government did not put conditions
on large capacity pistol magazines and they were still able
to be purchased without a license. So that will be
closed as well.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Nicole, thank you very much, really appreciate your time. Nicole McKee,
Associate Justice Minister. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive,
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