Police Minister Ginny Andersen says she has spoken to the police commissioner after the newly created Firearms Safety Authority found themselves in the firing line after another inadvertent leak of the details of Auckland firearms owners.
Video / Mark Mitchell
The new gun register seems likely to stay after Act leader David Seymour said scrapping it is not a non-negotiable in any potential coalition negotiations.
Seymour had previously told Newshub dumping the register was a bottom line “if that’s your idea of politics”, but he clarified to the Herald today that it didn’t make it a non-negotiable in any post-election coalition talks with the National Party.
He added that bottom lines are a “silly concept” and that everything was up for negotiation unless a single party won a majority.
“I’d rather just argue on the merits. It’s ineffective, dangerous if [private details are] leaked, $200 million that the Government doesn’t have - it should be dumped, and I’m sure National will see that if they think it through.”
However, National’s police spokesman, Mark Mitchell, repeated his support for the register.
He wouldn’t be drawn on the possibility of scrapping it in order to form a National-Act governing arrangement, but added: “We take public safety seriously, and that is at the heart of all the decisions we’ll be making because we should be the safest country, but at the moment, we’re heading in completely the wrong direction.”
The gun register was important for the safety of the public as well as the police, he said, “even if it saves just one death or one shooting”.
“And it’s a way of targeting and identifying the firearms licence-holders who are actually buying [guns], as strawman sales, to pass on to the gangs.”
Seymour responded by saying that if keeping the register was not a non-negotiable for National, then it was possible that it could be dumped under a National-Act government following post-election talks.
Act Party leader David Seymour speaking at a party conference at SkyCity in Auckland. Photo / Alex Burton
The comments follow the results of a survey, conducted by Horizon Research and commissioned by Gun Control NZ, which showed 71 per cent support for the register, while only 14 per cent opposed it. A majority of Act supporters and firearms licence-holders were also in favour of the register.
Minister of Police Ginny Anderson said National needed to front up and tell voters whether it would buckle to Act and scrap the register.
“It would take us backwards. We’ve come a long way in setting up a register, and invested money to make sure we keep New Zealanders safer by being able to track illegal weapons,” she said.
“It basically gives us an intelligence map of where all the legal weapons are. It’s far easier to find out when one’s been stolen or passed on to a criminal.”
Seymour has previously indicated that scrapping the register would be a bottom line in any National-Act post-election talks.
“I would say it’s a bottom line if that’s your idea of politics,” he told Newshub in May.
Asked to explain his comment, Seymour said he’d rather just argue the merits of dumping the register.
The registry was launched in June, nearly four years after it was proposed following the March 15, 2019 terrorist attack in Christchurch. Act was the only party that opposed the reforms to firearms laws the Government pushed through.
Firearms licence-holders have five years to record all their relevant guns with details such as the make, model, type, calibre and serial number, as well as a photo.
The registry, for which $208m has been allocated, has not been without teething issues, with many struggling to navigate the online process.
Firearms Safety Authority Te Tari Pūreke has also faced criticism about the security of registry information - a key concern of licence-holders when it was being set up - after staff emailed 147 Auckland gun owners last month with recipient details including email addresses and many names visible in the CC field on Wednesday.
The authority apologised and said the privacy breach was due to human error, and it would strengthen its systems to prevent a repeat.
Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery and is a former deputy political editor.
