New Police Commissioner Richard Chambers (middle) fronted MPs at select committee with deputy commissioners Tania Kura (left) and Chris de Wattignar. Photo: RNZ / Anneke Smith
The new police commissioner has stopped short of giving MPs his opinion on how the coalition's gun law changes could impact the safety of frontline officers.
Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee, of the ACT Party, is leading a suite of gun law reforms, including easing regulations for gun clubs and ranges.
Commissioner Richard Chambers and his executive colleagues fielded questions on the police's 2023/24 annual review at Parliament on Thursday, as part of this week's scrutiny hearings.
Labour's Ginny Andersen asked Chambers, who has been in the top job for just over two weeks, if he was concerned the coalition's firearms reforms could have a negative impact on frontline safety.
"I would need to take advice on how that could impact on the safety of frontline police," he replied.
"I've outlined that an absolute priority of mine is the safety of the frontline so I will always take advice on our current situation or what changes or improvements could be made."
The legislation in question includes new provisions that allow non-pistol shooting ranges to only be inspected by police when the range operator is applying for their initial enrolment, and then once every five years.
This marks a shift from the current regime, which allows inspections at any time so long as the operators are given seven days' notice.
RNZ has now seen an aide-mémoire sent to the minister of police in April recommending changes to the Ministry of Justice's Cabinet paper and draft consultation document.
"The paper does not clearly outline the public safety risks associated with the proposals to reduce obligations on shooting clubs and target shooting range operators," the document said.
"No information is given to support the contention of heavy burden on the club committees or range operators.
"Proposals to reduce burden on club committees and range operators re-introduce known public safety risks, particularly for centrefire and long-range rifle shooting on non-pistol ranges."
The aide-mémoire gave background to the 2020 amendment to the Arms Act that extended regulatory oversight over all target shooting ranges after the 15 March terror attacks.
It then discussed the main proposals in the coalition's plan to ease regulation on gun clubs and ranges, marking most of the changes with "Don't agree".
The police's recommendations in the aide-mémoire were redacted.
Firearms Safety Authority executive director Angela Brazier. Photo: RNZ / Anneke Smith
While Chambers was tight-lipped about how the clubs and ranges changes could impact frontline safety on Thursday, Firearms Safety Authority executive director Angela Brazier did speak to what they would mean for the police.
"The main issues that we see in terms of reducing oversight and regulation is that there'll be a limited ability to inspect shooting shooting ranges and there'll be no national standards.
"So, in terms of the standard that ranges should be achieving to keep communities safe, there'll be no nationalisation of that and at the moment it's suggested three months for us to implement the new changes and we had asked for six months to enable us to do that effectively with communities."
Brazier said "poor communication" was the main issue with a shorter change period.
"We need to make sure that we are updating websites, the administration behind that, so that we're consistent with what the legislation and the regulations say and that does take some time."
Chambers was also asked about his position on whether or not the gun registry should remain with police, given it was set to be moved out of the department this term as part of ACT's coalition agreement with National.
"I will take time to consider how our registry could be most effective and if that means remaining within New Zealand Police then that's, I'm sure, what will happen [and] if there's a better way of doing something, we'll consider that too," Chambers said.
"I think one of the things I've always said in policing is that when we apply a good deal of common sense to everything that we do, we communicate well and we take time to do that we will be our best too so it's no different situation involving registry."
Brazier took another question from Andersen about how the real-time availability of firearms risks intelligence could change when the registry was moved out of the police department.
"We're heavily reliant on sharing information between police and the Firearms Safety Authority," Brazier said.
"Without knowing where we would be and what technology we'd have and what MOU's there'd be between police and where it is that we would go, it's hard to say at this point in time."
In a statement, McKee said there had been a "robust" select committee process around the new legislation.
"More than 600 written submissions were received and are now available online. The Justice Select Committee is working through these submissions, and I welcome their report which is due on 5 February."
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