The Police Minister says a second review of the firearms registry, called for by ACT, would not produce a different result.
The ACT Party formally invoked its “agree to disagree” clause in its coalition agreement with National over the firearms registry on Sunday.
Earlier this month, ACT MP Nicole McKee asked Cabinet to consider that the recent review of the firearms registry didn’t meet the commitment in its coalition agreement.
But Mark Mitchell told RNZ that’s not the case.
“We just don’t’ agree with that. It was a review done by her ministry and she set the terms of reference for that,” he said.
“That’s where we agree to differ, we think there was a good job done and don’t think there would be any difference at all going through to a set reviewer, a review of a review.
“We accept the findings of the review.”
McKee said the review’s conclusion that the registry is justified if it prevents two fatalities a year is unsupported by evidence and asked for a more thorough and independent review.
Mitchell disagreed and said he doesn’t believe another review is in their best interests.
“We absolutely believe that it was (evidence based). It was a good review, we don’t think having to go back and review again would fundamentally change anything,” he said.
However, Mitchell did downplay the significance of ACT invoking the “agree to disagree” clause.
He said he had no concerns over ACT’s approach to the firearms registry.
“We’ve been very clear what our position is on that. We’re working very closely with ACT on that, I’ve got a very good working relationship with minister McKee,” he said.
“She’s doing a full rewrite of the Arms Act; it’s a big piece of work. There are some things we’re not going to agree on, and we’ve got a mechanism to be able to deal with that.”
President of the NZ Police Association Chris Cahill also labelled the ACT Party’s push for a further review of the firearms registry as pointless.
He said McKee’s comments over the justification of the registry hinging on the prevention of two fatalities were disturbing.
“I’m disgusted that she thinks two lives aren’t worth worrying about, that is a disgusting thing to say but it’s also a very narrow interpretation of what the firearms registry is doing,” he said.
Cahill also said it was unfair to judge the registry so soon.
“It’s only been going for less than two years, it takes five years for it to be fully implemented so you would certainly wait for it to be fully implemented and then operating for a few years to see what’s the true value of what it is,” he said.
“But I think within 12 months what this review has shown is it’s very valuable.”
However, McKee said the review focused on operational costs to the government, but gave little weight to the compliance costs for firearms owners or the cost of a dealer’s registry.
She said it also did not consider privacy concerns.
McKee said, despite the differences on the registry, the coalition partners continue to work constructively together on the rewrite of the Arms Act.
