Gun Advocate-Turned-Minister Leads Firearm Law Review, Police Union Raises Concerns

In this handout image provided by New Zealand Police, collected firearms are seen at Riccarton Racecourse in Christchurch, New Zealand, on July 13, 2019. (New Zealand Police/Getty Images)

The New Zealand Police Association—a union that represents 98 percent of all sworn police officers—has taken the unprecedented step of writing to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon questioning the fitness of Associate Minister of Justice, Nicole McKee, to hold the position.

In June, the minister—an ACT Party MP—announced “a comprehensive programme to reform New Zealand’s outdated and complicated firearms laws.”

Existing legislation had been “amended several times in a piecemeal, and sometimes rushed way. This has resulted in outdated and complicated requirements that unfairly target licenced firearms owners, often with no clear benefit to public safety,” McKee said.

However, the Police Association believes it has been intentionally excluded from consultation and wants the prime minister to transfer the responsibility for firearms reform to Police Minister Mark Mitchell.

Mitchell was copied into the letter, which has now been made public.

Seventeen firearms interest groups have been invited to comment on the review, and only eight other groups who the Association says may take a differing view.

The letter, signed by the union’s president, Chris Cahill, points out that “It is our members who are literally in the firing line, combatting the threats posed by criminals all too willing to use firearms. It is police officers and employees who are responsible for administering the Arms Act and ensuring compliance with this legislation.

“Given our lengthy history in the promotion of the safety of our members and the protection of the public, we consider our exclusion raises serious concerns about the integrity of the reviews and the independence of the Associate Minister of Justice, Nicole McKee.”

‘Paranoia’: Minister

However, McKee says the groups currently being consulted were “largely ignored” during previous consultations on firearms reform, and Cahill’s response shows “a paranoia ill-befitting of the organisation.”

She said the firearms registry review has not yet started, and the Association will be able to make submissions in later phases of the reforms.

The Association lobbied for the banning of semi-automatic assault rifles and for the introduction of a firearms registry following the 1990 Aramoana massacre in which 13 people, including Police Sergeant Stewart Guthrie, were killed.

A 1997 review headed by High Court Justice Thomas Thorp recommended the government buy-back of military-style semi-automatic assault rifles (MSSAs) and the registration of all firearms, but Cahill says “nothing was done as politicians succumbed to gun lobby pressure.”

Christchurch Shooting Could Have Turned out Differently: Police

When a Select Committee again reviewed firearms laws in 2016, it also recommended changes to the law, but the Association alleged that “then Police Minister Paula Bennett, under pressure from a gun lobby headed by Nicole McKee, ignored all significant changes proposed.

“The changes that should have been made could very well have meant a much different outcome for New Zealand on March 15, 2019,” the letter says—a reference to the Christchurch mosque shootings in which a gunman using MSSAs killed 51 people.

Cahill told a media conference that McKee had come to Parliament as a gun lobbyist who was now leading the government’s firearm review.

“That was what she was elected on. It is what she campaigned on. So, we think there needs to be much more independence than any review of firearms reform. And we think the Minister of Police should be involved,” he said.

He also refuted McKee’s characterisation of police concerns as “paranoia.”

“Well, it’s clearly insulting, actually is ignoring people that have genuine concerns,” he said.

“And then we look at the documents she’s put forward in relation to the firearms registry, and it’s ... something you‘d expect to fill out on an online review if you’d stayed at an Airbnb, that’s how unprofessional it is.”

Minister and the Firearms Sector

McKee met ACT Party leader David Seymour in 2019 to discuss gun law reform in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack. In 2020, she joined the party two months before becoming third on its list.

Her LinkedIn page shows that her past employment included being the office manager for an outdoor and hunting supply wholesaler. She then became the firearms and hunter safety programme manager at the New Zealand Mountain Safety Council before becoming a self-employed firearms safety consultant.

Her profile on the ACT website says she was also the spokesperson for the Council of Licenced Firearms Owners and its “Fair and Reasonable” campaign.

In her maiden speech, she signalled that she wasn’t happy with past attempts at law reform, saying the first tranche of legislation introduced in the wake of the Christchurch tragedy “did not bring us together.”

“It drove a wedge through parts of New Zealand society, not for the banning of guns but for the blame that was directed at the law-abiding and the way in which it was conducted,” she said.

“The second tranche was also rushed through, and this confirmed the government’s attack was aimed at those that comply with the law, whitewashing the failure of police’s own processes and procedures in giving a foreign-national terrorist a firearms licence in the first place.

“The rushed legislation was followed by rushed policy implementation, regulations, and mountains of errors.”

The prime minister has yet to comment on the letter.