COLFO News #1 2020 February

Fair and Reasonable Campaign - Update on Court ChallengeCOLFO has now received the Governments statement of defence to our application forjudicial review of Stuart Nash’s regulations preventing fair compensation for now prohibitedammunition. We now await the High Court to allocate a hearing date. Meanwhile wecontinue to work at gathering evidence and assembling a number of expert witnesses.Our lawyers are working on a second claim which has wider implications than just ammo.You can follow the progress of the legal action on our website:www.fairandreasonable.co.nzConfiscation and Amnesty a FailureContrary to statements made by the Police and their Minister Stuart Nash, COLFObelieves the whole process has been a total failure. With 56,250 firearms collected weestimate there is still 100,000 now prohibited firearms remaining in the community, manylikely to disappear into the grey/black market. We know that only 63% of E Cat MSSAshave been collected. These now illegal guns can no longer be securely stored but mustremain hidden; making New Zealand less safe than it was prior to March 2019.To highlight this failure COLFO hosted a press conference with ACT leader David Seymourat Parliament which gained extensive coverage in the mainstream media.Arms Legislation Bill 2019 and SOP 408It is expected that the Select Committee will table their report on this Bill shortly afterParliament returns to business on 11 February. It is vital that all members keep up thepressure on their MPs to vote against this Bill if it is to be defeated. We know thispressure is working because there have already been some minor reversals by thegovernmentRemember SOP 408 introduced additional restrictions on ownership of pistols.With the stated intention of the Prime Minister to pass this legislation before theanniversary of the Christchurch attack there is only a short time left to influence MPs. Tellyour local MP you will not be voting for them if they support this Bill.Although we have not verified the figures we are advised that of 4,210 submissions on thisBill, 84.6% totally rejected it and another 5.9 % partially rejected it, with only 5.8% insupport. It will be interesting to see what our MPs make of this.Increase in licence and other fees expectedIt is anticipated that the Minister of Police will soon release a discussion document on newfees to be applied to firearm administration. With the current licence fee covering less thanhalf the cost, police claim, and the new laws quadrupling the police work load, the feehikes are likely to be substantial.It is again important that you all make your views known, bearing in mind that the lawchanges are, according to the government, all about public safety. Then it is only right thatthe public (Crown) should pay, not firearm owners who don’t want these changes.Auditor-General audit of the firearm buy-back schemeLast year the office of the Auditor General announced that it would conduct an audit of thefirearm buy-back scheme. The Auditor General is independent of Government and istasked with reviewing how public organisations perform. COLFO provided information tothis inquiry; we understand a report will be released early this year.Data breach: COLFO complaint to the Privacy CommissionerBefore Christmas, we wrote to the Privacy Commissioner concerning the Police databreach, requesting that he provide updated advice to the Select Committee on the ArmsLegislation Bill in light of this security failure. To our surprise the Commissioner declined.However the Commissioners response revealed that the Police have now hired a securityexpert. This will open new lines of enquiry under the Official Information Act for us to findout what advice Police are receiving in order to keep our information secure.Data breach – who is really responsiblePolice and Nash couldn’t form a queue fast enough to denying any responsibility for thedata breach blaming it instead on the software developer although for the original error tohave made it all the way to the live system requires a series of failures in the processincluding the omission altogether (or it not being done properly), of a thing called user (inthis case Police) acceptance testing.The Institute of Directors say cyber risk is like any other risk and requires board levelattention i.e. the top of the food chain. Yet Nash - the top of the food chain in this case -refused to accept any responsibility and made no secret of his refusal. All parties also keptvery quiet about the risk of identity theft – a worldwide and growing problem - to thosewhose data was exposed.Firearm Prohibition OrdersCOLFO has provided a comprehensive submission on the Police discussion document,pointing out how ill-conceived many of the proposals are and how they will do little to detercriminals gaining access to firearms.Police RaidsFrom the aggressive rhetoric of Police Minister Stuart Nash and Deputy CommissionerMike Clements many LFOs have been anticipating Police to raid their homes in search ofnow prohibited firearms.In early January a young family sitting down to their evening meal were raided by 12armed police officers, searching for an unmodified lever action .22 rifle. LFO Dieuwe DeBoer had used a photos of the said rifle in his submission to the Select Committee to pointout the unintended consequences of the law change. The Police did not find the rifle.Was the raid motivated by politics? The media labelled him ‘Extreme Alt Right’ becausehe has been vocal on free speech issues. These type of raids only serve to drive a furtherrift between LFOs and Police.Police facial recognition system – prisoners, registered child sex offenders – and LFOsEvidence yet again of the calculated government and police on-going tarnishing of LFOsand the low regard in which LFOs are held is apparent in the proposed inclusion of thefaces of LFOs in the police "state of the art" facial recognition system - along withprisoners and registered child sex offenders. This effectively means LFOs are beingtreated as if we have a lesser right to privacy than that of other law-abiding NewZealanders merely because we have a firearms’ licence. Holding a drivers licence withyour picture on clearly does not put you in the ‘lesser rights’ category but a firearms'licence does. The only other group planned to be included are missing persons.According to Stuff Dataworks Plus are building the system and it is to be rolled out in thelatter half of 2020.Police use of facial recognition technologies has the potential to breach both the NZ Bill ofRights Act and the Privacy Act.If you find this objectionable then raise it with your MPs. Also write to Police and ask whatinformation they hold on you, for what purposes is it currently used and are thosepurposes expected to change in the next 18 months. You will need to repeat this after thesystem goes live. The Privacy Commissioner advised one of our members that if you haveevidence Police have used the photo on your firearms licence for something other thanissuing that licence you can make a complaint to their Office to look into. The morecomplaints the better – our voices need to be heard.Please sign up and donate towww.fairandreasonable.co.nz
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