Ministers Reply on Speech, Residual Powers, and the Fit and Proper Test
- COLFO
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
The basic summary of this article is free to the public; however, financial members can read the full article by signing in with the email they used to subscribe to COLFO with.
On 17 August COLFO wrote to ministers and ACT Party leadership about residual powers and the protection of lawful speech. The Firearms Safety Authority has since replied. Two ministers have now written as well.
COLFO’s concern is not with any individual case. We do not support or endorse the content of the statements that brought this issue into public view. The question is structural: can lawful speech that has not met the criminal threshold be used to take a firearms licence, and where is the line.
What the Minister of Police said
Hon Mark Mitchell restated COLFO’s two questions: what checks exist to prevent unfair or selective targeting of licensed owners for speech that is not a crime, and what is the practical line between speech that may justify administrative action and speech that belongs in the criminal courts, including how that line was applied in the Brian Tamaki case.
He did not answer them. He said decisions on an individual’s licence and on whether they are a fit and proper person are operational matters for the Firearms Safety Authority, and he has referred COLFO’s letter there. He will not comment on the Tamaki decision. He says it is a live matter, likely to go to court, and that every licence holder has privacy rights. He points licence holders to the Authority’s own reply, which COLFO has already published.
What the Associate Minister of Justice said
Hon Nicole McKee wrote to COLFO, and attached a longer letter she had sent to the Free Speech Union that members can read below.
Until 23 September, responsibility for the firearms regulator stays with the Minister of Police. After that date she will be the Minister responsible for the new Arms Regulator under the Arms Act 2026. She will not comment on, or interfere in, any particular licensing decision.
She strongly agrees that the licensing system must not become a way to police lawful political, religious, or ideological beliefs. She says licence holders do not surrender freedom of expression by holding a licence.
She acknowledges COLFO’s concern about residual powers such as section 76. She says those conditions will be able to be challenged before the new independent Firearms Licensing Review Committee, and she has asked COLFO how the law and regulations should be drafted so owners have more certainty, without stopping the regulator acting on a genuine public safety risk.
On a Member of Parliament writing to the Police Commissioner, she draws a distinction. Asking Police to consider whether conduct crossed the criminal threshold is not, she says, the same as supporting administrative action against a licence. She says the letter in question did not refer to Mr Tamaki as a licensed owner or seek action against his licence. Criminal liability, she says, is for the courts, not Members of Parliament.
The line she draws...
