Labour’s frantic, last-minute, desperate attempts to paint itself as tough on crime have moved into the farcical stage, National’s Police spokesperson Mark Mitchell says.

“Police Minister Ginny Anderson’s claim that National does not have a stance on the gun register is nonsense. We have made it quite clear that, since it has already been implemented, we will not remove it – but we will do everyone a favour by actually making it effective.

“This focus on law-abiding gun owners is toothless and when in government we will make sure that any law improves public safety and gets guns out of the hands of criminals.

“For Ginny Anderson to claim that you ‘can’t trust a National Government to keep New Zealanders safe from gun crime’, is beyond hypocritical.

“The Police Minister may not have noticed multiple fatal shootings, gang warfare, youth crime and ram raids out of control on her watch, but National and the public have.

“No one believes Labour has had a sudden epiphany on crime and no one believes they will ever do anything about it.

“Let’s just stop the charade.

“National will give Police more powers to deal with gangs include the power to issue Firearms Prohibition Orders. These could be issued against any gang member who in the past 10 years has been convicted of a serious offence, and would make it illegal for that person to access firearms or enter certain premises where firearms are present.

“Police would have the power to search people who are subject to a Firearms Prohibition Order and search their premises or vehicles for firearms at any time.”

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