A stoush appears to be brewing between the Police Association’s president Chris Cahill and ACT Minister Nicole McKee over consultation on firearms reform.
In an open letter, Cahill called for the the responsibility of firearms reform to be taken off McKee, who is the Associate Minister of Justice.
Cahill expressed concern the Police Association has been left out of consultation as an interested party on the Government’s firearms registry review, and said McKee had been a gun lobbyist.
McKee, however, said the groups consulted were “largely ignored” during previous consultation on firearms reform, and the idea the police had been excluded on purpose showed a “paranoia ill-befitting of the organisation”.
So – who is Nicole McKee?
Born in Lower Hutt in 1972, but finishing high school in Rotorua, McKee joined the ACT party two months before becoming third on its list in 2020, according to the Herald. It followed a meeting with David Seymour in 2019 over gun law reform in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack.
According to the same report, McKee, now a mother of four, faced tragedy at age 24 when the father of her first child died in a car accident just a week before her daughter was born. Three years later she met her husband, who was the first to introduce her to target shooting, and she developed a love and passion for the sport, as well as dabbling in hunting.
She worked as a legal secretary in two law firms, then as an office manager for an outdoor and hunting supply wholesaler, her LinkedIn page shows. 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. That five-year stint preceded entering Parliament for the ACT party in October 2020.
On a profile on the ACT website, it says she was also the spokesperson for the Council of Licenced Firearms Owners and its Fair and Reasonable Campaign.
When ACT came into Government after the last election, McKee became the Courts Minister, as well as the Associate Minister of Justice, responsible for firearms.
In her maiden speech to Parliament, McKee joked she had not had any political aspirations or intention of becoming a politician, so “maybe this is my mid-life crisis”.
She extolled the ACT Party as a party that valued individualism and less government interference, and noted her upbringing as a child of a Pākehā mother and Māori (Ngāpuhi) father – though her mother raised her as a single mother, working two jobs to make ends meet.
She thanked her husband and children for their support, as well as the firearms community – especially the members of the Council of Licenced Firearms Owners – who had given her the korowai she wore as she spoke.
“You have persevered for a rational approach to firearms legislation wanting to be part of the solution. You have never been the problem, despite such accusations by the police, the Government, and the media.
“You held strong in your approach through the adversity of not having any meaningful involvement in the legislative process. You represented on behalf of so many affected by the rushed legislative changes and kept calm despite the bias – rational, thoughtful thinkers.”
The union says it was left out of consultation by Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee. (Source: 1News)
She said the Christchurch terrorist attacks caused the country to mourn the loss of innocence, lives and peace as we knew it, but said the “first tranche” of legislation that came in its wake “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.
“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.
“Legal firearm owners became the new outlaws, fruitlessly justifying their legitimacy while the real outlaws continued with their crimes.”
McKee also enjoys wool-spinning, according to a 2020 RNZ report.
