O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you Madam Speaker. When I made the decision to come to Parliament one of the things I wanted to achieve in this House is the disempowerment of organised criminals in New Zealand. I agree with the previous speaker Brett Hudson and congratulations for having this bill drawn—or re-drawn as it were—out of the ballot. Gangs do present a serious threat to the security of New Zealand and it's far too big a threat to be dealt with with piecemeal legislation like this.Firearms and gangs are inherent. I remember an early experience while working as a detective in Masterton. I recall getting a phone call at 11 o'clock at night from someone I knew who had decided he was going religious the next day and wanted to give up his firearms that night. I knew this was an individual who we'd had a few problems with over the years and that he had access to firearms but we'd never been able to find them at his place—they were never kept at his place. Now due to the intervention of his newly found religious zeal I went at 11 o'clock that night into his house where he then having satisfied himself I was alone and wasn't with anyone else disappeared for 10 minutes and came back with a sheet covering a very very large number of firearms which he promptly handed to me. And just as an aside not only had he gone religious but those around him had also gone religious and instead of receiving my usual greetings which normally involved suggesting I make love elsewhere I was actually being invited to praise the Lord with him as I staggered down the drive with this extremely heavy bundle of firearms which I promptly threw into the boot.And another little aside: just as I did so a rival gang also pulled up in their car and sat there quite surprised as they recognised me as a detective talking to this member of another gang and throwing this big parcel of firearms which at that stage I had not examined into the back of my car. I threw them into the car leaving these rather surprised other gang members with their jaws open as their car was surrounded by these same females asking them to praise the Lord as well. So the world had turned itself on its head on those backstreets of Miriam Street that evening.The main point of that is that it's a very very good example of this individual who had had considerable access to firearms. He had a pretty good haul. There were military-style semi-automatics and some pretty impressive firearms that had been involved in some shoot-outs. But they weren't at this address and the whole point I go back to is that if we're going to make some inroads into gangs it's got to be far more than just these piecemeal pieces of legislation because what you'll find is that the essence of gangs—Simeon Brown: Come on!GREG O'CONNOR: If that member over there would just sit and listen he will learn that the essence of gangs is about power. Power means that you get others to do your offending for you. The prisons of New Zealand are full of what senior gang members affectionately know as jailbait". They aren't actually gang members—they tend not to be. They may get their patch from having committed the offence that puts them in there but they are hang-arounds. Hang-arounds then become prospects and it's those prospects who won't be captured by this legislation—they're not gang members—who are the ones who do most of the offending. It is them like in the tale that I related—those firearms were stored at an address nearby where those people actually had no criminal record and they were being forced to hold on to those firearms. That's what we'll actually be doing if we're not careful. We'll end up forcing these gang members to draw more people into their sphere of intimidation to ensure that they do have these firearms.So yes part of anything we do around gangs has to be to reduce their capacity to offend and certainly firearms do increase that capacity. But what is absolutely necessary is that we ensure that what we're not inadvertently doing is pushing their activities into another area that will drag more people into their sphere of intimidation. Even the sponsor of the bill did mention that there have now been changes since the firearms amendment bill came in this year as a result of the shootings in Christchurch. One of the main purposes of that bill was to ensure—and I go back to that gang member I spoke of. In those days firearms were actually very hard to get hold of and hard to replace if the police ever seized them. What had changed certainly up until February this year until the passing of legislation was that those firearms had lost their lustre. They'd lost their exclusiveness because they were incredibly easy to replace. I give the example of a person called Peter James Edwards who was a licensed firearm owner in west Auckland who legitimately bought 74 firearms from Gun City which he then adapted and which ended up in the gang community. What that meant was that it was relatively easy prior to the legislation for such firearms to be replaced. Now of course someone acting like Mr Edwards not only would not be able to get hold of the firearms he was passing on but his activities would now be revealed. So it's about reducing the supply.You will know Madam Speaker that in recent times police have been extremely successful in seizing a large number of firearms from gang members. The important part is that those firearms that have been seized will be a lot harder to replace now than they were before. This is why I say it's important that anything we do be part of a range of activities we do. The legislation by itself—and I can see that something along these lines has been included in legislation which is designed to do the ultimate which is really going to affect the gangs which is to actually stop the money supply—the reason these gangs are thriving. The Rebels were the first Australian gang to establish themselves here. You may remember the new Leader of the Opposition guaranteeing pledging that they would never be allowed to establish a foothold in New Zealand. When you say that and at the same time you reduce the number of police officers let alone the number of police officers who are actually policing gangs the two things don't actually gel. And that's exactly what happened and that is why the opportunity was missed around 2012/13 to actually do something about the gang situation. Now we're seeing yet another plane load. The Australians have gone through and hand-selected some of the most capable criminals in their land and brought them back here and they're in the business of establishing themselves now. Fortunately one of the main ways in which we attack gangs attack organised crime is to ensure we are policing them. And it's policing them we are now and that is why you will see that large numbers of the new gangs arriving in New Zealand are not used to the sort of scrutiny in New Zealand. They are not used to the fact that instead of having the ease with which they did business in Australia they are now losing a considerable amount of the proceeds of crime. Many of them are now in prison. That is how you do it—it is a concerted effort ensuring that what we do is not just piecemeal legislation but is stopping the business of crime because that is what gangs are and the best thing we can do as a society is to ensure in New Zealand that the gangs are not romanticised as they currently are in too much literature and too much music. It's far more important that we actually ensure that New Zealanders understand what they are—these gangs. They are organised criminals. Their power comes from their ability to ensure others commit the crime to coerce others to commit crimes like storing their firearms and coercing others into taking the rap and doing the time.The intent of this legislation may be good but the reality of it is that the people who are being targeted do not have the firearms at home and if we're not careful what we'll do is ensure that the gangs increase their sphere of intimidation to make sure that the firearms are stored in safe places and out of the reach of legislation like this. So unfortunately I can't commend this bill to the House although again I congratulate the member for having it drawn from the ballot. But it is just a piecemeal piece of legislation that unfortunately won't have the effect it needs to have which is to decrease that sphere of intimidation."