Webb Duncan; Tolley AnneDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. Congratulations to Mr Bishop for having this bill drawn. Unfortunately it really is a low-calibre bill. If you want to see a report that has some merit to it have a look at the Attorney-General's report.Kieran McAnulty: That's right—a law professor.Dr DUNCAN WEBB: That's exactly right. This report tells us why we should not support this bill. This Government is absolutely targeting crime—crime is in our sights—but we won't be doing it by trammelling the rights of other people. Now this makes it quite clear that there are two fundamental rights which this bill does not respect. And it's not that they're trammelled a little bit; they're absolutely overridden. Firstly: freedom of association. Now no one's suggesting that we shouldn't be hard on gangs but this half-cocked response doesn't work. What we have here is an approach which utterly undermines the freedom of association in an entirely disproportionate way by having a presumption and an ability of the police to swoop in without notice. And—not me—the Attorney-General the chief law officer of the Crown tells us that it's an unjustified infringement of human rights.So it's time that we bite the bullet and we recognise that this is not an appropriate piece of legislation. And what's more much more concerning is the erosion of the presumption of innocence because as we all know—or as Mr Bishop at least should know straight-shooter that he is—that in the principal Act there's a presumption that a weapon on a premises is in the possession of any person on that premises. Along with this piece of legislation this has an imprisonment term of up to 14 years leads to a presumption of guilt of a breach of a firearm prohibition order. That kind of reversal of onus is utterly utterly wrong; especially when it's got a serious penalty such as that. This is really just a shot in the dark. Mr Bishop should have kept his powder dry and waited for another day.The fact of the matter is that there is already a rigorous screening application for any applicant for a firearms licence. We have here prohibition orders where people have been found guilty of domestic violence offences. Well that is already part of the screening process. The fact of the matter is that this bill is not needed. It's entirely disproportionate. It isn't a silver bullet for a problem. It targets people and gives unwarranted powers. It really is just a shot in the dark a hair-trigger response.So what we should be doing is a careful review of the Arms Act yes—but not just shooting from the hip with this short response which really targets people quite inappropriately. If we look at the Act itself we'll see that it rests largely on the opinions of commissioned officers. And that's not of commissioned officers of the police. We don't want unfettered discretion and the police don't want unfettered discretion. What they want are clear rules.So the fact of the matter is that this piece of legislation whilst well intentioned is poorly thought-out. Absolutely we want to be hard on gangs. We want to make sure that in so far as they are a vehicle for criminal offending we want to address that. We absolutely want to control where—as my friend Greg O'Connor identified we want to identify where arms are and we want to control their use. But this bill is not how we go about it. It's disproportionate; it's poorly thought-out; and there's no rational connection between what is does and the effect it seeks to achieve. And that is why we should get rid of it lock stock and barrel.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before I call the next speaker I'm going to award you the prize for the greatest puns.