O'Connor Greg; Tolley AnneGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I'd like to start by congratulating the member Chris Bishop not only for drawing this bill but for actually bringing this bill in the first place because I think it's a very timely bill. While obviously I think the bill itself in its make-up may be lacking the ideas and the issues that it brings to the fore are very timely. What it does bring to the fore are two major issues which not only affect law and order but affect New Zealand and potentially the future of many New Zealanders and that's the issue of firearms and the issue of organised crime. They come together and this bill vaguely touches on both but it actually highlights both. I acknowledge my two fellow police officers over there the Hon Mark Mitchell and of course Matt King who is not yet Hon" but I'm sure it will happen one day. We all as police officers have seen the rise of gangs. We are all relatively the same age and we saw those gangs start out as a group of thugs that were pretty disorganised and relatively unsophisticated and they terrorised. Their sphere of intimidation as I like to call it was relatively small. Their sphere of intimidation was in the area of if you wouldn't report an offence they committed against you to the police you were essentially within their sphere of intimidation. Unfortunately that sphere of intimidation has increased considerably. It has increased considerably mostly on the back of P. So what we now have—and a piece of legislation like this may have been relevant when the two members opposite and myself were policing. It may have been useful when our gang members were the larrikins who were running around—although I do have to say that firearms in those days were quite tightly held because they were hard to get hold of. If you did have one it was something of a prestige and you didn't want to lose it so you were unlikely to use it. That situation has changed considerably because as gangs grew in their sphere of intimidation to the sophistication we have today where their sphere of intimidation is not only national but international—I could talk a lot longer about that particularly with the rise of the Comanchero gang which is mostly made up of deportees from Australia who have added a whole 'nother dimension to gang offending in New Zealand. But while that was happening we also had something else that was happening. We had the Arms Act and the police who were supposed to be policing that Act and again as both of those members will know the police took their eye off the ball. They weren't investing in policing that Act and as a result we have the proliferation of firearms we are seeing where virtually every search warrant today results in a military-style semi-automatic (MSSA) and not just with gangs but with pretty much anyone connected with any sort of crime at all. So we've now got the clash of these two things coming together and again that's why I reflect on the fact that the bill does acknowledge that. However this bill is insufficient and it won't actually go anyway towards doing that because that degree of sophistication has meant that the very people that it's supposed to fix—I'll just give you an example. I'm well aware that one of the major gangs in New Zealand the Head Hunters are seriously considering de-patching. They're seriously considering making it so that they will not be known in the community. It will be very difficult to ascertain whether or not they are gang members and that is a business decision. That is because currently it is actually bad for business to be seen to be intimidating so the very bling that attracted which actually was that intimidation factor—now it is so inherent that they actually don't need it. So whereas it may have been useful for those gangies the gang-bangers that we used to chase around—it may have been effective in that day but it will not be effective now. So I will actually be opposing this because the fear I have is that we'll pass this piece of legislation and think we've actually done something that will make a difference. It won't. It won't make any difference at all and more importantly what it will do is prevent us from doing what we must do. We've got to take some action. There are some ridiculously easy ways to get firearms. Just today in research for this I found out that you get students who can go and join a pistol club in Auckland who do the thing and go monthly get a firearm leave New Zealand after a year and no one knows where the Glocks went. That's the sort of thing that's happening. That's the sort of opportunity we missed a fix on. We had an inquiry into this in the last term—it will have to be fixed. The other thing is there are people who come into New Zealand who buy a firearm and pay $25 for a licence with any documentation that proves they had some firearms licence in another country which we can't check. That person will actually then have a firearm. They leave the country a month later and no one knows what's happened to the firearm. This is the sort of thing we've got to fix. So while again I congratulate the member for bringing this to the House it is not enough and it is too late. We're going to have to look at things much more deeply. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call—I'm just going to make sure I get your full name correct—Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi. DEPUTY SPEAKER: —Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi."