Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. There's so much the Minister has said already that needs to be answered. He has created an entanglement that I suspect will go on for some hours. But just so people at home are fully aware of what happened at the beginning of this debate—and I think it's important for our democracy that people understand these procedures—the Labour Party asked if they could do this debate all in one go put it on fast track get this debate done as one part" Chris Hipkins asked. He said that he'd arranged it in discussion with the other side. Well he certainly didn't ask me but what it sounded like is the National Party agreed to it too. So we would've had a fast-tracked debate on this tonight again—Brett Hudson: That's not strictly true David—that's not strictly true.DAVID SEYMOUR: —and the National Party agreed to that. They're saying now they didn't except here's the thing: we didn't hear any voices objecting when Chris Hipkins asked permission for a fast-tracked debate. So that's point number one. It's proper that if firearm laws are worth doing they are worth doing well.Number two: Stuart Nash the Minister in charge said he thinks that Deborah Russell did a great job of chairing this legislation through the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Well I am a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee and let me put it on record in the Hansard that the way members of the public were treated—argued with abused harangued—by somebody in a very senior position a highly paid chair of a select committee in Parliament whose job is to facilitate the public giving information to elected officials was nothing short of disgraceful. We got so much feedback and we heard so much about that and I personally on a number of occasions had to intervene—Michael Wood: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. It is my view that the attack that is unfolding upon the chair of the select committee is not consistent with the kind of arguments that should be raised in the committee stage of this debate.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Well in fairness the Minister raised it and I take David Seymour's comments as responding to that. I mean I won't allow him to go on at length but it's an argument it's a discussion that was opened by the Minister.DAVID SEYMOUR: I want to just respond to one thing Michael Wood has just raised in that point of order. I'm not attacking Deborah Russell. In fact on a personal level I quite like her. But I am attacking the behaviour and I am calling out the way that members of the public were treated because I think that's wrong and I think it needs to change. As you've said Madam Chair the Minister did raise it and I think it's important that it be put on record that that was not the experience of many members of the public. I did as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee have to intervene on behalf of members of the public who felt attacked by the chair and many of them thanked me for it. That is true.Number three: the Minister said—and we haven't even got to the arguments about the bill or this part of the bill yet.Dr Duncan Webb: You haven't got to any argument yet.DAVID SEYMOUR: We've got to things that were raised by the Minister and I think Duncan Webb's right: we haven't got to any argument; we're just raising things that the Minister raised. The Minister said this bill is fundamentally about keeping firearms out of the hands of bad people and the problem with that argument is that there is almost nothing in this bill about bad people.It's worth going to the origin of this legislation because this Government was not legislating in this area at all had no intention to for the first 18 months it was in power. The fact of the matter is—and people need to know this—there is nothing in this legislation that would have stopped the Christchurch terrorist doing what he did. The problem that arose was that the law as it is in place should have been followed and we now learn that it was not or at least we have it speculated. Of course the thing this Government should've done is waited for the royal commission it put in place to diagnose the problem before the Government attempts to give its solution. And when we look through this legislation it has a large number of new laws and restrictions placed upon law-abiding firearm owners far outweighing anything that is imposed upon people who are illegal.Then we heard the logic—this is number four from the Minister—that actually he is targeting illegal firearm owners and bad people but how did he say he intends to do it? This explains much of what we find throughout the legislation: that actually the Minister's intention is to take firearms off law-abiding people because if they don't have them nobody can steal them. Well here's a thought about that difficulty or that proposition: how is it possible that criminal elements somehow manage to get ingredients for a billion bucks' worth of P into New Zealand every year? Well I put it to you Madam Chair and I'd put it to the Minister that part of the reason is this country only has one container scanner. Last I checked there are more containers coming into New Zealand than can be scanned by one container scanner. It must be true because for one thing there's more than one port and they all have containers coming in. So could it be that the fundamental problem with the Minister's strategy that he has raised is that the theft of firearms from licensed firearm owners is not the only way that criminal elements can get firearms? In fact it may not even be the major way that they get firearms.Then the Minister said "Well the problem is these firearms are guns designed to kill people—that's why they're being prohibited." That's number five. What's interesting is that a .303 is a firearm that was designed to kill people—that's the whole purpose of it; designed for the war—Dr Duncan Webb: It wasn't very good at it.DAVID SEYMOUR: —and the fact of the—well the member Duncan Webb says it wasn't very good at it. Well I think people that fought in those wars were probably very grateful to be equipped with them. But a point is they haven't done anything about the firearm that really was designed to kill people. Although I have heard that there are good pictures available of the current Minister of Police using such firearms ironically.The next problem that we have is the enormous burden that is placed upon people who wish to use firearms legally. In spite of the fact that nothing in this legislation is going to actually make us safer except by the Minister's hope that if he takes everyone's firearms away then no one will have them and QED no bad people will have them either. The problems are that this bill puts huge burdens on licensed firearm owners and ineffective ones at that.This bill puts in place a register. This bill invades the doctor-patient relationship. This bill places onerous restrictions on clubs that will backfire because their intention we can understand is to ensure that people who have clubs operate them well. We can understand why they might want to do that but the problem is that if they make it too onerous and clubs cease to function the way that they have in the past and people find themselves with even less of an incentive to form clubs and use firearms in a safe location they're going to go bush and they're going to do things that are even more dangerous.Then I think we're up to point six so far—just talking about the points the Minister raised that are erroneous. He said he wants to dedicate this legislation to Justice Thorp. Well that's nice. What's interesting is that Justice Thorp said a register would not work unless they got 90 percent compliance. Well I hope the Minister is going to stand up and tell us what sort of level of compliance he thinks the register will achieve because if it's over 90 percent—and it'd be helpful if he could provide some examples of countries around the world that have achieved 90 percent—in that case maybe he could say it's going to work. But I suspect that he won't be able to provide those examples and he's dedicating this legislation to Thorp even though Thorp's own report and words would tell us his legislation will not work. I hope to return to the specifics of the bill in future speeches."