Dean Jacqui: Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dean Jacqui: Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2279. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 The Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Bill sought to address—and I believe has gone a long way towards addressing—some problems that we face. The vast majority of category C licence holders who have military-style semi-automatic firearms are responsible enthusiasts of firearms and they take great pride and enjoyment in their sport which involves using their firearms mostly on a shooting range under very controlled conditions. Indeed the conditions of their firearms licence which I think is a category C—and I can be corrected—if I do recall is quite a stringent category of firearms licence that requires the military-style semi-automatic to be locked securely in a secured locked box.  
One of the problems is that although the vast majority of military-style semi-automatic owners have the required licence and the required storage for military-style semi-automatics that is not the problem; the problem is the military-style semi-automatics that the police do not know about. And when those military-style semi-automatics are used and put into effect it can be with devastating consequences for all of those involved involving death and fear. It is those military-style semi-automatics that the police cannot track that are the problem which is why this bill has come to the House because there is also a problem with the definition of what constitutes a military-style semi-automatic.  
The other problem that this bill addresses is that of the fake pistol being presented. It happens on an almost weekly basis in New Zealand. The police are called out to what appears to be an armed robbery or an armed incident and it ends up that a fake pistol has been used. The news of this happening in dairies appears on a very frequent basis and we read about it in the news. This bill addresses both those two issues.  
The Law and Order Committee gave this bill a good deal of consideration and it was a good process in my view. We made a number of amendments to the bill. I am going to start more or less where the previous speaker Kris Faafoi left off and that is community input into firearms policy. We had a very robust process of people coming into the select committee. We met in Christchurch Auckland and Wellington and a number of the submitters expressed a frustration saying that they would like to have input into the arms licensing regime and that order of activity. The committee did look very closely at the request expressed by the firearms community of establishing a statutory advisory group. That group would include representatives from the New Zealand firearms community whom the police would consult before recommending regulations relating to the designation of military-style semi-automatics. The problem with that was that doing that would limit the scope of the consultation and engagement with the sector and it was felt that perhaps that was a little narrow in scope and that it would be of limited use. So I was very pleased to hear the Minister of Police earlier this evening confirm that the police are actively looking at the establishment of a consultation group that would work on a full range of firearms policy issues. That was indicated to us at the time that we were working with the police on the select committee stage of this bill and it is very encouraging to me to hear that the police are indeed continuing their work on this issue.  
The select committee made a number of changes. We modified the definition of “military style semi-automatic firearm” to provide greater technical accuracy and also legal clarity. It was determined that a very accurate definition of “military style semi-automatic firearm” should be included in the bill not only so that it makes it very clear to police and firearms users what constitutes a military-style semi-automatic but also to futureproof the regulations so that changes in design of military-style semi-automatics could be taken into account under the bill. 
 We made clarifications to the provisions relating to that magazine capacity. Hitherto magazines could be the Rambo-style banana-shaped magazine. This committee is recommending that changes be made to that. Importantly and as I mentioned when I started my speech amendments to the bill make it clear that the new description of “restricted airgun” which will require a permit to import will hopefully tighten up on the incidence of fake airguns being presented to dairy owners and others. Under this bill a permit is not required to import parts for airguns but merely the airguns themselves.  
A number of submitters expressed concerns about changes to clause 11 of the bill to extend the regulation-making powers in section 74 of the principal Act. What the committee has recommended is another layer of parliamentary scrutiny to apply to three of the four proposed regulation-making powers. These are for regulations declaring particular makes and models of firearms or firearms of a stated description to be military-style semi-automatic firearms and regulations declaring particular features of firearms to be features of military-style semi-automatic firearms. An amendment was also recommended to the Arms Regulations 1992 to ensure that licensed dealers keep records of restricted airguns received for sale tightening up on the requirements about airguns.  
The provisions in this bill have been gone through and it was pleasing to see that the Law and Order Committee worked very hard and cooperatively on this bill. I think we have returned to the House an improved bill. It is a bill in good shape and I recommend it to the House.