Rurawhe AdrianARMS (FIREARMS PROHIBITION ORDERS) AMENDMENT BILL (NO 2)Second ReadingHon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) on behalf of Simeon Brown: I move That the Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.The purpose of this member's bill is to prevent the most dangerous gang members from accessing firearms. And in that regard I would like to think and I hope—and I believe actually—that is a purpose supported by all members in this House. No one certainly can deny what a problem—what a crisis in fact—this issue is. We have violence and shootings in New Zealand every other day. You only have to pick up any day's paper and you will see the visceral harm and evidence of that harm of the violence and the shootings. What's more it's also undeniable now—and people used to mock this from the National Party—that that violence and those shootings are disproportionately from gangs and gang members.So what will this bill do? It will empower the Commissioner of Police to issue firearms prohibition orders against gang members with two requirements: where they are convicted in the last decade of serious violence domestic violence or firearms offending and where the commissioner considers it in the public interest to ensure that the gang member doesn't possess a firearm. The bill does a set of other important things including that a person subject to a firearms prohibition order or a gang member then can no longer have a firearm have access to a firearm or be around them—say at a gang pad or indeed anywhere else for that matter.Now at the select committee a number of good suggestions were made. The committee has recommended a series of amendments which I think turn this from—as is the case with most members' bills—a member's bill with a few flaws into one actually that is fit for purpose and very much not only worthy but urgently in need of passing. One issue is of some controversy that of search powers and the Police Association came along and they told us—and I thought their submission made perfect sense—that it is clear that for this law to work and to be effective search powers and the greatest warrantless search powers are needed. Now of course that will be a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act but there is a countervailing issue very much on the other side of the ledger that I say—and I think reasonable New Zealanders would understand—means that we need those search powers in this law and that's safety. That's the need to ensure that New Zealanders aren't harmed by people with guns and more particularly by gang members with guns given that the evidence is clear about the proliferation of those guns and their violence. National is and indeed I am on the side of the safety of New Zealanders unequivocally in that regard.The reality is this: Labour is going to use its majority to vote down this bill and I say to this House I say to New Zealanders watching that is a tragedy and it will have tragic consequences. See that violence and those shootings every other day are disproportionately by gangs and sooner or later mark my words an innocent person will be killed in those shootings. We've seen Constable Matthew Hunt a brave young man in the line of duty killed by gang people with guns in West Auckland. And I note that and the tragedy of it and his brave service. But there will be civilians that will be killed as well if we don't act. I just note that the first report to the first police Minister of this Labour Government four years ago made clear the need for firearms prohibition orders. Nothing has been done but recently the Government has said the Labour Party has said it will introduce firearms prohibition order law soon—I think I'm right in saying before the end of the year. But the problem with that is this: this law is needed now. This is an urgent issue right now—in fact it was last week it was the month before it was six months before it was a year before—as the gangs and guns and the violence and the shootings and the harms have increased and increased exponentially in this country.This bill with the amendments recommended would as I've said be a fit-for-purpose bill and given the urgency I ask Labour to pass it in this House—given that as I understand it they are not going to. Actually the only reason I can see for them not to—certainly the primary reason that I can see for Labour not to pass this law—and I regret to say this has to be politics and playing politics. And I say actually New Zealanders—many New Zealanders—have had a job done on them where they think that Jacinda Ardern's Labour Government actually doesn't do politics. They're holier than thou; everything's nice! It's a very political Government and it's basically only politics that will see this law that everyone should be behind defeated today in this Parliament. I say that with sorrow because there's no primary big reason that I can see why the Labour members wouldn't vote for this bill given they're going to do substantially the same thing at a later time but don't want to see the fine member Simeon Brown get the credit for it. I note actually just in that regard in the remaining minutes they wouldn't give full police advice to the committee. They want to pass their own law they say they support this but they wouldn't actually be involved with finding the answer in this bill.Look actually the other conclusion I come to regrettably again is that Labour for whatever reason has a blind spot a soft spot when it comes to gangs and that seems to be a motivation on this bill too. And if members over there—they're very quiet. The reality is Willie Jackson Marama Davidson—actually other members of that Government—are meeting regularly with gangs. They are soft on gangs. And as David Seymour was saying just before we've seen it in this age of COVID where everyone else gets prosecuted and warned by the Government. Anyone who has any kind of meeting with more than a few people ends up getting seen by the police and dealt with by the police. Anyone crossing borders—well they're not allowed and if they do they get dealt with and prosecuted by the police. But there's one group in New Zealand where there seems to be no consequences whatever and who are they? They're patched gang members in this country—actually the people it seems on the evidence quite clearly who are spreading COVID-19 across the borders in Auckland through into Waikato and the King Country up North and also seem to be the only people who aren't being named by the Government and shamed on the TV news I might add. So we've seen they're soft on gangs and COVID and we've seen they're soft on gangs in this bill.I want to make these final couple of points. I just also want to note in relation to guns the concern I always had and National always had with what Labour has done in gun reform in the last small number of years—with the buy-back scheme the register and so on—and it is that all they'll do is get at the good people the law-abiding people who comply with the law anyway and they've taken plenty of their guns and then end up doing nothing about the multitude of illegal guns held by gangs in this country. And we see that with this bill today actually. They're happy to sock it to pistol clubs and anyone else with historic rifles but they won't do a single thing when it comes to gangs. [Interruption] Four years Poto Williams and this Government has done nothing when it comes to gangs and guns.Finally I want to commend the member who has brought this bill to the House who's worked very hard on it very diligently the MP for Pakuranga Simeon Brown. He's someone unlike the Hon Poto Williams who actually is prepared to face up to the problem we have with gangs in New Zealand with their drug peddling with their thuggery and with the proliferation—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired. The question is that the motion be agreed to.