Bayly Andrew; Rurawhe AdrianANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a privilege to be talking on the Arms (Prohibited Firearms Magazines and Parts) Amendment Bill. Sometimes it's important that Parliament comes together to make changes and this is such a time. But in doing so with this particular bill there's a fine line to protect New Zealanders from the unlawful use of military-style semi-automatics (MSSAs) and SAs or semi-automatics and yet the need to recognise the rights of law-abiding citizens to own guns and to use them safely. This bill is about striking that balance.Before just talking about certain elements I just want to acknowledge other members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee and also the officials that worked with us over the long weekend particularly the officials from the New Zealand Police who did a wonderful job in helping us to get through this process.Firstly I'd just like to talk about some of the progress that was made with the bill. The first bit was around the issue of heirloom and memento firearms. This is one change that the committee didn't make: to provide a narrow exemption to allow those people who possess firearms and magazines that would normally be prohibited under this Act—bill at the moment—that has special significance for that person or perhaps the family. It should be noted that the Arms Act at present provides for this dispensation.In looking at this we were persuaded that this is a category that needed to be protected but have put in place some specific rules around it—namely when the police came to assess an application under this category first of all what type of firearm was deemed to be of heirloom or memento; secondly the nature of the applicant themselves; and thirdly the significance of the event that they were claiming was important to make it an heirloom or a memento. But we also added another test—a general test—which was one around the reasonableness clause: was it reasonable or is that application in the particular case reasonable? And I think those bits together provided a good exemption in the power for the police to have regard and be sensitive to the needs of family but also to be able to decline people if they thought they were inappropriate.The other issue was around the issue of pest control. This was an issue that was widely discussed by the committee. The initial thought was that pest control and the use of semi-automatics should be dealt with on conservation land and we're talking specifically about pests such as tahr as an example or Canadian geese. At one stage it was thought that maybe this provision should be extended to farmers many of who are on high country farms who have the problem of large-scale pests. We looked at the option of whether in fact some of those farmers should have a specific dispensation. But the committee in the end backed away from that and the proposed approach which is now incorporated in the bill is that only an agency whose primary objective is in the business of undertaking pest control services should have the right to use semi-automatics to deal with those pests.Now there's still the issue of farmers and I noted the Minister of Police in his opening address on this bill noted this as a possible area where it might be reconsidered in the second round of change. But I would note that one of the arguments that we did discuss was that relying on pest agencies to undertake this operation is impractical if it's merely relying on a few agencies to do that work because often there's only a very small critical period of time when those activities can be undertaken. But it doesn't preclude farmers actually joining together and creating such an entity that might work in a collaborative way but still be subject to the stringent tests and criteria in order to be able to be granted an exemption under this bill.Where we were unsuccessful—and I say that from a National Party perspective—is around the issue of competition shooters to use semi-automatics as part of their competitions. Personally I disagreed with where the committee has ended up. The submissions by Pistol New Zealand and Sport New Zealand were very very comprehensive. I think people don't realise and probably don't have proper appreciation of the requirements to be able to get a pistol licence—namely that it requires an applicant to attend a pistol club for at least six months before they are even allowed to have a pistol and to thereafter be subject to a minimum of 12 months visiting a pistol club and to be subject to stringent tests and vetting by police. Our view is that that model could have easily been adopted for competition shooters.And the other point I'd make about competition shooters is that in my experience these are people who are highly skilled are very small in number—who actually undertake this activity—and are very specialised and have a very deep concern about safety but are professionals—absolute professionals—in undertaking their sport or in some cases their profession.I think where we've ended up—that these people must only practise with a .22 semi-automatic when in fact they do use higher calibre rifles to practise—I was not persuaded by. But I am heartened that the Government has talked about maybe reviewing this at stage two and I would urge them to because under the pistol arrangements that provides a very easy model to adapt and one that's been very successful.The final point I want to turn my talk towards is the issue of amnesty. As the bill sets out there's an initial six-month amnesty period to 30 September 2019. Now it is illogical to be requiring people to surrender their weapons—effectively from Thursday this week—without any clarity as to the financial arrangements for surrendering those weapons.One of the very important submitters was actually the chief of staff to the Minister in New South Wales responsible for the buy-back scheme. He was a very good submitter to our committee. When we asked him—in fact I asked him—about the question about the level of remuneration it was a crucial aspect in terms of leading to the success of that buy-back scheme. Without clarity around that that is an important illogical step at the moment. We asked the Minister during the process of the committee hearing for a further explanation and confirmation about when he might promulgate new regulations but he was not in a position to provide that. It is absolutely essential that law-abiding people in New Zealand—who are currently law-abiding until this Act is passed tomorrow—who bought these weapons should have absolute clarity as to what the buy-back provisions are of those weapons if we are to ensure that this buy-back proceeds quickly and actually gets all the weapons out of circulation that we are all so keen to see happen. So I'd urge the Minister to do that very quickly.But I take the opportunity to thank my colleagues. I think we did a good job in working through these very crucial and at times quite difficult topics.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call—five minutes.