McKelvie Ian; Williams PotoIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. The events of Friday the 15th have shifted the mood of the Rangitīkei for ever and I can only imagine the profound impact they've had on the people of Christchurch and indeed the rest of New Zealand.I believe all of us probably wish we were not in a position of having to push a piece of legislation like this through the House in such a hurry but I accept that we're at this stage and I think it's necessary we do so. I want to commend Minister Nash on the speech he made at the introduction of this bill because I thought it was a very good summation of where we're at as a country and indeed as a Parliament. I'm proud to be part of a Parliament that can agree on something that's as important as this—and as difficult as this frankly—because this Parliament's never been able to deal with this issue in an easy manner before. In fact I've sat on the select committee that went through an inquiry into a similar issue as this a few years ago and I can imagine many of those submissions will come back to the select committee in the next few days and they will be dealt with in the manner they should be. I certainly support this bill and hope that the short select committee stage can ensure that a piece of legislation is produced that will deal with the manner in the best way we can given the short time frame we've got to do it in. But I note the Government is proposing to bring a further piece of legislation to the House at a later date and I'm sure that will enable them to pick up any issues that I guess come out of the submissions to this bill that aren't included in this bill.I myself hold a firearms licence and went through what I thought was an onerous process of getting it. In fact I've been through it a few times actually as you can probably tell. But it clearly isn't enough because the people that are committing these crimes have also had firearms licences and so I agree with those who've said in the House today that it's indeed a privilege to own a firearm and I think it should be treated as that. I note there are nearly 250000 other New Zealanders who have a firearms licence. There are also 7500 New Zealanders who have what is known as an E-Cat licence. We also know there are about 14200 E-Cat firearms owned in New Zealand. There's a whole lot we don't know about. The people that have got the licences—and we understand the types of guns they have—are not the problem here but it's the unknown number of owners and the unknown number of military-style semi-automatics and the associated parts that are the problem. However in order to clean up the unknown we must also tidy up the known because as has been mentioned a couple of times in the House already today the unknown owners of these guns often acquire them from the known owners of the guns. That is the challenge that we face as a country.I think that the evidence I've seen in my time in Parliament certainly points to the need for this piece of legislation. I don't accept that we need these things for anything other than sporting activities and I'm not sure that that's required either. The problem we've got with them even if they are used for sporting activities is that the security of them is almost impossible to guarantee and I think that's the real challenge we have.I want to just raise a couple of issues very briefly. One is the exemptions and I think once we start in on exemptions we've got to be very careful how we deal with that because there are almost always loopholes in exemptions. So I think that's an area that the select committee will need to pay very close attention to in the next few days.The other area I think is hugely important is the buy-back proposition or provision. Whilst some of that stuff will become known as we go along I think the sooner we have something definite here the better because to achieve a good result from an amnesty we need to be certain of where we're going and I don't think people will participate in that amnesty unless they are certain of where they're going. The quicker the better frankly. I also agree with the number of comments that have been made round those people who have firearms whom we have no record of. The sooner those are dealt with and the more harshly we deal with them the better off the country will be. I'm sure that the legitimate owners of firearms will be much more comfortable with this type of legislation if we clamp down very hard on those people who have no business owning or possessing these firearms.So I commend the bill to the House. I think it's been a good effort to get it this far and I hope the select committee stage can iron out any little difficulties there might be with it. I look forward to it passing. Thank you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand this is a split call. David Seymour you have five minutes.