Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Well goodness gracious me. I mean normally new MPs come to Parliament with a bit of humbleness. They come in with a bit of respect for the institution and respect for people who've gone before but that speech is a perfect demonstration of why that member will be a one-term MP only. I mean the arrogance displayed from the Government in response to this bill is quite extraordinary. The member who just spoke says the bill was a day late and a dollar short—the chutzpah of that member.This Government has now been in for going on four years—in fact it's ticked over four years. For four years this Government has been promising firearms prohibition orders. One of the first things Stuart Nash did when he became the Minister of Police in 2017 was he issued a very ill-advised press release which was that the Government the Labour - New Zealand First Government was going to smash the gangs. And when he became the police Minister it was all about going after organised crime going after the gangs. Smash the gangs is what he said they were going to do and he said that they were going to introduce firearm prohibition orders because what the member who just spoke doesn't realise is that there is a history to this issue.So if you go all the way back to 2017 and the inquiry from the then Law and Order Committee into firearms in New Zealand that bipartisan committee recommended that firearms prohibition orders be introduced. That went to Paula Bennett National campaigned in 2017 on introducing firearms prohibition orders. Obviously we lost the election the Government changed. Stuart Nash says we're all going to do it. So we put a bill in the ballot and it was actually originally back in 2018 in my name. The bill got pulled it came up for its first reading and we said to the Government Righty-ho put your money where your mouth is. Here's a bill. Back your words with actions. Vote for the bill." They voted it down. OK fair enough. New Government they wanted to take some advice. And do you know what the excuse was then? Literally exactly the same language as Emily Henderson used which is "This bill's inadequate but we've got a good one coming just wait."That was in 2018. Here we are there's only been another election that's happened in the meantime. In fact we're a year after the election—almost at the tail-end of 2021 and what are Labour MPs saying? "Oh this bill's inadequate. We don't like this bill but don't worry there's a bill coming." Well we're yet to see it. So for Emily Henderson to stand up and say this bill's a day late when this Government's had four years to introduce a bill and get it to the committee is brazen.So my bill was defeated in 2018. April 2019 we had another attempt because people will remember there was the Christchurch attacks and Parliament moved very quickly to reform firearms legislation. And I wrote to Stuart Nash and Simon Bridges wrote to Jacinda Ardern at the time and we said "While you're having a go at sporting shooters"—because we all agreed that we wanted to take the semiautomatic high-powered weapons out of the hands of New Zealanders everyone agreed on that but the bill went too far in terms of sporting shooters and things like that. So we said "Look while you're having a go at the hunting community and the sports shooting community why don't you have a go at the gangs at the same time? So have a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). Here's our firearms prohibition regime drafted by the National Party. Take it. Insert it as an SOP into the firearms bill going through the Parliament." So that was a very sensible suggestion. It was done in the spirit of bipartisanship and good faith. The Government said no. OK fair enough.Then 2020 rolls around and the bill gets pulled again. This time it's in the hands of Brett Hudson—now it's in the hands of Simeon Brown. And this time around New Zealand First—I think they could sense what was happening towards the election time—sends it off to select committee. The Government wasn't very happy about it but there was nothing they could do about it. So the bill goes off to select committee with National and New Zealand First and it's sat there ever since. And the depressing thing about Emily Henderson's speech is that the bill's been at the committee since July 2020. It got pulled in February 2020 it's been there since July so it's over a year now. The bill sat at the committee and the committee as I understand it has worked hard under the chairwomanship of Ginny Andersen now and whoever the chair was prior to the election—they've worked hard to improve the bill. They've taken extensive advice is my understanding—I'm no longer a member of the committee—and they've improved the bill. There's been a bunch of changes made to the bill. The committee's worked hard on it. And here it comes back we think the bill's in decent shape to advance it to try and improve things substantively for the country for all the reasons that my colleague Simon Bridges raises in terms of the impact of gangs on our community and now we discover that the Labour Party which has a Government majority is going to vote against it.It's just frankly aggravating. And it would be OK if—well it would be more tolerable I suppose if the Government had a bill before the House on the Order Paper that was about to come up or had it had already been sent to the committee; that would sort of be understandable but they don't. All we have is a press release from Kris Faafoi. And isn't it funny everything that the Government stuffs up in the justice space has Kris Faafoi's fingerprints all over it these days: hate speech conversion therapy now this regime—the firearms regime. But anyway all we have is a press release from Kris Faafoi and Minister Poto Williams saying there's a bill coming. Well literally the Government has been issuing press releases and media statements about firearms prohibition orders for four years now.I just did a quick Google search of police Minister and firearms prohibition orders and every time this bill gets talked about or the issue gets talked about it's really interesting. Normally what happens is the Labour backbench insult the whole idea. They talk about human rights and they talk about warrantless searches and they talk about how the bill's an affront and we can't possibly tolerate it and then halfway through their speech they suddenly realise that they're actually meant to be at least in favour theoretically of the concept so they kind of start changing their mind and say "Oh but it's just the way this one's drafted. We don't like this particular version of the bill." Even though as I say the committee's actually improved this.So it's aggravating because this Government has had four years to do something about firearms prohibition orders and it's not there. And Emily Henderson says "I don't think this issue can be boiled down to a single issue." and she is particularly upset that the bill as drafted by Simeon Brown focuses on gangs. Well the interesting thing about the press release her own colleagues issued Kris Faafoi and Poto Williams is it's all about gangs. So the Government's own reason for being in favour of firearms prohibition orders is to take guns off gangs. So Emily Henderson might not like the fact that this bill just focuses on gangs but the Government itself recognises that they are a big issue. I quote from the press release: "[We've got] to combat the influence of gangs and organised crime to help keep New Zealanders … safe." Well we completely agree. And the reality is Simon Bridges is completely right: it's just raw politics here. This is not a decision made with anything other than politics in mind; it's as simple as that. The bill is in good shape the bill has gone through a select committee process—Hon Poto Williams: No it wasn't that's the point. It's not in great shape.CHRIS BISHOP: Well the Minister says the bill's not in great shape. Well I invite the Minister to do some work for once and introduce a bill that the Government's been purportedly working on for four years. I will take seriously what the Minister says about this bill when the Government introduces their own bill seriously. I will take seriously their complaints about it when they actually put their money where their mouth is and introduce their own legislation.I mean you sometimes—Hon Scott Simpson: Until then it's a Tui's ad.CHRIS BISHOP: Until then it's a Tui's ad.Hon Member: Take a call Poto.CHRIS BISHOP: Well we look forward to the Minister taking a call—looking forward to the Minister taking a call on it.But the reality is under this Government as Greg O'Connor knows so well because I've read his first reading—Hon Simon Bridges: He'd be all right as police Minister.CHRIS BISHOP: He would be all right as police Minister. I read his first reading speech on my legislation back in 2018 and Greg O'Connor talks at length with great verbosity about his time in the police and how bad gangs are and how it's really important we crack down on the gangs—we've got to take guns off the gangs gangs are an affront to a dignified society and a civilised country and I agree with Greg O'Connor. And the sad thing is he's a member of a Government that has spent four years doing basically nothing about the gangs and now we have gang membership and gang violence out of control. Gang membership's increased more than 50 percent under this Government and the Government doesn't like being told about gang membership exploding because they say of the National Gang List which is publicly available official data—that we're not allowed to use it and we've even got the Police Commissioner saying we shouldn't publish it which is just crazy. So now we have 8000 gang members—the highest number of gang members ever—and they didn't hand back the guns during the two amnesties. They didn't hand back the guns then they'll never give back the guns. In fact they're on the record publicly saying they're not going to give back the guns. The only alternative is for Parliament to pass legislation with teeth to make sure that the police can go and take them off them. This is a step forward. It's a shame the Government doesn't agree."