Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you Mr Chair. I just want to put a few facts as I see them on the record and I do have some questions for the Minister in the chair the Hon Stuart Nash as well. I want to acknowledge the fact that he is standing and taking calls and responding to the questions that are being put to him.I spent the better part of a decade of my own life involved in anti-terrorism operations overseas. As we saw—David Seymour: Undercover.Hon MARK MITCHELL: —maybe I should say preventing terrorist acts overseas." One observation that I made immediately when we saw the tragedy unfolding in Christchurch last year was that without doubt there were going to be red flags that were there in terms of identifying the person involved and the fact that they shouldn't have been able to obtain firearms legally. Now in my mind he probably would have tried other illegal avenues to try and get his hands on black market weapons. But I felt very strongly that there would be red flags there in terms of—and we heard some information come out initially that the gun club where he had actually been going down and using the firearms had flagged up to an agency that they had concerns around the person's mental state. We've now had a retired police officer—and I acknowledge the fact that we don't know whether it's a disgruntled employee or whether it's a police officer and I want to acknowledge their service—that has come forward with a genuine concern around the vetting process and the process that the alleged offender was subjected to in terms of being able to gain access legally to firearms. I would ask the Minister—because I know that the Hon Nick Smith has put this to him several times and I know that he has made an attempt to answer it—are you taking seriously the information that has come forward from this person? They have been a serving police officer. Is the Minister taking some proactive action now in verifying and looking to see whether or not in fact there was a system failure around the vetting? This is critically important.Look the reality of it is that it doesn't matter how good the system is that you have in place; there is always risk of human failure somewhere in it—there's no doubt about that. That leads me to my next question to the Minister which is that in my view even as that tragedy was unfolding—and I know the arms officers in the police have copped a bit of criticism throughout the debate and I acknowledge that because they've got to be held to the highest standards and an arms officer's job is critically important for making sure that that vetting process is done properly and that they are making sure the community is protected from someone of poor character actually getting access to firearms. But I would ask the Minister: what was done in the 24 hours to 48 hours afterwards by the Government—by himself as Minister and the Government—to analyse and look at the process and what had gone on and to react quickly to make sure that there was a response to make sure that the country wasn't put into a situation similar to that in the following 48 to 72 hours? Because we know historically if you look around the world copycat attacks can very quickly follow an act like that.So I'm very interested to hear from the Minister what the Government's response was initially and what has led them to bring this legislation into the House because by bringing this legislation into the House you would have to assume that the Government and the Minister have actually discovered that there were weaknesses in the system. That's what you're saying. You're saying that by bringing this legislation into the House there were weaknesses in the system—what were they? What were the weaknesses? What was highlighted in the review that you should have immediately undertaken within hours of the tragedy starting to unfold? What were the weaknesses that were highlighted? Why has the Government responded in the way that they have?We haven't supported it. I'll tell you why: because to be honest with you I don't think that the real threat to this country and the safety of our citizens lies in law-abiding sport shooters that belong to firearms clubs—I just don't. I don't think the risk to our people and to this country lies in people that are undertaking pest management and eradication—I just don't. I feel very strongly that the threat to our nation to our people and to the public is from organised crime and gangs.I was in Taradale late last year where gangs had firearms on the street and we averted just by good luck rather than good management a tragedy—[Time expired]"