McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a pleasure to take a call on this very important bill I think for New Zealand the Arms (Prohibited Firearms Magazines and Parts) Amendment Bill and I'll touch on the parts a little later in the course of my address. I'd point out at the beginning of this that I am a licensed owner of a firearm. In other words I have a licence so I've got some competence.But I want to touch briefly on the history of this process initially because I sat through the previous inquiry into the acquisition of firearms by gangs basically in the last Parliament. The thing that I noticed about this bill was that the submissions to it were of a very different tone than the submissions some three years ago and a lot of them were from the very same organisations. I think that points to a very good reason for this bill passing through the Parliament now. I think the country's moved on and we realise as a country and as a Parliament that action is needed.The biggest risk I think in the course of this bill—and this was pointed out in the last inquiry as well—is that we'll extract the guns from the law-abiding New Zealanders and not the rest. I think that's a challenge that this Parliament and our police forces have got to address in the future because it's all very well to extract these dangerous firearms or unwanted firearms from those people who have throughout their history been law-abiding but we've got to find a way of extracting the rest of those guns that are sitting out in New Zealand and that are highly illegal and highly dangerous. That view of course has been reinforced by one or two of those members in the last few weeks and we need to take some action on that.I want to having got through that comment on one or two other parts of the bill and I know my colleague Chris Bishop has already commented on the amnesty. I've got some issues with the amnesty—not with the fact we've got an amnesty; I think it's admirable but more so with the buy-back and the time that we've got to initiate this in which is I understand prior to 30 September. If we don't get this into action very quickly we're going to struggle to get much action in the time that that amnesty has allowed because I don't think we'll see many people handing guns in until they have some certainty around where that buy-back gets to and how those guns are actually stored and recorded until such time as they're paid out for them. So I'd urge the Government to get this in place very quickly as uncertainty will lead to a whole lot more challenges for this sector. I think if it's not dealt with quickly it could even lead to some guns going underground and that's the last thing we want to do. I also urge that that buy-back be extended to gun dealers because there will be a large number of gun dealers in New Zealand who will be significantly out of pocket as a result of this bill and we've got to understand that before this bill was instigated they were perfectly legal law-abiding business operators in this country. We can't see them out of pocket as a result of a piece of legislation however necessary put through this Parliament and I urge the Government to move quickly on that as well. The sporting use issue will be touched on by plenty of my colleagues I'm sure.I want to go now to the issue that Federated Farmers raised. I think it's fair to say that this bill has gone through Parliament with breakneck or lightning speed by any standard and I wish to compliment the officials the committee staff and my colleagues on the Finance and Expenditure Committee for getting through such a large amount of work and such a difficult and technical amount of work in such a short time. The role and the method by which this bill was put through Parliament will inevitably lead to things as they do when they're done in a hurry being missed out. There'll be some misunderstandings and there will inevitably be some mistakes made in the course of this. I was pleased to read today that the next tranche or next piece of legislation will not be far away from this Parliament because that will give us an opportunity to review any omissions and matters that have inadvertently been misunderstood and I think that's a great opportunity for us to put right anything that we've currently got wrong.But going back to the Federated Farmers issue I think that they had an issue—as was pointed out by the previous speaker Michael Wood—particularly in the high country of New Zealand with species that are very difficult to control and very quick to escape when under threat. I think that it's important that we think about this in a broader context in the future because if you look at what happened with the Department of Conservation (DOC) the last time they were given an opportunity I guess to assist New Zealand in a cull and you go back to the days of the initial TB outbreaks—and a lot of that TB came out of the conservation estate—we saw DOC very retardant in its duty in my view with respect to eliminating the country of that pest or helping to eliminate the country of those TB-infected stoats and possums etc.We could see the same thing in this case because a large amount of privately held land is adjacent to DOC land and while DOC have a licence to effectively cull and exterminate pests the neighbours don't and if DOC don't carry out their role in a reasonable manner it's going to inevitably spread into that country next door to them and by the action we've taken in this bill where it is not impossible for farmers to acquire contractors to assist them—they can do that but they can't do it themselves. I think that's something that we'll need to review in the future but we also need to ensure that DOC and the regional councils and those agencies that are capable of carrying out pest control using these excluded weapons are able to do so in a manner that's useful to the country and useful to their neighbours.Our minority view also goes on to talk about the principles of the legislation and some issues that will inevitably be I guess traversed as we go a little further along. I want to touch on one of those and that's the firearms prohibition orders. Those were recommended both in the last report and in the course I understand of the full report. That would assist us with the issue that I raised earlier and that is of the illegal guns that have gone underground and will be very difficult to I guess get out and eliminate from society. So we need to make sure that if that's not included in the bill or included in future bills it is certainly enforced by our law enforcement agencies because it will create significant unrest in New Zealand society.The other issue I want to touch on is one that I think will be a concern to all—and I've got a considerable concern about it—and that is the publicity given to the amnesty and the actual law changes themselves. As strange as it may seem many New Zealanders take very little notice of what goes on in Parliament and many New Zealanders take very little notice of the law we put in place until it affects them and they know it affects them. I'm talking now about things like magazines that are lying in drawers in people's houses because they inevitably will be because there's no compulsion to store them in locked secure places. They'll be lying around properties all over New Zealand and people will inadvertently unless we advertise and promote this law extensively and the amnesty extensively find these things and they'll be sitting in their properties and under this law they could be subject to two to 10 years' imprisonment—I think it's 10—for that kind of possession. Now I'm sure there'll be a lot of people in New Zealand who inadvertently hold these things who certainly will hand the firearm in but won't hand the magazine in because they'll have forgotten all about it. That's just an example of what I think could happen.So I'd urge the Government when they get on to this in the next week or two to make sure the promotion of the amnesty and the legislation and the pieces that are caught up in that legislation are broadly publicised because there will be many gun owners in New Zealand who have pulled things to bits whose family members have pulled things to bits in the past and left them lying around in various places and they certainly aren't dangerous without the firearms to use them. I think it's important that we make sure that's well promoted and that information is made accessible to everyone. We were assured during the select committee stage that it would be put out through all sorts of gun agencies firearms clubs and things like that and I hope it is.I do want to congratulate all those who submitted on it. I had like many of you I guess many people approach me in the last couple of weeks about this piece of legislation. Most of them interestingly whilst they were I think a little aggravated about what they believe to be some sort of human right being taken from them were very satisfied with the fact that we actually were banning something they felt wasn't necessary in New Zealand society at all. I think it's just the principle of this thing that gets people's backs up a little initially. I think they will mostly get over it. So I want to congratulate the select committee. I want to congratulate the Parliament on where we've got to with this and there will be some more discussion in the next couple of days before it passes into law. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.