Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It's an honour for me to stand and take a call in the House this afternoon too. Can I take the opportunity again to pay tribute and send our thoughts to our Muslim community in Christchurch and those that are still trying to recover from their injuries. Can I acknowledge the Christchurch-based MPs as well who have stood up and provided enormous support and leadership at an extremely difficult time for us as a nation.What tends to happen when there's a tragedy like this and we've seen it in our country is the nation rallies and it comes around those that need support but the real testing time is in the coming weeks and months. Can I just make a commitment to those in Christchurch to our Muslim community that this Parliament is going to remain 100 percent focused on making sure that we do everything that we can to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again in New Zealand.Can I acknowledge the police Minister the Hon Stuart Nash and the work that he's done in putting this legislation together as quickly as he could and bringing it to the House. Can I acknowledge him and the leadership that he's provided as our Minister of Police through what's been an extremely trying time for us as well.I personally believe there is no need to have military-style weapons in New Zealand other than for the exemptions that we'll see. Obviously for our law enforcement our police and our New Zealand Defence Force it's part of their equipment. It's a tool that they need but I just do not see the need for everyday Kiwis to have a military-style weapon in their house. I fully support the legislation and the intent behind this in making sure that we don't have military-style weapons in our homes.Can I just talk very quickly about the magazine capacity because this is something that I felt very strongly about. The type of terror attack that we witnessed relies basically on two things. It relies on time—the person having as much time as possible to do as much damage as possible—and the capacity to do that. In an attack like this the capacity to do that lies quite simply in the capacity or the number of rounds that can be passed through the weapon and so restricting that capacity just makes perfect sense in terms of being able to restrict or prevent the type of tragedy with the number of casualties and the number of deaths that we witnessed in Christchurch.An in-built magazine simply means that the person takes much longer to reload the weapon and it's restricted by the number of rounds that can actually be put into the weapon whereas a detachable magazine can be bought online. You can buy—I think one of the previous speakers referred to it—a tumbler magazine with up to 120 rounds. So basically with a semi-automatic weapon you can fire as many rounds as quickly as your finger can move. So I think that the intent of the bill around reducing and restricting magazine and load capacity is a very important part of this bill. I fully—100 percent—support it.Just lastly can I comment on the gangs because it has been raised in the House today as well. Can I again acknowledge the Minister who came out very strongly against gangs this week and the fact that they were flouting the authority that this Parliament has that this country has and that our police service has by saying that they're not going to observe the legislation that this Parliament is passing. I 100 percent support taking the strongest possible line that we can against gangs. It's no secret how I feel about gangs. I had a lot to do with them in my 14 years in law enforcement here and another 10 years overseas. There is nothing good about gangs. There is no upside to being a member of a gang. There's no upside for our community in which these gangs operate.In my time I saw men in gangs who did actually have some leadership capability who actually weren't completely evil—but why do they choose to wear a patch? A patch sends a message to the community of one thing: the fact that they've been prepared to commit violent crime to earn the right to wear that patch. I find it highly offensive. I think that as a nation over decades we have tried the best that we can to take these gangs on. I think we have had some success at the fringes. For me personally I'm hoping that this presents us with an opportunity now as a Parliament and as a Government with a Minister that's showing that he's willing to take a stand against them to actually start dialling it up a bit to actually start developing some legislation that will give the police the powers that they need to really go after these guys. Not just the military-style weapons but the sawn-off shotguns or the converted .22s or the handguns that they procure illegally—yep there is an issue there of course. The ones that are procured illegally and operate outside our regulations present a whole different challenge but let's go for it. Let's start to put pressure on these guys. Let's start to get meaningful. Let's start to make sure that our police have got the equipment they've got the intelligence they've got the resources and they've got the backing of this Parliament. They've got the backing of the Minister and Cabinet and the Prime Minister to actually start applying genuine real pressure on organised crime in New Zealand. I've had three people come to me in the last six weeks with video footage showing that the gangs are starting to control the Auckland CBD and that they're carrying and using weapons more and more. It's time to send a message to the gangs and say You don't run the town. Actually we do." Can I acknowledge my own police area commander Mark Fergus who was in my office a fortnight ago for the regular contact that we have. You may know him. He also heads up the disaster victim identification unit. Hon Grant Robertson: I went to school with him. Hon MARK MITCHELL: Oh you went to school with him yeah? He's an outstanding police area commander with a real heart for our community and I want to acknowledge my local police service who do an outstanding job. We had a gang. Admittedly it was a youth gang but it was still dedicated to committing crime and creating havoc in the community. The police area commander decided that he'd use every resource available to him to apply pressure to them to make sure that they could disrupt dismantle and effectively drive the gang out—it was actually up on Whangaparāoa Peninsula—and that did mean using every tool available to him. It can be done. So I just want to support the Minister of Police and the comments that he made in the last 48 hours around applying pressure to gangs. You've got our full support on that but we want to go harder. We want to dial it up. We want to actually start making some meaningful change in terms of how we can start to reduce drive out and get rid of gangs and organised crime in New Zealand. Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker."