Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I stand today for the first time in this House to directly address the terrorism targeted at our Muslim community while they were in prayer and peace at the Linwood Islamic Centre and Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch on Friday 15 March. Words cannot heal the utter devastation and loss of Muslim brothers sisters and children—devastation driven by hatred and racism and white supremacy. New Zealand cannot and should not accept thoughts and prayers alone; we need action. Today that action is removing weapons that never should have been in general circulation as was noted by the Minister of Police. Yesterday today tomorrow and for ever more our action must be to investigate our national identity. We must do more than give nothing to racism. We must utterly reject intolerance in all of its forms. We must move beyond mere tolerance as a goal and move instead towards inclusion towards acceptance and towards love. These are the values that we have seen in response to this terrorism that saturate the majority of Aotearoa. They are the values that we need to win but today we act quickly and decisively on guns. It's estimated that there are somewhere between 1.5 million to 2 million guns in Aotearoa New Zealand—that is almost a gun for every second person in this country. But we're not sure exactly how many of these weapons are in New Zealand because we do not have a comprehensive gun register. Presently the only firearms that are registered are pistols military-style semi-automatics (MSSAs) and other restricted weapons. Records show that there are 65000 of these weapons owned by nearly 10000 licensed owners. That's an average of 6.5 high-powered guns owned by each of these people. But importantly these 65000 registered guns are barely a dent in that approximate 2 million or so in this country. That means that in the majority of cases we do not know where these guns are who's using them or how they're used. Between 1990 and 1992 former Minister of Police the Hon John Banks tried to convince his caucus colleagues to get on with reforms to rid the country of semi-automatic weapons after 13 people were killed in an atrocity at Aramoana but political will power faded. Then again more than 20 years ago—in 1997—Parliament received a report commissioned by the Minister of Police telling MPs to create a gun registry and remove MSSAs from general circulation. The Thorp report is a nearly 300-page document of how to fix the loopholes in our gun laws but again Parliament failed. Then two years ago—in 2017—this Parliament received a report this time from the Justice Committee telling us how to fix the problem of too many guns out there with far too little regulation. Again Parliament did not sufficiently act. Our Parliament has been presented with the opportunity to fix these loopholes time and again and the politicians in this place have failed to do so. In the words of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand's Rehanna Ali who came before the select committee on this legislation: Whatever reasons may be brought to bear for not supporting this legislation can never outweigh the 50 reasons we carry with us today."Parliament has been having this debate on these gun law changes since before I was born. In that time weapons have become more deadly and more guns have come into our country. We owe it to our Muslim community to remove the weapons that took the lives of their whānau. We owe it to New Zealand. But we must also act to uproot and remove the evil from our country that took up these deadly weapons. We must look in the mirror. We must use our positions in rooms—whether they are online or in person—that discuss other people's existence as different as not deserving or as lesser to change that behaviour. We are all responsible for change. It will not be delivered by a lone hero. The fine detail of this legislation has been combed over by the Finance and Expenditure Committee that I was fortunate to sit on alongside my colleagues in Government and Opposition. The Greens provided a minority view—[Bell rung] Mr Chair. CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Before I give the member another call I'd like the member—the member has actually spent quite a bit of time speaking about things that are not in the bill and she really needs now to come to what is in the bill. CHLÖE SWARBRICK: I'm to speak to the minority view now Mr Chair. CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Chlöe Swarbrick. CHLÖE SWARBRICK: The Greens provided a minority view in support of the New Zealand Police Association's submission that collector's weapons should be rendered permanently inoperable. I note that the majority of the select committee came to a position to store the operable parts in another location. I accept that this is far better than the status quo and the Greens accept that this is absolutely a step in the right direction but because we would like to see these reforms go further we provided our view in that select committee minority view. This reflects of course the pathway that Australia took in their reforms and it would prevent a potential loophole for import and the increasing circulation of semi-automatic guns. But today we applaud the coming together of the vast majority of this House to pass this first step in critical reform for public safety. There is more to come and indeed more must come. Aroha mai aroha nui e te whānau. Kia ora.[Be loving much love family. Thank you.]"