SpeechSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much. Look it feels like Groundhog Day—it's the same excellent people speaking in almost the same order but it's a different bill. This is the Criminal Activity Intervention Legislation Bill second reading. And in many ways we could just copy and paste from Hansard my contribution to the previous bill—which would probably confuse a few people—but by and large it accords to me that this is some good steps in the right direction. Police are calling out for more tools particularly to target gangs. This is making some steps but personally I'd prefer that we'd be running much faster and stronger. It's good in some ways. Yes there are more constabulary powers to seize money if they find $10000 or more in the back of a car. At current inflation that won't be much at all—sorry a very bad joke—but there are some good elements there. The firearms one: yes it does sound good; it does seem appropriate. But again Nicole McKee has hit it quite well if one can hit something to do with firearms—that's a whole different kettle of fish. That member probably could. But no the long and short: the Arms Act already covers a lot of this so are we just repeating things? So there is a certain element on this side of the House who while we support the bill think that it's just a bit of a veneer over things. I mean even the whole notion of discharging a firearm in order to intimidate—yeah I mean of course that's appropriate. But by and large 99 percent of the time when you discharge a firearm in a public place you are attempting to intimidate. There are some questions around how a gang conflict is going to be determined to exist. I know I've raised that a few times in the select committee wanting to be absolutely clear that there's no ambiguity and that when multiple gangs are gathering it doesn't matter if it's Mount Maunganui or in Tāmaki or wherever it's really clear and the judges can't—I don't know—try to find some way to sidestep around it. So I think the bill is doing OK in this space and I suppose that's the overall sentiment I'm wanting to give with this somewhat incoherent speech—and it's only a Tuesday night. Ultimately these are some good steps but they could go a lot further and much much stronger so it's something that I suspect we will revisit into the future. But I would certainly say to my constituents and those following this: don't be completely fooled by this bill. In many ways I think it's just casting a bit of a veneer over things. My last thoughts are actually to turn to what the Green Party member was raising. A little bit again like the last speech they were saying Hey look this bill could cause harm to some people's families in that if the car was taken the kids couldn't get to school." and so forth. Yes I mean that could be a reality for some but again that is making excuses for behaviours. First and foremost if those engaged in criminal activity are smuggling cash or discharging firearms into the public do you know what? They should think about that including the fact that they can't take their children to school if they're going to lose their car. The responsibility sits with the criminal not society as to be doing backflips to make excuses for them. People—individuals—need to take responsibility for their actions and we will end up in a very strange position if we attempt to excuse away everybody's actions because ultimately if that was the case—and I think the Green Party is pushing it—all of us could get up to all sorts of mischief criminal or otherwise and then just explain it away with a whole lot of circumstances in our lives and that's not how it should operate. So I appreciate the Green Party raising that but actually it's the responsibility of those undertaking criminal activities to first and foremost think about their families and the consequences. Ultimately we spend a lot of time in this House—rightly—creating legal consequences for those who choose to break behaviours and cause us harm. So I'm happy rather than pleased to support this bill to the House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Tangi Utikere—five minutes."