Mark RonHon RON MARK (NZ First): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. Well it gives me great pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to indicate to the House that we will not be supporting this bill. To give some reasons and some rationale behind it let me take a moment to traverse a little bit of firearms legislative history so that we have a better understanding of what this is about and why New Zealand First objects to it. When I first came to this House in 1996 there was an Arms Amendment Bill (No 2) on the floor. That sought to impose through various mechanisms—under the guise of keeping New Zealanders safer and protecting them from gangs—to actually restrict the rights of legitimate firearms owners who were fit and proper people who had been investigated by the police and deemed by the police to be fit and proper people. Many of these people were international shooters who represented this nation honourably and with distinction. That bill was finally trashed by the select committee after a lot of hard work by New Zealand First supported by—and I will give credit to—the then ACT MP Stephen Franks.In 2005 or around that period we had the Arms Amendment Bill (No 3) brought up by the then Labour Government. Working with Simon Power from National we managed—New Zealand First—to keep that bill off the floor of this House for three years. Why? Because the bill was rubbish.After all the rhetoric over 2005 and 2008 when National Government came into Government what did they do? They passed it. Still to this day legitimate firearms owners are crying foul as to the impact that it had on them. Was National interested? No—totally disinterested. In 2008 National came into power and passed it. Between 2008 and 2017 police under National were allowed to exercise unprecedented judgment of their own right on regulations associated with all manner of things pertaining to firearms licensing storage and importation. Many of these changes implemented carte blanche by police were once again decried by the legitimate firearms community as afoul. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can the member please address the bill in front of the House. Interesting history—Hon RON MARK: Yes. As I said—DEPUTY SPEAKER: An interesting history Mr Mark—Hon RON MARK: Point of order.DEPUTY SPEAKER: No no. I am actually speaking. Could you come to the topic of the bill.Hon RON MARK: Yeah I'm coming to that Madam Deputy Speaker.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Good.Hon RON MARK: The point is that we have had successive pieces of legislation and this bill reflects the same misguided nonsense where the speaker proposing the bill proclaims to be doing so to protect the public at large but when one delves into the bill one sees first that this has unintended consequences on legitimate firearms owners.I'll give you an example. So this bill makes it an offence by Uncle Ron" who takes into his charge a nephew who has been involved with a gang in a city—because the whānau decide that they're going to send the nephew to live with "Uncle Ron" who's going to take him out deerstalking and pig hunting teach him about firearms get him into mountain climbing get him into tramping to turn his life around. But because this bill makes it an offence for "Uncle Ron" to allow the young man to hold a .303 and shoot a deer "Uncle Ron" won't do it.Hon Mark Mitchell: Don't send him to "Uncle Ron".Hon RON MARK: We have many many—ironically Mr Mitchell—good programmes championed by the former Government in that space that actually sought to decriminalise and get young men out of that lifestyle of crime and into doing something productive and something constructive and adjusting the way in which they see life and adjusting their respect for firearms and firearms law and eventually getting them licensed as firearms owners. This bill seeks to make a criminal out of those instructors—many of whom are ex-police Mr Mitchell; ex-police and ex-military—who have every reason and every qualification to be involved with these young people. But oh no! These people are beyond redemption!This bill Mr Mitchell does not attack the most dangerous; it attacks everybody. Worst of all Mr Mitchell when I hear the assurances that the police commissioner will sign off on a warrant or on a search of a house without a warrant I only have to point to one thing. I was one of the MPs who stood up in this House and stood by the police decision in the Ureweras because I trusted the police. I trusted the police to do their job properly. What did I see in the last term of the National Government? The National Government Ministers apologising to Māori for the raid on the Ureweras. So Mr Mitchell how do I as a New Zealand First MP—DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member's time has expired—the time has expired."