Coffey TamatiTAMATI COFFEY (Labour—Waiariki): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. This is an exceptional circumstance for an exceptional event. This is something that we don't undertake very lightly. It's been enlightening for me actually to be sitting through the committee as we've listened to the submissions as we've pored over the officials' advice and knowing that we're sitting in a room with people who have been affected by an exceptional event and exceptional circumstances—and we are having to move exceptionally fast.If we want to talk about the swiftness of this legislation let's talk about swiftness because actually it was very swift—the killings that happened in Christchurch on that day. They happened in a very very short time frame and we need to act with swiftness to make sure that those kinds of things don't happen again here in New Zealand. We are lawmakers and that's our job. There is so much that we can't do there is so much that our community needs to do there is so much that others need to do but here in this House we have the ability to regulate who can and cannot own a military-style semi-automatic weapon; and that's exactly what this bill does.Can I acknowledge the work of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on this. Can I acknowledge our Minister of Police the Hon Stuart Nash and the chair of our committee Michael Wood; all of the officials that spent sleepless nights poring over this bill making sure that because we had such a short time frame we were still making the best legislation that we could possibly make. I want to also acknowledge the submitters of which we had a real cross-section of them from around the country—some that were really supportive some that were incredibly unsupportive as well but it was our job to listen to them. I was heartened when I heard Hunting & Fishing Fish & Game Rural Women New Zealand coming to present to us and they said to us that actually from their members' point of view there is no place for military-style semi-automatics in New Zealand.The submission that actually left me contemplating exactly why we're doing this—which kind of reaffirmed why we're doing this despite the quick time frame despite some of the opposition out there—and the submission that really struck me was the one that came from the Mayor of Christchurch Her Worship Lianne Dalziel. It was because she pointed out that this isn't a new conversation; this is actually a very old conversation that's been around for quite some time. She reflected on the time when in 1990 after the Aramoana massacre that happened down in Dunedin there was actually a call at that time to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons. The Minister of Police at the time the Hon John Banks tried to get it through Parliament but it didn't make it because it didn't have the numbers. Here we are in 2019 having exactly the same conversations all over again. She pointed out to us that actually our time was now and we needed to move quickly. So I am going to be incredibly proud to go back to the people that I represent to tell them that we made the best attempt at really good legislation to try and mitigate the impact and the shock that was felt around New Zealand post 15 March.There have been exemptions made throughout the bill—they've been varied and we've also had to drill down into exactly what some of those exemptions are the balance being that we don't want to create exemptions basically for people to all crawl in through so that we don't actually solve the problem through the legislation. So having made exemptions for pest control and for wild animals we've done that. Having made exemptions for people—and I'm unaware of these people but apparently they're out there—that keep these military-style semi-automatic weapons as heirlooms passed down from generation to generation or even mementoes we've done that. The sector that will be disappointed is the sport shooters that go out there and compete at these international events. As some of my colleagues have referred to maybe that can be dealt with at a later stage.I'll leave you with a whakataukī widely used around New Zealand but really apt right here right now. He aha te mea nui i tēnei ao māku e kī atu he tangata he tangata he tangata. [What is the most important thing in this world? I say to you: it is people it is people it is people.]