Mark Ron: Arms Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
Mark Ron: Arms Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:19784] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 In the 6 minutes prior to the dinner break let me say that I really do hate to shatter the illusion of cooperation and understanding that seemed to flow from the National and Labour Party speakers who preceded me. But let us not forget that the Arms Amendment Bill (No 2) which this bill replaces was introduced by a National Government. It was a National bill to bring about gun registration and to require aspects of the Thorp report—erroneous misguided and flawed as they were—to be brought into legislation. The fact that the National Government led by Jenny Shipley sought to impose such laws upon the farming rural and hunting communities of New Zealand was absolutely astounding but it happened to go hand in hand with a number of other liberal things that that National Government did was party to supported and progressed such as the lowering of the drinking age. 
National has gone through a transformation since then in the Law and Order Committee which was ably led by Janet Mackey. The one regret New Zealand First has is that after Janet Mackey’s sterling work the great chairmanship she brought to that committee and her presentation of a report that made it very clear to this Government that it was misguided in pursuing the agenda of registration and buy-back of military style semi-automatics and the like the report embarrassed the Minister of Police and frightened him into not presenting it to the House and not allowing a debate on it—because in the cosy little arrangement that exists within the old club National and Labour neither of them wanted to be embarrassed by the findings of that report. The tragedy is that Janet Mackey was never rewarded with an Associate Minister job or even made a senior private secretary to some insignificant Minister let alone given a ministerial job. 
There she sits due to leave this House after many years of loyally serving the Labour Party having not been given a ministerial portfolio. We ask ourselves why that is so. The only conclusion we can come to is that she was fair firm competent and productive and that she did a good job and that that is not the sort of leadership the Labour Party wants anywhere near its Government benches let alone in its ministerial portfolios. It would rather have someone like John Tamihere there. That is a sad indictment. Janet Mackey deserves some credit for doing a very difficult job. She produced a result that was very much disliked by many of her caucus colleagues but it was a fair and accurate report and that is why the Minister never allowed it to be debated in this House. 
Let us get to the nuts and bolts. This bill is rubbish. New Zealand First will not be supporting it because it seeks to enshrine in New Zealand legislation some toadyish behaviour by this Government to cede this country’s sovereignty and the Government’s responsibility to a bunch of knee-jerk United Nations representatives in some insignificant committee that purportedly wants to deal with illicit trading in small arms ammunition and spare parts. We have done a review of this—the Law and Order Committee reviewed this treaty. It concluded that it could not report back to the House one way or the other on whether the treaty was a good idea. So here we have a situation whereby the Law and Order Committee analysed the Protocol Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms their Parts and Components and Ammunition supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and could not agree that it added one jot to the betterment of New Zealand law. All it did was to sign us up with a bunch of toady Third World countries of dubious reputation such as Azerbaijan Saudi Arabia and a few others that are themselves steeped in such activities. 
What we found in talking to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials and the police is that New Zealand does not have a problem in manufacturing firearms. Our manufacturing capability is minuscule. We do not have a problem in illicit trading. Indeed all the officials could point to as justification for this bill was the illicit trading in Government-owned firearms in the Solomons. Excuse me? The only activity they could identify as being in any way reflected in this bill was not happening in New Zealand; it was happening in the Solomons. And it was not a trade in illicit firearms; those firearms were purchased and owned by the legitimate Government which failed to secure them. It had corrupt police and it could not control them—and now we have this bill! This is rubbish. The fact is New Zealand First would support changes to the law that deal with the nonsense— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Debate interrupted.