Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in support of the Arms Legislation Bill and I wish to begin my speech with thanks. Thanks to the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee who worked hard on this bill including many of the members of the Opposition who engaged very constructively with it but especially the members of the Government. I'd like to thank the submitters who put in submissions—all 3527 of them—and I would especially like to thank the 381 submitters that we heard in person. I think we sat for 41 hours on this particular bill. I missed a few hours of that because we had simultaneous subcommittee meetings running but other than that I heard all the submissions. There was some very strong representation from the gun lobby—from people in support of guns—and in fact some really extreme views. One submission blamed the Prime Minister for the massacre in Christchurch. It said that the Prime Minister at the time that the licence was issued to the shooter was the person responsible and then said It disgusts me that the Prime Minister has accepted no responsibility herself." It was an astonishing claim and one that I felt just undermined the submission entirely. Another submission said that the real problem was that the bill all went wrong in the preamble and that "owning firearms is a right". It never really has been in New Zealand. Then it went on to complain that "New Zealand law is being made compliant with the United Nations treaty" and it used the word "globalists"—the "globalists" that signify someone is speaking from an alt-right perspective. That is someone who wanted guns in this country and did not want this bill. I think the submission that worried me the most was the person opposing this bill who said that the real problem was State control—it was not an issue of safety but there was an issue of increasing State control over the people comparing New Zealand to Venezuela Russia China and Germany in 1933. This person went on. He said "I am asking as a young New Zealander don't set us down this path to subjugation. This route will only end in tears one way or the other and given our current leadership that ending is likely to be with the words 'Arbeit macht frei'."—what an extraordinary thing to say. Extraordinary claims like that require extraordinary evidence—extraordinary evidence that there is subjugation and a lack of freedom in this country. I would like to point out that today the news came out that the Cato Institute has ranked New Zealand in terms of freedom in the world and where has it ranked New Zealand? At number one. There is no evidence to support some of these extraordinary claims made by the gun lobby. Nicola Willis: You'll take us backwards—you'll take us backwards. Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Of course there were many many—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I'm sorry. Ms Willis I wonder if you wouldn't mind leaving the Speaker out of the discussion. Thank you. Sorry Dr Russell. Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: There were many many other representations from people opposing this bill very strongly worded from gun enthusiasts and gun clubs—people who brought up some objections to the bill. Some of them were very very strongly worded but they made some good points. For example with respect to gun licences they said "Come on if someone has proved themselves do we really need to go through the process every five years?" and that is why as a committee we came back with a recommendation that after you've proved yourself for the first five years of your licence then we'd go to a 10-year licence. That was a reasonable compromise that we took because of what submitters said. Submitters said that actually it was unfair that police could turn up with no notice and inspect the place where guns were being kept. As a committee we agreed and we've come up with I think the really good idea that there has to be seven days' notice. That's sitting in this bill and that is because of people who came and made submissions and we listened to those submissions and made a change. We have said that if a person is lending a firearm then that does not have to be recorded on the register straight away; instead we've gone for 30 days. If you lend a firearm to someone or give it to someone then it must be recorded in the register after 30 days and why that length of time? Well that means that someone has got enough time to lend a shotgun to a mate for a hunting trip and it doesn't need to hit the register. So again a perfectly reasonable compromise there. In the bill as drafted the bill had said that we needed a range "manager" on duty at ranges at all times. Now a "manager" implies a certain level of control over club activities and lots of people belonging to gun clubs which operated ranges pointed out that under their rules they typically have a safety officer on duty whenever the range is being used. If we reflected that—having a safety officer—then that would capture the existing good process and would work perfectly well. So we've made that change in the bill—and so on and so on. Right through the bill where good suggestions have been made however strongly worded we have taken up those suggestions to make this bill work better. So that robust engagement has worked.We did not accept reinstating MSSAs—or military-style semi-automatics. People came up with two reasons for them. One was pest control but we've worked out a perfectly good way of managing genuine needs for pest control not just somebody who wants to go and shoot a few bunnies over the back of the farm on occasion. The other reason was for sports. People felt that there was a justification for having MSSAs for shooting sports. We pointed out—many of us pointed out—that it wasn't exactly an Olympic or a Commonwealth sport; it was actually quite a minority sport. So shooting is a Commonwealth or Olympic sport but not this particular discipline. And they said "Well actually it was under consideration for the Olympics." but that turns out not to be the case. In fact the four proposed new sports for the 2024 Olympics are break-dancing sports climbing skateboarding and surfing. So that is not the case.So why put this bill in place? Because people want it—people like Rural Women New Zealand. Rural Women New Zealand who deal with firearms all the time are strongly in support of this bill. They surveyed their membership and 83 percent of the members of Rural Women New Zealand agree with the purpose of this bill; 71 percent agree that there should be a registry for guns for firearms. They agreed that licensed clubs and shooting ranges should be regulated. In other words this body of women with real standing from the rural community support this bill.The Suicide Mortality Review Committee supports this bill. Why? Because and I quote "There is strong evidence that more restrictive gun laws are associated with lower rates of suicide involving firearms [and] studies from Australia have found that the introduction of the 1996 National Firearms Agreement … was associated with a reduction in firearms and total suicide rates".The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists echoed the Suicide Mortality Review Committee that there were 860 firearm deaths over the 15 or so years between 2000 and 2015—54 a year on average. About 75 percent of those firearms deaths are suicides. Better control of firearms will reduce our suicide rates.The Public Health Association of New Zealand supported having a five-year licence. Why? Because data shows that of those aged 16 to 19 when first issued with a firearms licence 31 percent had been convicted of an offence by the time they were 20. By the time they were 30 45 percent of them had been convicted of an offence. That five-year period is worth having.And why should we support this bill? The words of someone who calls themselves an ordinary citizen a parent a grandparent. This person said—and actually I can't tell whether this is a man or a woman. It just says "I have been moved to make this submission because I am concerned that the opposition to the proposals comes largely from arms item-holders."—that's firearms holders.While the view of all affected parties is important as in all legislation this legislation also needs to consider the view of New Zealanders who are not firearms holders—the majority of the population. And what is that view? Well we have that view from survey research. We know that 70 percent of New Zealanders support strengthening New Zealand's existing gun laws. The great majority of New Zealanders support this bill. We have made sensible moves in response to the submissions we have received but we have retained the register. We have retained greater control over firearms. We retained the core of this bill: that owning and using firearms is a privilege not a right and it's a privilege we extend to our law-abiding citizens. I support this bill."