Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you Mr Chair. I want to just talk on the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 203 in the name of Chris Bishop. I listened very closely to the Minister of Police there and I've got to say I'm very disappointed to hear what he's just spoken so I just think it's worthwhile recapping on what is in the SOP. It's a new clause 8 which says that a person who is a bona fide competitor in a target shooting sport that is—(i) governed by a legitimate international sporting body; … (ii) where the rules of the discipline provide for the use of semi-automatic firearms or shotguns;"—and the third condition is—"(iii) the person is a member of a target shooting club recognised by the Commissioner as a club where such target shooting disciplines are practised." That is the SOP—very tight very clear. So my personal view is that actually we are doing a disservice to a group of shooters who are not in your main type of shooters. These are very highly trained professional target shooters who go about their business—in some cases it's their profession. But at the very least they are absolutely dedicated to achieving good outcomes in target-shooting competitions. I just listened to the arguments there and the first thing said was "Look we had enough to do in a truncated position without trying to do this bill over the last few days. We didn't have time to take this into account." I think you're underestimating the capability of the Finance and Expenditure Committee Minister because I think we could have done this. I think we could have done it very easily and I'll come back to why. The second thing I heard about was the storage: "Oh because if you allow this then there's the opportunity for theft." Well I've got to say to you Minister that the rifles that these target shooters use are normally worth thousands. They are not your run-of-the-mill rifle that you go down to your local Hunting & Fishing store and buy. These are normally very highly specified - calibre rifles and the last thing that those competition shooters will want is to see those weapons stolen because the next time they go to a competition they won't be able to use them. They will have as much incentive as the police to make sure that they are stored and stored very securely. The third thing was: "There are a lot of opportunities for people to become involved in this sport." Well one of the things in the report that we noted—and these are figures provided by the police—was that there are actually only 80 of these people. Actually there was a countervailing argument given that because there is such a small number of them basically we shouldn't worry about them. So that's actually contrary to what you've just suggested. There are a small number of people. We're not suggesting that this should be opened up to everyone; this was to deal with a very specific professional group. This concept that "If you want to be a professional target shooter we're not going to trust you. What you're going to have to do is get on a plane and fly overseas."—well actually the Australians have been doing that since they brought into place their regulations. They are failing dismally overseas in competitions and they all talk about the difficulty of being able to compete because when you want to be a target shooter you want to be doing it regularly. This brings me back to the next point which is the calibre. This concept that you can use a .22 rifle to do your practice—well actually that's not the case. In terms of pistols they use 9-millimetre pistols. That's actually greater than a .22 calibre which means it is outside the issue of this bill. Often they have 9-millimetre pistols converted to a rifle type and also they use slightly higher - calibre .223s and other calibres. You cannot think that you're going to practise with a .22 when you're firing a higher calibre and think you're going to be able to compete at an international standard and be as good as the world-standard target shooters who will probably be out firing every day like all professionals—doing their 10000 hours before they become true professionals. This concept that you can do that—I don't think that it was difficult. The rules around pistol clubs are very very tight. You have to belong to them for at least six months before you can get a licence. You have to attend a minimum of 12 times a year. We could have very easily imposed very secure arrangements for the storage like for dealers. It was an easy thing to do and it's a travesty."