Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Thank you. It's a real pleasure to speak on the Arms Legislation Bill because we are moving forward and this is part of what this Government wants to do which is to make a society which is just and safe. We heard one of the earlier speakers from the other side opposing this on the basis that there had been many law-abiding gun owners and this was going to affect them; that in some way simply because the law is there we shouldn't change it. There is no greater fallacy than seeing a law which is not fit for purpose and just letting it lie there when our job as parliamentarians is to improve our law and make our society better safer and fairer. This is what this bill does. Tim van de Molen: The member's demonstrated no understanding of the argument.Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Yes Mr van de Molen protests too much. There are four arguments that the other side has here. First is don't do it. Don't do it now. Let's wait. We heard that from Mr Seymour: let's delay let's wait. Let's have a hui before we attack this problem which faces our society.The other argument is deny: Oh there's nothing wrong. There's no problem." Well there were 71 firearms deaths last year—homicides. That's a problem that we're not going to stand by. Defer: "Oh let's do something else. Let's just wait a bit longer. Let's hit pause." And the other one: deflect—"Oh that's not the problem; the problem is the criminal organisations." Well you know what? Let's just remember what we're dealing with. A firearm is an inherently dangerous thing. We deal with many dangerous things in our life: poisons explosives motor vehicles. Now that's not to say that we shouldn't also attack the problem of criminality when people deal with those things but we want to know who the owner is. Who is in control of those inherently dangerous things? You know I do not begrudge for one moment the fact that I'll have to wander down to the police station and register a firearm. No difficulty with that at all. It's a small chore: a few minutes or perhaps an hour out of my day. I have no difficulty with letting the police know that safely stored—and I won't tell you where—there are those firearms because I accept that there may be instances when the police would want to know that there is a firearm there whether they are entering my premises to assist in some incident whether I've had a burglary or any other number of reasons. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. We register our cars without any protest whatsoever. We've got to remember that it isn't some God-given right. This is not a constitutional entitlement—to own and carry a firearm. That narrative belongs elsewhere; it's not part of New Zealand's culture. It is a privilege and we must exercise it with the utmost care. So registering that firearm—it's not a chore. It's something I'm happy to do and so should every other gun owner be happy to do: to let people know that there is an extremely dangerous thing that the gun owner is in possession of that they are going to responsibly store it they're going to secure it and we can make sure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. If they come to dispose of it we want to know how and where it is disposed of so that we can indeed know where these dangerous weapons are. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with both registering those firearms and also paying attention to our licensing regime: making sure that the people who own these guns are proper to do so and continue to be proper. Mr Seymour mentioned the fact that a health practitioner can report if someone is at risk. Now let's remember what the risk is. This is a life risk. If someone is so mentally unwell that they pose a risk to themselves or someone else there's already an obligation to report to Oranga Tamariki in some instances. There's nothing wrong with saying "There's a real risk that this person will cause death to another person." That is what a medical practitioner should be doing in this situation. So this is just one more step down the road to making our society safe making it fair and making it a great place to live. I commend this bill to the House."