Patterson MarkMARK PATTERSON (NZ First): I rise to confirm New Zealand First's support for this arms amendment bill. As our leader the Rt Hon Winston Peters said at the time at 1.30 p.m. on 15 March our world changed for ever and so will our gun laws. The gravity of this situation is not lost on anyone in this House: the murder of 50 of our citizens in cold blood. But the reality of that is that this gunman was operating legitimately on an A class gun licence with a military-style semi-automatic weapon legitimately purchased through a retail outlet. Quite frankly he has exposed the gaping holes in our legislation. The system has been found wanting. We have not learnt the lessons of Aramoana and the lessons frankly from the likes of Port Arthur and other international incidents. We have been naive and we have paid the price. We have failed to act and I think we have all acknowledged that but I would also acknowledge that we have acknowledged that and across parties we are looking to act decisively to remediate that situation.Of course this is the first part of the response dealing with the availability of these military-style semi-automatic weapons and it's required. We need to give the public some semblance of safety and decisiveness of action by taking these weapons out of circulation as soon as practicably possible. It is also required to give certainty to the users of these weapons—the owners the dealers etc.—who need to know what the implications are for them. We note the buy-back and the figures that have been bandied around but it will cost what it costs. It's important that it is fair. These legitimate gun owners have through no fault of their own been caught up in this situation and we must be fair to them. I trust that Cabinet and the Parliament will recommend that course of action.We also note that being the first part of this response there is much else to do—of course the royal commission that will come in behind this and look at things like a register of all firearms police vetting and how this individual was allowed to get a licence in the first place and the holes in that system and how we need to tighten it up around storage and of course there are those wider social issues around freedom of speech which we are all going to have to grapple with certainly in light of this new world that we find ourselves in with social media etc.New Zealand First have been strong supporters of recreational hunters and legitimate users and we note that the likes of farmers legitimately need firearms to euthanise stock and for pest control. And recreational hunters—that is something that we value in this country: the right to be able to go out and hunt for deer or tahr or whatever it might be. That is a legitimate use and of course there are some quite sizeable businesses around this—tourism businesses and the like and legitimate pest-control businesses. So we have to move in terms of certainty to give these people the certainty of what will be available to them but also to acknowledge that they are legitimate users and where there needs to be exemptions we will look through the select committee process as truncated as it might be to make sure that their views are heard. We do note the likes of Federated Farmers and the Game Animal Council have engaged willingly and supportively to date and there is still the .22 calibre up to 10-shot mags and five-shot shotguns as the Hon Kelvin Davis said. They still have legitimate firepower that is capable of doing the roles for which they could legitimately be expected to be used.We note that there is no exception at this point for international sport and that's something that will have to be looked upon in the second tranche and we do also encourage the penalty provisions. This is a serious buy-back; this is not a voluntary situation. We are acting decisively and we do need the penalties for not complying to be significant and they will be. As Minister Nash said in his introduction of the bill owning a firearm in this country is a privilege; it is not a right. We must strike the balance through legitimate use but the actions that we are taking as a Parliament we are doing quite simply because it is in this circumstance the right thing to do. So New Zealand First will be supporting this legislation and participating actively in the truncated select committee process. Thank you.