Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. Can I begin my contribution to the debate and the National Party's contribution to this debate by starting off where the Minister of Police finished which is by paying tribute to the hard-working men and women of the New Zealand police force. As the Minister has commented very appropriately we have seen the best of the police in the last two weeks. We have seen their swift action on the afternoon of Friday 15 March in the apprehension of the suspect involved and we have seen our police out and about in the community in a way that New Zealanders have come to expect but is no less noteworthy for that. We have seen them armed—and that has shocked many people—but we have seen them engaging at our mosques and at our various vigils and memorial services in our parks and our schools and outside our Parliament and they have done a superb job as I know they will continue to do; so I'd like to start by echoing the words of the Minister. The last two and a bit weeks for New Zealand have been about grieving and have been about mourning and now the Parliament has to turn its attention to the legislative response to the events of Friday 15 March. The first phase is firearms law reform and as the National Party leader and Leader of the Opposition Simon Bridges has said the National Party intends to be constructive and work with the Government to make sure that we get this legislation into place quickly but also make sure we get the legislation right.Phases two and three and four will be about social media about hate speech and hate activity and I think New Zealanders are going to have an inevitable debate about the balance between security and privacy the balance between free speech and hate speech and about some of the activities that led up to Friday 15 March. But for now we are talking about firearms.The public has made it very clear over the last two weeks that they expect the Parliament to act. They have made it very clear in my mind that the time has come for quite substantial reform of our firearms regime. Parliament therefore has an obligation and a duty to act and today we start that process. That's the first point I want to make: that Parliament hears the call of the public that they expect action. It was very humbling for me to stand on behalf of the National Party and accept a petition run through ActionStation alongside Grant Robertson and James Shaw of the Green Party calling for a ban on semi-automatics and military-style semi-automatics.Louisa Wall: What about you and me Jan?CHRIS BISHOP: That petition—oh sorry to you and Ms Wall—numbered some from memory 40000–plus people collected in only a matter of days which I think gives you a sense of the public mood around this issue. So that's the first point I want to make: that Parliament has heard those messages. We will act.The second point I want to make is that I think this bill strikes an appropriate balance as the Minister has said between protecting legitimate law-abiding licensed firearm owners—our hunters our shooters those in our farming community—whilst also making sure that the public don't have access to things like military-style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles. The harm from those is the sheer lethality that exists within them that the Minister has rightly pointed out. I think it is appropriate that small calibre rim fire semi-automatics and lesser capacity shotguns are excluded from the prohibition that the Minister is advancing in the legislation. A third point I want to make is to say that I think the general exclusions from the new prohibitions are also appropriate. Many members of the House will have been contacted by collectors in the last few days and I see there is an exemption which we'll explore properly in the select committee for bona fide collectors of historical antique weapons from the past. We would not want to give up that history as a result of this legislation and nor should we. I see there are also exemptions in the regime for museums as well. We're going to explore the precise balance of those at the select committee in the short amount of time that we have. I believe even those in the licensed firearm community who are opposed to some of the measures in the legislation—members will be aware of their email inboxes filling up—will welcome the new penalties but also the strengthening of the existing penalties as well. This is something that many people have been calling for for a long time as part of a general update to the Arms Act 1983 which as the Minister rightly notes is now very out of date. I think the new penalty regime will be widely welcomed by many people in the community. For those who are licensed and legitimate firearm owners who store them safely and store them in the correct way use them in the correct way and would never dream of committing a crime it does bug and grate on them when they see people abusing firearms or not storing them properly or not complying with the terms of their various endorsements or licences. It does grate when those penalties are not enforced and I know that members of the community will welcome those. That's the fourth point I wanted to make. Finally I want to fifthly cover the amnesty and the buy-back regime. We do welcome this. I'm interested in exploring in the select committee exactly how expensive it will be. There seems to be a range of estimates on the table anywhere from $100 million to $200 million and all the way up to $300 million that the Deputy Prime Minister the Rt Hon Winston Peters has mentioned recently. I'm aware of some estimates out there that it could be up to a billion dollars to buy back the various weapons. I urge the Government to move expeditiously on the details of the buy-back regime. Many members of the community are awaiting those details and I think it would be good grace and acting in good faith to provide those details as quickly as possible. I acknowledge it takes time to work out the details. We in the National Party stand ready to work with the Government on those details but we do need to know exactly how it will work. I want to put on the record now that there needs to be an answer to how dealers will be dealt with through the buy-back regime. I have seen some comments from the Minister that they will not be touched that they will not be part of the buy-back regime. There are licensed firearm dealers out there in the community some of whom have large amounts of stock—thousands of dollars and in some cases tens of thousands of dollars' worth of stock—that they have brought into the country in good faith to sell. Once this legislation passes they will unable to do that. There may be circumstances in which they are unable to return that to their particular supplier. They will be out of pocket through no fault of their own and we will need to work that through and I'm just encouraging the Minister to work that through with us as well as working it through the select committee. This is a substantial piece of legislation. As I've commented publicly the devil is in the detail when it comes to firearms law. I'm aware of some comments from the community already about the misapplication of a variety of definitions. The wording may not be right but we have some time over the next week or so in the select committee to really get down to the nuts and bolts of this legislation. We will work in good faith with the Government to make sure that we reform the law properly and get it as good as we possibly can.Parliament is now turning its mind away from grief and mourning towards a proper legislative response to the horrific events of 15 March. We in the National Party are looking forward to working with the Government to make sure that our response when it comes to firearms is fit for purpose and right and we will engage in good faith with them as we continue to do that. Thank you.