van de Molen TimTIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you Madam Speaker. Look it is a pleasure to rise and take a call on this piece of legislation. It's a piece of legislation that is quite overdue actually. I have been fielding a number of calls and emails from concerned constituents around my Waikato electorate who have been waiting with frustration for their renewals to be processed and in some cases that has been for an unacceptably long period of time. So now getting to the second reading on this bill—in a truncated process for another piece of legislation; not best practice from this Government again yet here we are again with them continuing to show poor practice and poor legislative processes—but ultimately the outcome here will be a good one for current licensed firearms holders. Of course it is only for current licensed firearms holders so the issue remains in place for anyone who has put in an application for a new firearms licence and has been waiting for extended periods of time as well to receive an update on that status. That unfortunately is not addressed within this and I do want to acknowledge those people as well. I have some stats on this because I asked specifically in relation to my electorate around some of the wait times that were being experienced. There were over 200—exactly 205 it was—people waiting for renewals in the Waikato electorate alone. And so when you think about that extrapolated around the country there are a lot of people law-abiding New Zealanders who have currently held firearms licences that were then facing these sorts of issues through no fault of their own through delayed processing time caused by a few issues: one potentially by the recommendations off the back of the inquiry into the Christchurch terror attacks the royal commission and then secondly also by the impact of COVID which did have an impact. These are unfortunate situations for the processing system to have to deal with—or those in that system—but ultimately we need to be able to respond quicker to respond better on behalf of those law-abiding firearms licence holders who have as I say done nothing wrong. They have sought to renew their licence as is required by law before the expiry of their existing licence and have in many cases been waiting far too long. In the Waikato electorate over 130 were waiting more than three months after the expiry date of their current licence. There were still 13 that were waiting beyond 12 months for their renewal to be processed. It is simply unacceptable. The longest wait time was 20 months—nearly two years that people were waiting to receive a renewal of their firearms licence. It is simply unacceptable. It is frustrating for them that this has taken so long but we do support this bill going through now because ultimately it addresses that issue. It does provide through the select committee process the addition of new Part 3 inserted by the Schedule I believe it was which actually enabled effectively the retrospective implementation of this law as well such that this clause applies in respect of an application that was made before the commencement date by an applicant who at the time of making the application held a firearms licence. That is a good measure as well because of course it would be unfair to exclude those who have been waiting potentially the longest from this piece of legislation as well. So it's encouraging that that piece has been brought in to ensure that that category of licence holder is able to capitalise on this practical change as well.Now it's not just about the licence too and I do want to touch on that. It's actually about the endorsements and any conditions that apply to particular endorsements on the licence as well—again extended under this legislation of course in line with any existing expiries on those particular endorsements or conditions as well. So an appropriate aspect there and of course the dealer's licence side too. I think the good aspect of this is that it's not. But it takes effect from the time that the licence is issued or the time of the renewal date whichever is further in the future or the most advanced so that again those licensed firearms holders are not unfairly impacted due to having put in an early application for example on the one hand where they want to try and mitigate the risk of not having their licence processed in time by getting it in early only to have a renewal come through a couple of months before the actual expiry of their licence. That would be unfairly biased against them as well so in that instance it tracks the renewal date to be from when their licence was due to expire as opposed to when it was issued. On the contrary side to that of course in a situation where a licence is not issued until some potentially 20 months as it may be for my constituents in the Waikato—20 months after their licence has expired—the new licence is deemed to be issued from that date 20 months later when it was eventually issued. Those are good practical outcomes and so we do support the bill at this stage. I know there were a couple of concerns and I did actually have a concern around some of the digital or electronic aspects as well. We've seen continued issues around cyber- hacking-type activity—call it what you will—that could potentially be an issue and of course the digital exclusion issues that are faced in many particularly rural communities around New Zealand which are often communities that have a higher proportion of licensed firearms holders as well who may not necessarily be particularly tech savvy. Whether or not this is appropriately accounting for their needs as well—we will be canvassing that I'm sure through the committee stage which will follow shortly after this second reading. But I'm happy to support this bill here at second reading. Thank you.