O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I've been deeply offended by the last speech actually. It's His" Majesty's loyal Opposition. I'm just going to process that briefly for a moment—but I'm OK now Dr Henderson—Dr Emily Henderson: Mea culpa to His Majesty!SIMON O'CONNOR: Very good yes.Look I'm very pleased to support this Arms (Licence Holders' Applications for New Licences) Amendment Bill and as I've heard from other speakers across the House there is widespread support—including that this is done under urgency. This has been an issue building for quite some time. In fact the last speaker has rightly identified that a law change in 1992 I think when we moved from lifetime licences to a 10-year renewal by switching everyone at the same time we've created—well I think they're using the terms "peaks" and "swells" but it's probably a broader piece of work that's going to be needed and I think we've heard some indicate that this will happen to how we may begin to break up this 10-year dynamic.But I think what's really important from this side and certainly in my own mind is that we're in this current situation which requires this amendment bill not simply because of a piece of legislation from 1992—we've seen an array of other factors kick in which have exacerbated or if you will tipped a process system that was already under pressure well over the mark. One of those is certainly COVID. You can't shut a country down for 18 months and effectively lock everyone at home and expect there's not going to be process consequences. And look to be fair the Civil Service and others and the Government's trying—I mean we would critique how they're doing this but we are seeing the Government trying to get through a massive backlog. But again I would say to this House that is a consequence of the way that the Government chose to manage the lockdowns and primarily kept us locked down for so long compared to many other countries. The second is around police resourcing and I want to make a quick distinction here. The firearms officers that I know including in my own electorate do an incredible incredible job and—talking with locals who deal with them—are very thorough. So I think we should have great confidence in our police in the work that they undertake and to do so so diligently. But at least two factors are also leading to this massive number of applications which require this amendment bill. One is—and I'll qualify why I say this but somewhat understandably—after the terrible mosque shootings terrorist act in 2019 we saw a much more broad shall we say application process. I can't exactly remember the numbers but let's say you sort of went from eight to 32 pages. So an enormous amount of extra work has been required obviously for that person applying. But the flipside of course is that the police officer—or rather arms officer in charge—has a lot more to go through.The second part is—and Nicole McKee from the ACT Party was intimating this—the ability of an arms officer to sit down with not only the applicant but also their referee and/or—actually not and/or; I apologise. An arms officer has to not only meet with the applicant they need to meet with the spouse or partner of the applicant and a referee. And trying to coordinate that particularly around current structures is exceptionally exceptionally difficult. So the main context we're trying to give here is that yes moving to 10-year licences 30 years ago or whenever it was has had an impact but it was ticking away relatively well until these other factors have kicked in.I might make the comment as well that most if not almost all licensed firearms holders are law abiding. When we see particularly with current and more recent criminal activity the people discharging these firearms don't hold a licence have not gone through any of these processes—and it's probably the challenge to the House regardless of political colour in many ways no matter what laws we pass the law abiding will proceed correctly; the gangs the criminals and others will not. So it's always going to be a balance for this House of just how onerous we make processes which I would say we have to admit don't fully capture those who are just going to outright ignore it.So while this is a good step and we do have to still be prudent in this amendment bill the likes of the gangs are just going to ignore it outright. Now that's not a reason for inaction. As I say we should support this bill. There's over 9000 I think new applications—I haven't been able to do the math mainly because I'm not exactly sure of some of the factors such as how long does it take an arms officer to read through you know 30-plus pages of application. But that's an enormous amount of time required.And of course on top of that I was operating under the thought that we had about 2000 licensed firearms holders needing renewal. But again we just heard from our friends in the ACT Party that that's over 4000 people. And again that's the key factor of what this amendment bill is addressing. It's saying to those current licence holders if—if—they can get their application in before their licence expires then they'll be able to continue legally to have their firearms until eventually—a year 18 months two years later—the new licence is issued. And that's incredibly important for a variety of reasons. I mean one is just very pragmatic. There are basically licensed gun holders at the moment—well hopefully not literally running—moving about the country with their firearms because if you're about to lose your licence you can't hold a weapon any more. You can't hold a firearm. You've got to go and find a mate who still holds a licence and take your firearms over to her or him which you know to slightly illustrate the fact you've got a whole lot of firearms in the back of boots moving around the country for people trying to maintain their legal right—well sorry that's not quite true; wanting to maintain their legal right.We here on this side of the House have almost been pleading with the Government to make these changes at least two years ago. Again I think it's quite pragmatic. Coming back to that earlier point most if not just almost all licensed firearm holders do so responsibly. New Zealand actually has a pretty good vetting process I would argue. But we also have these people who are providing a great contribution into society—and my colleague Joseph Mooney and I'm sure others as well but listening to his speech I was noting that you know a lot of these people and of the 4000-plus waiting for renewals are hunters; this is part of their recreational—if you will—activity. It's something they enjoy doing getting out into nature. That's got wonderful benefits for them over everything of course from mental health to just collegiality. They're helping maintain species management: obviously some in a recreational form; others professionally—we don't want to downplay just the enormous contribution they make there—and then obviously those who are using their firearms to put food on the table. These are all very very positive things. And we've certainly seen over the last few years that good licensed firearms holders have not been able to participate in all those activities or duck shooting or the roar or whatever. And so it's timely that we are looking at this piece of legislation now because we're heading into the summer break—well a break for most people not all of course—a lot of people will want to go out hunting. And so the opportunity to pass this law if we do indeed—obviously we should go to select committee; tease out a few things. But actually these licensed firearms holders knowing they can continue to legally hold and use their firearms responsibly is a very positive thing because they've struggled for many many years already.Again I just want to stress we on this side of the House have asked for this for quite some time. In fact this sits within a wider range of legal changes we want to see around firearms. I can't quite explain why—the Labour MPs are welcome to do so—but I feel things have dithered and I don't exactly know why because this is pretty straightforward and it's clear that it's a new Minister in the seat who's picked this opportunity up and is putting it through the House. But I think it's going to be important that we do have a select committee process. I must admit I'm not exactly sure how long that's going to be. I'm conscious we're under urgency at the moment so I assume we're going to have a relatively short select committee process.Chris Penk: A week.SIMON O'CONNOR: A week I'm told. If you ever want information go to Chris Penk. He pretty much knows everything; in fact he probably knows the next sentence I'm about to give! But no if it's only a week—a week is an exceptionally short period of time. And look I'm slightly torn on that. At one level we do need to get this done for the very reasons I've just outlined. But one of the things I've found in my time in the House is that when we rush laws through and particularly with very shortened report-backs we make errors—or rather the Government of the day makes errors.Obviously we're dealing with something quite serious here which is the arms amendment bill. And so we'll have to listen very very carefully to make sure that we're hearing—within this one week—of what's been told. And it would be my hope that if this passes first reading the select committee will take all the time it can and will listen to as many people around this as possible."