Seymour David; Rurawhe AdrianDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to this bill. I want to be clear: in opposition to this bill not to the idea that firearm laws must become more restrictive that our laws must change because it's very clear that any legal paradigm where such a deranged individual can get hold of such lethal weapons and nobody that should know knew about it must change. But if our laws are to change this is not the way to go about it. It is difficult to think of a worse way to go about it. It's only human in times of crisis to seek strong leadership and decisive action. We think back to George W Bush standing on the rubble at 9/11 saying I can hear you. The rest of the world can hear you and the people that knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." Well the people of Iraq and Afghanistan are still hearing the aftermath of the invasions that followed. That might be why our Prime Minister received such great kudos for the way that she led New Zealand through this tragedy—by appealing to the common humanity in every single New Zealander. Yet the approach to this particular legislation is the absolute opposite of the prime ministerial approach that got so much praise around the world. By banning all semi-automatic weapons the PM has made legal owners of such weapons pay a cost for something that they did not do. They are not bad people and most of them accept the need for change. They could have been welcomed as part of the solution to making us safer but trying to legislate in nine days with scant regard for the usual process of public input and parliamentary scrutiny has sent instead a message of contempt.At the very time we should be celebrating the institution that represents our free society we have instead discarded the role of this Parliament. Citizens have a right to elect a Parliament to hold the Government to account. It's not enough for those members of Parliament to simply agree generally to vote for a bill; they must have time to consult and to assess the Government's plan. That is democracy at its best.On the other hand trying to make complex legislation in nine days is absolute madness. You only have to ask yourself: if this was a good way to make laws why wouldn't we save a huge amount of time and money and make all laws in nine days? Of course it's not and that's why we don't do it but in this very important case the Government has effectively told the public: "We've got this—don't bother." I concur with the Law Society who told the select committee that rushed procedure leads to bad outcomes.Right now there is no reason to be confident that this ban will make it harder for motivated bad individuals to get their hands on dangerous weapons because if a significant number of weapons are not handed in we actually risk creating a larger black market for dangerous weapons outside any regulatory cordon whatsoever. Amazingly the Government didn't even ask before it went down this path "What is the likely effectiveness of the buy-back?" They don't know. Well the evidence we do have is found in Australia where only 40 to 80 percent of the semi-automatic weapons estimated to be out there were ever returned. That might tell you why it is that the 1997 ban in Australia did not accelerate the collapse in Australian gun crime that had already begun after the peak in 1996.So what might've been done better? We might've taken the time to legislate properly. We might've taken the time to see the legal gun-owning community as allies in gun control and worked together to find more creative solutions to make our society a safer place with respect to guns—we haven't done it. There's a great irony that the Prime Minister who stood on her laurels of being inclusive and consultative in the wake of our nation's terrible tragedy has now chosen to legislate in a way that is likely to be ineffective at achieving its goals that has eroded goodwill with potential allies in gun regulation and that has frankly been offensive to the role of this Parliament. So while I support changing our laws not this way.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Tamati Coffey—five minutes."