Clendon David: Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Clendon David: Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 05 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7242. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 I am pleased to speak to this bill the Arms (Military Style Semi-automatic Firearms and Import Controls) Amendment Bill and to confirm the Greens’ support for this legislation as we have supported a raft of gun control legislation over quite a number of years. It is worth recalling in this context that this bill is evolutionary. Placing controls on military-style weapons actually dates from relatively recently. Of course there was the tragedy in Aramoana in 1990 when 13 people lost their lives and several others were wounded through the actions of a deranged individual who was in possession of a number of military-style weapons. At that time in 1990 the police had no knowledge of the existence or the ownership of those weapons. There was no legislative framework or requirement that the police ought to know and clearly that was an entirely unsatisfactory situation. We have moved on considerably from that point and that is a good thing. 
More recent case law has been referred to of course. In 2009 I believe it was discovered that a member of the public appealed against the classification of a weapon he owned as being a military-style weapon and he won that case in the High Court. Clearly it highlighted the fact that there was a lack of clarity in the law. The police position relying on the legislation was weakened by that. So this amendment is intended to plug that gap just to create some clarity around the legislation. That is a useful and positive thing for a Parliament to be doing. 
I must say I was very pleased—I was genuinely pleased—yesterday in the Law and Order Committee when the Commissioner of Police Peter Marshall unprovoked just on his own initiative expressed his very very strong belief that our police ought not to be routinely armed. He expressed a strong preference. He does not want to see our police routinely carrying weapons on their hip and we are 100 percent in support of the commissioner. Given that support I think our responsibility in the House is to provide the strongest possible legislative framework to put good controls around weapons around guns so that the commissioner’s aspiration and our aspirations to not see our police routinely armed can be perpetuated can be fulfilled. 
Guns of course have a legitimate use. They are routinely used by farmers to destroy injured animals they are used for pest control and of course there is a very large recreational lobby. I think the figure is now something close to 250000 New Zealanders who hold gun licences and that is as it should be. Given that and the prevalence of these as I say it is important we get the legislative framework right not only to enable legitimate use but also to put the strongest possible constraints on the illegitimate or malicious use of these weapons. 
We think it appropriate that airguns are captured in this legislation. They do bear a resemblance to the military-style weapons. They could be used for malicious purposes clearly but even to protect. Anyone who is foolish enough to own such a thing and wave it about publicly would very quickly find themselves on the wrong end of an armed offenders squad call-out. Those call-outs always carry an element of risk and obviously we want to avoid that wherever possible. Airguns also are quite powerful weapons in their own right in this day and age and just getting sufficient control on those is an important thing to do. 
It is inevitable that there will be ongoing objections to the legislation. People will seek to find loopholes or will legitimately believe that a situation arises where they are—as has happened in the case of the gentleman Richard Lincoln. He filed a legitimate claim against the legislation. That will continue no doubt so again it is appropriate that this legislation does allow for recourse to a District Court to an appeal if any challenge to the legislation does arise. 
Further to that I would like to support Mr Faafoi and William Sio in their appeal to the Minister of Police to advance this idea of having a reference group an advisory group. I was not on the Law and Order Committee at the time this bill went through the select committee process but reading back it is clear that there was a conversation that perhaps there ought to be a statutory body. The outcome of that decision making was that that was not appropriate but there is a strong call for some sort of an advisory group and I think that is actually a very good idea. 
The police clearly have a lot of knowledge and in-house if you like expertise about weaponry. But I think people in the community who are legitimate gun owners and gun users also would be reassured if there was an open standing committee some sort of a conduit between the public and what I will call the gun lobby—and I do not mean that in a derogatory sense—interested parties around gun use. I think it would be helpful if there was a conduit in the form of something like an advisory group or a standing reference committee so that those people could have a forum to have dialogue with the police and other interested parties. I think that could help to avoid situations where there is recourse to the courts to legislation. 
We know that taking an appeal or indeed going to the High Court is an expensive business both for the claimant and for the police in the instance that they defend it so I would encourage the Minister to look very hard at establishing some sort of a reference group an advisory group that would enable interested parties to have that ongoing dialogue. Hopefully that would resolve any issues and give parties an opportunity to talk these things through without recourse to the courts necessarily. 
I do not need to say any more than that. Again I simply say that we believe this is good legislation. We are happy to support it. Kia ora.