Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak on the Arms Legislation Bill at this the second reading. I did not have the benefit of attending the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I acknowledge that others in the House spent much more time than me therefore considering those particular submissions. But I do want to place on record that I've received a large volume of correspondence and had many discussions with constituents in my electorate on this and indeed other firearms law - related matters. I promised those constituents that I would consider the Government's proposals in good faith and arrive at a conclusion along with my colleagues in the caucus of the National Party that reflected what we thought would be in the best interests of New Zealanders and their safety.With that background I have of course considered again along with fellow members of the National Party caucus a couple of key distinctions when considering the bill. One is the provisions that are in the bill and one is the provisions that are not in the bill but might be usefully added. I'm foreshadowing a number of conditions of National Party support that have been highlighted and indeed explained pretty clearly I think already by our police spokesperson Brett Hudson. We make a distinction too between that which looks good and that which does good. Of course it's possible for a thing to do both but in the case of some of the provisions of this bill it appears clear that the intentions and indeed as I say the look of the thing may be good but the effect is not necessarily one that is beneficial overall for the purposes of maintaining the safety of our population—firearms owners and others alike.So it is that I turn my attention to the conditions that we've set out. Alternatively we might think of these as proposals to change the law for the better such that the National Party would be in a position to be able to support them. Before I do I'd like to give an example of what I meant by the difference between that which looks good and that which does good. A spreadsheet isn't going to stop a bullet obviously unless it's particularly long and printed out and particularly cleverly placed at the time and so it is that the firearms register proposal should be seen as a measure that is potentially useful but in practice may fall short of the mark for which it is intended.Looking then at the first of the conditions that the National Party has set out by way of proposed changes: the first is to require that police be notified of the existence of a club or range. This seems to me a very sensible practical approach understanding and recognising the value that clubs as collections of firearms users—indeed members of the club—are able to provide in assisting the State to understand the potential dangers I suppose of any of its members and of course conversely to frame the proposition in a more positive light the members who are clearly law-abiding honest hard-working folk notwithstanding that they enjoy the activity of shooting in a controlled and safe environment from time to time.I don't want to overstate the case but I believe there's an ideological difference between the two sides of the House in this matter: comparing the approach whereby on the one hand we favour bringing on board the clubs communities of interest within our communities more broadly and expecting and hoping that we would be able to gain some value from understanding on the ground what the situation is with regard to members and on the other hand and across the side of the House that is currently in Government a belief rather in the power of the State to understand and to record and to be able to control better than the citizenry can its members and to understand the dangers that are posed. For that reason I contrast directly the proposal by the Government in relation to creating a register which would be envisaged to be omniscient and therefore can be regarded as worthy of omnipotence as compared with we on this side of the House who believe that it's more valuable to be able to understand from a practical perspective what those who belong to these clubs are actually all about.A couple of other matters and these are of particular moment to those in the rural parts of the Helensville electorate and I make no apology for emphasising their advocacy to me in particular. One is exemptions for those involved in pest control a practical matter in some parts of New Zealand as I say including the part of New Zealand that I'm privileged to represent currently and also exemptions for those involved in sport shooting those exhibiting the discipline and the rigour of that particular activity whether they represent a region perhaps of New Zealand or New Zealand itself on the world stage or perhaps take a less ambitious approach but none the less a disciplined approach and indeed a safe approach—the safety being the element that I'd really like to emphasise in relation to those involved in sport shooting. Again I think as with the pest control we have a very good argument that has been made through a number of submissions to the select committee process and by way of approach to many members of Parliament and I support those exemptions as a very sensible practical measure.I've already mentioned an ideological difficulty with the register but more importantly perhaps in practice the reality is that what we will trade off for the intended benefits of having such a register is a false sense of security. Of course the information in such a document is only going to be as good as each data point within it in the same way that a chain is obviously only as strong as its weakest link and other similar metaphors. And so it is—and I'll sanitise the expression somewhat but it's a case of stuff in stuff out." Obviously if we're not fully able to rely upon a register as being 100 percent accurate then it will be of limited value accordingly notwithstanding the fact that we would of course like instinctively to be able to rely upon its contents absolutely.A related point although one I concede probably of lesser strength is that the existence of a large amount of data held by the State is of course—in this case data that's very valuable in particular to the personal security of those who are on it—liable to be lost is liable to be breached or leaked or somehow otherwise not controlled in the way that we would expect. So the privacy but again as I say probably more importantly the security of those on the register is something for which we should have grave concerns and I do hope that if the Government is successful in passing the law including the register every effort will be made to protect those whose names are on it against the loss inadvertent or malicious of that data because that would represent one of the most serious data breaches and this country has not been immune from those from various Government systems. It seems inevitable in fact. I hope to be proven wrong on this point in relation to the firearms register that is being proposed. That would be a dark day indeed for New Zealand providing as it would a veritable shopping list for those who would do ill to others.The regulation powers within the bill that the Office of the Clerk I understand recommended the removal of: from a constitutional point of view the desire for executive exigency I don't think is strong enough to outweigh the desirability of lawmaking that is more robust simply than providing for regulations in such key areas as this. The Parliament has proven for better or worse that it is capable of passing laws in very short order in relation to this space and so it could surely do the same again in future whereby the subject of the regulations as envisaged by the bill at the moment could in fact be the matter of Parliament made law now and in the future.The requirement for practitioners to notify police if they sense that there is a threat to individual or public safety: again very well-meaning but going back to that crucial distinction between that which looks good and that which does good I think it's necessary we turn our mind to the possibility of an unintended consequence whereby a person perhaps who is a firearms owner and perhaps has some sort of mental health difficulty might feel a chilling effect whereby they are less forthright about coming forward about the difficulties they are facing. So the National Party proposal is to strengthen that to require in particular urgent situations."