Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you Mr Chair. I rise to speak to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 201 and I do this having chaired the Finance and Expenditure Committee—and acknowledging colleagues who participated in the deliberations of the committee—because as has been noted this has been a slightly unusual process. Effectively what we have in SOP 201 are the recommendations of the Finance and Expenditure Committee which were expressed in the report that was tabled at select committee yesterday and put into the legislation. So I'd just like to take a few minutes to touch on some of the key changes and how these are translated into the wording of the bill that we have before us. The hearings that we held were very substantial hearings. We heard from a wide range of submitters both for and against the bill but almost exclusively from people who wanted to assist the committee to make the bill as effective and as fair as possible. The changes that I want to speak to that are in SOP 201 are changes that have been made in response to those submissions. As has been noted one of the important areas of this bill is the tight set of exemptions that are in there. This is one of the areas that the committee did focus on to make sure that the exemptions that do exist are appropriate and are managed as tightly as possible to meet the fundamental purpose of the bill which is to remove these weapons from general circulation. We considered very strongly the submissions we received from Federated Farmers and a couple of other groups about the issue of wild animal and pest control. The changes which have been brought into the legislation are captured in new section 4A(1)(h) in clause 8. In response to the submissions that we have received we have made changes to the bill to ensure control of certain types of wild animal and pest species that can in some cases require the use of prohibited weapons. Whereas the original bill allowed for that control through the use of prohibited weapons to take place on Department of Conservation (DOC) land we have clarified in new section 4A(1)(h) that this control may take place on private land. So this is a way that the committee has seen through this challenge that was identified by Federated Farmers and some submitters that there are certain types of species in quite limited situations and most commonly these were described as being on high-country stations where the use of these weapons may be required. There were some arguments put up to create a more general exemption which would allow for the exemption to apply to farmers themselves. The judgment of the committee was that this would be one of those steps that would take us beyond the intent of the bill and would allow general circulation which is what we are trying to avoid. So it's quite a tight exemption. It means that these weapons will be in the control either of DOC or of organisations or companies which are very highly regulated by police. That is a mechanism whereby certain species can be controlled and if you beg my indulgence Part 2 does reference some of those species and some changes have been made there to ensure that those species—particularly Canada geese that were referenced in submissions—are captured as well. Carrying on with the exemptions section one of the submissions we received from the Police Association raised the concern that in respect of the exemption for collectors—which was in the original bill and I think most people understand the purpose of that—if the bill is going to take these weapons out of general circulation then one of the largest stocks of the weapons will continue to be held by collectors. The submission of the Police Association was to draw our attention to the fact that this may create something of a risk that they would become the source of weapons which could be stolen for criminal activity. So what the select committee has done in the bill to address that particular concern has been to strengthen the provision which removes what's called a vital part of the weapon. This is captured in new section 4A(1)(ba) in clause 8. In the original bill the vital part was to be stored at a separate location. The select committee has strengthened that to ensure that the vital part will now be kept actually at a fully separate address. We believe this substantially meets that objective as identified by the Police Association. One of the other key exemptions relates to heirlooms and mementoes. This is a very very specific exemption and again what the select committee has done is ensure that it is very very tight also with the provision in respect of a vital part being stored at a separate address. So while we've recognised that submission we are ensuring that that weapon—while not being permanently disabled—effectively cannot be used if it is simply picked up because the vital part is stored elsewhere. I'll just leave my comments there for the moment. That's a summary of some of the key changes that were made at select committee and I thank my colleagues on that select committee for that work.