O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you Mr Speaker. Listening to the debate today there is one thing that everyone agrees with even though they haven't said it and that is about behavioural change. Now criminals will always want firearms. From time immemorial whether it was knives whether it was clubs if you were on that side of society you always wanted to back up your position with as strong a piece of machinery firearm—any weapon—that you could. Criminals will do that. So to make any meaningful change we've got to change the behaviour of criminals.Now this is not the first time New Zealand has been awash with firearms. New Zealand was awash with firearms after the Second World War when soldiers came home with them. It was a real problem. Many of our laws now quite strict laws are based on what happened then. What we've now got is a situation where New Zealand is awash with firearms. I have to say now that police need to take a lot of responsibility for that. Because of the restrictions that used to be placed particularly when firearms were registered not the owners anyone who ended up with a firearm police could trace it and there was going to be some responsibility put back on the people that owned it. The previous speaker Nicole McKee has said that yes there are some firearms that come in from outside New Zealand in containers but actually most don't. Most start their lives as legal pieces of machinery legal weapons owned by people that end up—now to change the behaviour of criminals we've got to make sure we restrict the supply.In my early days in police I was an undercover police officer. A lot of criminals had guns but they didn't used to bring them out because they were hard won; they were status symbols and the last thing you wanted to do was lose it because you couldn't replace it. Police would often use the leverage of that to get firearms back—to get people bail to get other favours that criminals needed. That all stopped when all of a sudden firearms became so easy to replace that either they no longer became a status symbol or they no longer became a commodity to trade. So what we've got to do is actually stop the supply of firearms to those criminals. Again I know that although we've been together till now with Ms Nicole McKee registering firearms is an absolutely logical thing to do because any criminal found with a firearm—we've got good modern techniques. Someone will be responsible for actually how they ended up there.But there's a second part and that comes in this legislation. When I look at this legislation one of the most important behavioural changes that will take place in this is new section 42B and that puts the onus on other people around criminals who will be subject to seven years' and five years' imprisonment if their actions result in someone under one of these orders getting a firearm. What that means is you're actually empowering people family members often certainly associates mates who have pressure put on them now to get these firearms—these very people good people hunters people we want in this country to control pests in this country because underlying this this is a country where we do need people with firearms out there because we've got a massive pest problem and hunting is an important part of it. We are always going to need firearms. So breaking the nexus between firearms legal firearms and criminals is what any good piece of legislation should be about. No one piece of legislation will do it but this one—go to new section 42B where we're putting responsibility on those who are likely supplying these firearms to criminals.I'm reasonably confident that in about 10 years' time the large numbers of firearms around this country will reduce. They don't store well. In about 10 years' time I think we'll get back to the situation we were probably in in about the late 1980s early 1990s where firearms were actually reasonably hard to get hold of and the right people tended to end up with them. But in the meantime we're going to end up with criminals. As a result of the Australian gangs arriving here from about 2008-09 on—it's no one's fault. It's the Australians' fault! In fact I spoke to the Australian police officer who brought the idea up to Immigration and who takes pride in it. That's why we've got a problem in this country. Instead of blaming each other we've got to actually get the firearms off these people look at legislation look at whatever we can do to stop the flow to the criminals. This legislation particularly new section 42B among those other provisions will be effective in doing that.So this is a good piece of legislation. It's good to see I think the good speeches around the House tonight. The only thing I would say to our Green colleagues is: remember where all the victims are because the victims are living in the same places where the people who have the firearms are. They are the victims and that's never to be forgotten in any debate around victimisation. I commend this bill to the House.