Omer Ibrahim; Rurawhe AdrianIBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. Can I first also add my voice to the voice of the Hon Chris Hipkins and acknowledge our cleaners. It's cleaners day today. It's a day to say thank you for the good work that they do not only in this Parliament but in this country. They are dignified people who do a dignified work for all of us. I just want to start with gang culture and what's wrong with it. I don't think that in this House and beyond anyone can deny the damage the gang culture can cause. The gang culture is damaging. It damages lives; it destroys lives. And this side of the House this Government rejects the idea that we allow gangs to destroy our communities. We have heard a lot about this Government being soft on crime this Government being soft on gangs but we reject this assertion. The reason why we're rejecting this bill—we're not rejecting the principal idea of this bill but this bill is flawed. This bill doesn't do what the Opposition says it does. This bill is flawed because its focus is very narrow. This bill went through the Justice Committee and it was debated thoroughly and about 37 people submitted on it. I just want to highlight a few points that were fleshed out by submissions. Amnesty International for example said that this bill has only focused on gang membership and not organised crime or the most dangerous individuals more broadly". This bill also "may exclude individuals who could be committing serious firearm offenses." Under this bill the 15 March terrorist wouldn't be prohibited from owning a gun. So because of this and the many other issues in this bill on this side of the House we're saying that we're opposing this bill today.This Government has invested a record amount of money in growing our police. Since we came into power our police force has increased to 14000. Sometimes introducing legislation and chasing people through legislation or checking people or entering houses is not always the solution. We've got a police force that's very capable that's well armed that is fit to do their job and they are doing their job.The reality is that this Government has never not been active in targeting gangs and the criminal leaders and getting them out of the streets. I think the evidence itself speaks loudly. Since we came into power our communities are safer because we're managing to put away a lot of criminals and many of them are gang members. Yet this Government is being told that it's soft on criminals it's soft on gangs—something that we reject. This Government has seized about $500 million in cash assets from gangs. Any soft Government doesn't do this. Gangs and criminals we don't deny that they're out there. We don't deny that they are causing damage but we're also fighting them. We're cracking down on them.Also fighting crimes should be multi-faceted. It shouldn't be just by introducing one piece of legislation that's narrowly focused. Actually one of the problems with this bill is that it actually ignores if someone is not convicted they cannot be included in this. So even gang members who are not convicted of any crimes cannot be included in this bill. But we have an idea like my colleague Emily Henderson said before. Within a few months we're going to introduce a bill that's comprehensive that covers everyone that covers everything that takes away guns from anyone who poses a threat to our society to our community. We can't just pick up one thing and say we've got the solution. While we respect the member and the work that he put into this bill this bill is not fit for purpose so for that reason it's not going to be accepted. Since Operation Tauwhiro launched in February 1091 firearms have been seized along with $5.5 million in cash and 940 people have been put behind bars for offences related to firearms.I think the member before mentioned that this Government has said that owing a gun is a privilege; it's not a right. That's true. Because of that anyone that uses a gun in this country and poses a threat to our community to our society—we should have an ability to take the guns away from them. This Government is very clear that violent gangs and criminals don't have a place in our society and they cannot continue to threaten and intimidate and exploit our communities. I would reiterate that gangs destroy lives but we will not let them destroy our communities. We therefore oppose this bill and we will introduce our own legislation properly to implement the firearms prohibition orders regime very soon.DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Ian McKelvie."