Arms Legislation Bill

Well, we’ll start with the title, shall we? There really is only one appropriate title for this bill, and that is the “Arms (New Zealand First Sells Firearms Owners Down the River) Bill”—because that is precisely what they’ve done. There have been so many contributions pointing out across the first and second—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. The Speakers’ rulings and Standing Orders are very clear that any proposed amendment to the title of a bill cannot be used to make a political point, and I would argue that the proposal made by the member opposite is doing exactly that.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): The Standing Order makes it very clear that that is the responsibility of the Chair. I thank the member for his advice, and as the speaker has only just begun his speech—I think he’s in his second, possibly third, sentence—I will consider what he’s saying in the light of that Standing Order.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There have been a number of contributions. It started, of course, with the first and second readings, but throughout the committee of the whole House members have pointed out the concerns for firearms owners about where the bill gets it wrong, and where it goes too far. I’m not going to go through all of them, but principally they’re saying it doesn’t do anything about genuine criminal activity in gangs but it puts a whole lot of extra cost, regulation, and rules on law-abiding firearms owners. New Zealand First, who have long held the position that they were there for firearms owners, had ample opportunity, including the deal they struck with Labour just before the debate in the committee of the whole House—they had the opportunity to actually deliver on what firearms owners said they wanted and needed, and they failed spectacularly to do so. We’ve got a pest control exemption expansion that’s got an enormous fish hook in it, that in effect, as the Minister in his contributions has admitted, isn’t necessary but has refused to take out.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Well—

It is about significant detriment. It’s getting to the point of why we need to change the name of the bill.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Good.

They haven’t done anything about clubs and ranges. They haven’t done anything about sports shooting. They haven’t done anything about opposing the register that for years they’ve said they opposed. They haven’t done anything to actually address the concerns that firearms owners have been telling them and us for years. That is why I think the more appropriate bill name reflects the failure of New Zealand First to put into action the words they’ve mouthed for years and actually stand up for firearms owners. The “Arms (New Zealand First Sells Firearms Owners Down the River) Bill” is a perfect title that describes what has transpired over the course of this bill’s passage to date.

On the commencement date, we learnt in this debate—and, again, it’s a bit of a part of the deal that was struck just before the bill entered the committee of the whole House—to our surprise, that it is New Zealand First’s intention—and, in fact, this is actually the Labour Party’s intention as well. If, and it’s a pretty big “if”, they were returned to Government—and it’s an even bigger “if” if New Zealand First was actually able to be part of that—the first thing they’d do is amend the Act again because they’re not happy with it, and there are some other changes they want to make. So you’ve got to wonder why it is we are persisting with the whole screed of commencement dates we have to various provisions here in clause 2 when so much of it is anticipated to change, if not the day after the election, we imagine, if we hold them at their word, pretty soon thereafter.

So it makes no sense at all to have an Act that’s commencing upon Royal assent or has elements that will commence in a shorter term when it is the express intention of two of the governing parties to further amend the Act in a substantial way. In fact, New Zealand First members in their contributions have indicated it’s not just to insert the Independent Arms Administration Authority to replace the police as the administrators of the Arms Act but, in fact, that they intend there to be further review and amendment just after the election to revisit some of the things that they didn’t bother arguing for this time, such as sports shooting. That could possibly be a change, a significant change, around the registry and could, hopefully, be reducing the obligations on clubs and ranges. But what they do suggest very strongly is that these commencement dates no longer make sense. Instead, what would be more sensible is a commencement date of three years after Royal assent. That gives time for the policy work to be done, an amendment bill to be drafted, and, hopefully, that’s a bill that’s drafted with the assistance of National and ACT together in Government.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise on behalf of ACT for this very narrow and purposeful debate about clauses 1 and 2, the title and commencement.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): It doesn’t have to be that narrow. Just looking at Speakers’ ruling 112/6, which gives some latitude to summarise and make concluding remarks.

Madam Chair, with that encouragement—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): But that’s not a wide brief, OK?

All right. Well, strangely, what I wanted to talk about was the word “legislation” and particularly the role of the rule of law in this legislation and whether it’s appropriate to call this an Arms “Legislation” Bill when, actually, new section 1A(2) set out in clause 5 on page 13 here says that “The regulatory regime established by this Act to achieve those purposes reflects the following principles: (a) that the possession and use of arms is a privilege;”. Now, I want to ask the Minister of Police how it is consistent with the rule of law to say that having firearms is a privilege. You see, if it’s a privilege, then it’s something that a person is lucky to have—maybe that they should feel grateful for and that can be taken away from them at a whim, perhaps the whim of a police officer or other enforcement officer of the State.

This stuff really matters, because in a society where we have the rule of law, anybody—people that some might see as the lowest of the low, people that others might see as the highest of the high—has the right to look at the law of the land and say, “I have rights. I have rights to my property. I have rights to be treated under due process.” So does this Arms Legislation Bill really do that? If anything, by saying it’s a privilege to have firearms it departs from the principle that every New Zealander has equal rights under the law and says, “Actually, we’re not talking about legislation; we’re talking about privilege, something that can be arbitrarily taken away at a whim.” I quote F A Hayek, who said that if freedom means anything, it is the ability to make choices for oneself without concern for arbitrary coercion by another or others. As Hayek wrote in his excellent trilogy that I’m sure you will have read, Madam Chair, Law, Legislation and Liberty, it is impossible to separate the three concepts.

I need the Minister to tell us: is he really committed to the rule of law where firearm owners actually have some rights, or do they give it all up and should they just be grateful for what their local arms or other enforcement officer will let them have? That’s critical. And it matters not just to firearm owners. It matters to everyone to know if the Government is committed to the rule of law, and if the Minister is not committed to the rule of law, he should take “legislation” out of the title of this bill.

Now, Madam Chair, I hope I haven’t taken your encouragement too widely. I’d now like to talk about the commencement part of the clauses. The commencement is usually rather mundane so far as pieces of legislation go. It’s not too often that a committee of the whole House gets up on its hind legs and excited about commencement. But somehow, mysteriously, this Government has decided by changes to the commencement to make a policy issue out of commencement. And what is the substance of that commencement change? They’ve decided that this register is going to come into effect not after two years but after three. You have to ask why anybody could possibly think that a register in three years is a good idea but a register in two years is a bad idea. That’s what we’re being asked to believe by this Government and this Minister. New Zealand First have tried to take the credit for this delay. I can see the billboards now: “Vote New Zealand First and get bad law one year later”. That’s the promise of this change to the commencement clause.

But we know from when New Zealand had a register that it didn’t work. In 1982, when this Government—not this Government but an earlier one—commissioned a report, what did that report say? Well, one of the things it said was that of the nine homicides that happened in the previous year, none of them—not one of those nine homicides using firearms in 1981—were helped to be solved by the register that New Zealand had. That’s why in 1983, my birth year—this is how long ago it was—we got rid of a register. We can look around the world and refer back to the select committee’s report on what the effectiveness of registers is and we can’t find any evidence that registration works, and as I mentioned earlier, we’ve recently learnt from an Official Information Act request—not the information they want to give you; the information the law requires them to give us—that half of all firearms, illegal firearms, confiscated by the police in the past five years have had their serial numbers ground off. What use is a register then?

But the problem with a register, whether it’s in two years or in three, is not just that it’s ineffective in solving crime; it’s dangerous. We have seen, and it’s a great shame, many leaks of Government data in recent years. Now, perhaps the Minister is going to get up and say, “I acknowledge this problem, but give us an extra year and we’ll fix it. We’ll do what no other country’s done, what New Zealand’s previously abandoned, and what seems very dangerous.” But it’s dangerous because this Government seems to leak information like a sieve. Let me give you one example. There was a poor old pensioner who had a bit of trouble filling out his superannuation forms, and that somehow became public. There was a list of people who had tried to get involved in the celebration of 250 years since Captain Cook arrived, and their information leaked.

Some of these things are almost amusing but when it is a list of where every firearm is and its type and where it’s kept and who owns it, up and down this country—a steal-to-order list for criminal elements. There’s the great irony: one leak away from a steal-to-order list for the criminal elements. That’s the difference between a firearm register and a disaster: one Government leak. This Minister comes to the House and says, “The problem with illegal firearms is that people steal them off law-abiding people, so law-abiding people can’t have them.”, and then he says, “We’re going to come into this House and create a register that is one leak away from being a steal-to-order list for the most dangerous people in this country.” This Minister’s policies are part of the problem.

So I say to this committee and to you, Madam Chair, and especially to our fine Minister from Napier: it doesn’t matter if the register comes into being in two years or three years, it’s ineffective and it’s dangerous. What really matters is that it never comes into effect at all. That’s what’s at stake if we’re going to have a political debate. That’s what people—licensed firearm owners and non-licensed firearm owners who want to live in a safe society alike—should be considering. They should be asking: do we really want to put our trust in a Government that tries to tell you an ineffective and dangerous firearm register will be safe in three years but not in two? That’s what they’re asking you to believe. I hope that the Minister will come to his senses, take “legislation” out of this bill, because it’s nothing to do with legislation. In fact, it’s an affront to the rule of law—making firearm owners the only people in the country that are legally legislated as being privileged. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair—I’ll work very hard for this. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on the title of this bill, but I do want to comment on my colleague Brett Hudson’s naming of the title, because I think, frankly, that if I had my way, that title would be shoved in a box and put in cold storage somewhere for quite some time. But I do want to very briefly allude to why the title of a bill is important, because the reason it’s important is because you go to the website or whatever you used to do—you’d go out to Hansard, I suppose—and you find the title of the bill and you look up the information. You really go to the title of the bill to find out what that bill contains. Unfortunately, in this case, this bill contains some very confusing and, in my view, misleading information. So, effectively, what it does is you go to the bill, you look up the title, you find out what’s in the bill, and you’re extremely disappointed, and you’re disappointed for quite a number of reasons. First of all, it’s difficult to understand. Secondly, it contains a whole lot of facts and matters that I think are extremely difficult to follow.

I want to very briefly comment on a matter that the last speaker, David Seymour, raised, and I want to comment on it because I think it’s very relevant to where we’re at in life in New Zealand at the moment, and that’s the matter of privilege. Frankly, I think it’s a privilege to be alive. I think life is a privilege, and I think everything in life’s a privilege, actually, and if you look after it, you don’t have to write it down. That’s how life is. That’s how we should live, frankly. It shouldn’t be written down in legislation—extraordinary. It’s a privilege to eat—well, is it? I don’t know. We’ll have that in legislation next. I think that’s the concern I’ve got about things like this, because I—

💬 David Seymour: It’s a privilege to fish.

Absolutely. Well, it is a privilege to fish, and it’s even more of a privilege if you can catch one—that’s the real challenge. But I do think that we take, I suppose literally, licence with some stuff. So I have difficulty with the title of a bill for that reason, because often what’s in the bill has got no relevance to the title of the bill.

Anyway, I want to get on to the commencement, and I want to deal with some issues that, again, were raised by a New Zealand First representative in Ron Mark. He talked a lot about the way the bill was constructed and how his party had made some magnificent changes to the bill, but, actually, he then talked about the fact that this bill is not relevant and we’re going to renew it when we come back to Parliament. The reason he did that was for the reason I alluded to in my short discussion on the title: because there’s so much in this bill that doesn’t make sense that it’s going to have to be rewritten when it comes back to Parliament. The commencement date and all those things that follow from it are also very confusing.

I want to briefly touch on the register, too, because that’s been a discussion that I’ve seen take place in this Parliament, in my time in the Parliament, and there’s no firm conclusion on how you would run a register. There’s no firm conclusion on how you’re going to operate that register. Of course, we’ve now got the register being delayed for three years. That’ll give us time to sort it out, I suppose. But many of the submitters at the time talked about the register and talked about the fact, as the previous speaker alluded to, that this place leaks. Not only does this place leak but most of our Government departments leak in one form or another. There were some very real concerns expressed by submitters at the time about the fact that a register would not necessarily be secure, and you can only surmise that that’s why they’re taking three years to design and put in place a register. Of course, by that time, there will be many, many more guns in New Zealand, because this bill doesn’t stop the sale of guns, and those guns will all be around the country and they won’t be on the register.

So the whole thing is flawed in every which way you look at it, and I think that the commencement date of this bill—it probably would save us all a lot of hassle if the commencement date of the bill was actually put back for three years and we reviewed the bill before we reintroduced it in the following Parliament, because it is very untidy.

Now, we’ve talked earlier in the debate about the fact that we supported the first tranche of legislation, and New Zealand was in a position which was extremely unfortunate. I absolutely agree that some of these guns should never be part of our society. They have no place in society, in my view. But nonetheless, the people that own guns and collect guns and operate in this sector are exactly the same as everybody else. They’ve got the same rights as everybody else in New Zealand. So I think that the commencement date of this bill puts those rights at threat, because, effectively, it’s staging—you might call it a confiscation of rights, but I don’t know whether it is, because I think if we took the bill in its truest sense and it settles down in due course, unfortunately, people accept what’s been taken from them, and I think that’s very unfortunate.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was moved to speak again on this title and commencement partly because of your notification of Speaker’s ruling 111/4 but also Mr Seymour’s contribution on the name of the bill and, actually, just on something that Mr McKelvie raised.

But I just make the point first on—Mr Seymour mentioned leaks around registry and steal-to-order lists. Well, he did forget to mention the police SAP fault which led to licence holders being able to see all sorts of information about other licence holders, including the details of those prohibited firearms that they weren’t supposed to have. So it’s already happened, actually, Mr Seymour.

Mr McKelvie’s point about firearms not making it on to the register: well, the Government chose a certain buy-back scheme which they were warned would have lower compliance, and as a result there are up to 180,000 prohibited firearms still in circulation. Now, they’re held unlawfully and that’s bad, but they’re there, and they will never, ever, ever go on to a registry, which makes that intensely, intensely flawed indeed.

But the main point I wanted to stand and talk about was—Mr Seymour raised the issue about firearms ownership being a privilege in the purpose statement of the bill. It is true that in the purpose statement the Government has attempted, at least, to say that the ownership of firearms is a privilege. But I am pleased to say, and I’ve been waiting some time for this moment to say it, for firearms owners around the country, that the good work in the Firearms and Expenditure Committee has fundamentally changed that to the effect that it needed to, and that is in the issue of a firearms licence, clause 35. It’s to do with section 24 of the principal Act, “Subject to subsection (2), a firearms licence must be issued by a member of the Police to an applicant if the member of the Police is satisfied that—” and its fit and proper person criteria. It is the same fundamental criteria—a couple of tweaks—that has applied since 1993. It’s a restrained right, but it’s still a right. So firearms owners that have long held that as long as they are fit and proper people, they have a right to have a firearms licence—well, they do, and this bill ensures that they do. So my message to them is: ignore the purpose statement. It’s not the principal place of interpretation for the bill; the actual clauses are. Look in the “Issue of firearms licence”, look in what will be section 24 but it’s clause 35 of the Arms Legislation Bill. If you’re a fit and proper person, they must give you a licence. It is a restrained right, but it is a right you have for being a good and proper person.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank Brett Hudson for reminding me of the leak during the firearm buy-back process using the Government’s SAP programme. But in fairness to me, it’s actually difficult to keep up with the number of leaks with this Government. I suggest, maybe, actually, what the Government should be doing is establishing a register of its leaks rather than a register of firearms—then we could all keep up.

I also acknowledge that the point Brett Hudson makes about how the “must issue a licence to people who are a fit and proper person” was a change made in the select committee, and a very good one. The fact it wasn’t there originally tells you what sort of attitude this Government has towards licensed firearms owners. They wanted to make it so that even if you passed all the legal tests, you couldn’t have it.

On the commencement, I want to just talk about the sequence of events here. The commencement says that it’s going to come into play after a given period of time. Now, in recent times, this Parliament has actually had some quite novel arrangements around commencement sections. For example, the End of Life Choice Act only comes into force if deemed voted to be so by the New Zealand public at a referendum, taking place at the election. I think there’s an opportunity for the Minister to actually be a bit creative and say that the legislation here shouldn’t come into force until after we’ve had the benefit of the royal commission, because we had a back and forth debate in here earlier where it was asked, “Does the Minister really know if he’s solving the problems that led to our nation’s tragedy in Christchurch?” Does he know that the rules that already exist have been enforced?” The Minister, having been challenged several times, stood up and, effectively, said, “I don’t know.”

Now, Stuart Nash is a very able politician. I remember him campaigning in Epsom in 2005, so he’s smart enough not to say, “I don’t know.”, but anyone watching could say that’s the fact of the matter. He said, “I don’t know. I’m waiting for the royal commission.” Now, the royal commission may answer—and I think the Minister is saying “will answer”—critical questions about whether the previous laws were fit for purpose, whether they were followed, and, by extension, whether the changes in this Arms Legislation Bill actually solve the problem.

There’s an opportunity here, for instance—the Minister could amend the commencement clause, if he wanted to, to say, “This legislation comes into force at such time that Parliament is satisfied it’s addressed the findings of the royal commission.” That would be a sensible thing to do, and there’s a number of ways that such a commencement clause could be done. It could be done by leave. I can’t speak for the National Party, but they’re generally fairly constructive folks; I think they would give leave—ACT certainly would—for this legislation to go back to a select committee that would review it in light of the royal commission.

💬 Brett Hudson: We’ll support that.

Yeah, well, the National Party’s saying already—I mean, they’ve only just heard the idea but it’s so good that they’re supporting it already. And, you know, that select committee could actually look hard at—you know, given what the royal commission’s told us, because the royal commission’s got former Russell McVeagh lawyers on it; it’s a high-powered, expensive thing.

We want to make sure that we use its findings to make better laws, surely. We could actually say that this law doesn’t commence until Parliament’s satisfied with the legislation addressing the issues arising from the royal commission report on our nation’s tragedy in Christchurch. Then Parliament, you know, putting aside the election—because it’s not a political process but a law-making process—we could actually have a select committee, and that select committee could have a mandate, instructions from the House, to go and say, “Does this law measure up, given what we now know as a result of the royal commission?” I think that would be really smart. It would be innovative. It’s the kind of constructive thing that I know that Stuart Nash really believes, and I hope he’ll get up and say he’s going to commit to alter the commencement clause so we can actually have another look at this bill after we know what’s in the royal commission. Thank you, Madam Chair.