SSAA NSW

Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (NSW) Inc. 21 2. What measures did you undertake to have the Government honour its' original commitment to allow the sunset clause to expire on the Adler shotgun? The government wanted my vote on another issue, so I agreed on the condition that they sunset the prohibition on the import of seven shot Adlers. They agreed, put it in writing by email, and then they implemented a regulation which enacted the sunset. A week before the 12 months was up and the import ban was due to be lifted, they introduced a new ban. The then Minister (Michael Keenan) said the government never had any intention of allowing it in. This was a total deception, so I went straight to the media at that point. I produced all the documentation with emails and regulation, and the media agreed that I had been deceived. That was published, and it put the government under enormous pressure because they had to deal with me and other crossbench Senators to get our votes while evidence was out in public of them not sticking to a deal. The fact is, though, that I was deceived, and they never had any intention of letting it in. They only agreed to the 12-month clause because they felt the review of the NFA would be completed by then and the sunset clause would become redundant. The debate then shifted to the states because Keenan went to the Police Ministers with his proposal and pretended the Ministers had gone to him. South Australia was fairly enthusiastic about it all the way, so he claimed that South Australia was driving it, but South Australia never drove it. That was never true, and it then became a case of whether the states would agree. Keenan was telling Cabinet he had the states on board. I, and a few other people I was working with, did a quick check around the states, and we got documentary proof the states weren't actually on board. We gave this to the Prime Minister, so Keenan went to Cabinet with his proposal and he was told that it wasn't true, and he didn't have the states on board. He was sent away but he kept working at it and, one by one, the states fell until only NSW was left. Troy Grant wasn't going to give in. I went to see Troy about it and he guaranteed he wasn't backing down. He's a shooter too and understands the issues well. He was eventually told by Mike Baird and the NSW Cabinet that he had to fall into line, so he was the last skittle to fall. We lost that one, but I worked hard and the people I worked with through the various shooting groups throughout the states who had contact with their state Ministers and some other politicians were terrifi c. It was a coordinated team effort, but we came up short. 3. What elements of NSW Firearms laws do you agree with? I agree with licensing. There are some people who shouldn't have fi rearms, and the only way to manage it effectively is to have licences which can be removed. We can argue about when licences should be removed and why, but it should be a right to have a licence, although it's a right which can be lost. NSW has licensing laws and I don't quarrel with that, and I believe there is a responsibility to ensure your fi rearms don't fall into the hands of people who should not have them. I think the severity of our storage and transport laws are well past sensible, but the general principle that you have a responsibility to keep your fi rearms safe is not one I quarrel with. Most shooters don't mind registration of pistols as it is a very longstanding requirement. There are bigger things to worry about, and that's the case with pistol registration: I don't agree with it in principle, but it's not a major area of concern. 4. Which elements need to be abolished? I strongly oppose the registration of longarms. I also strongly oppose the banning of pump actions and semi- automatics. If you are safe to have a gun, and you hold a licence without having lost it, then it makes no difference what type of fi rearm you have. There is not much of an appetite for fully automatic fi rearms, although they're fun. You could potentially treat fully automatic fi rearms like pistols: you need a special licence for them, so you can still have fun if you enjoy them, but it cannot be casual fun. You need to go to some effort to access those fi rearms. The current approach of tying people up in regulations to make it diffi cult with the aim of hoping they give up is profoundly wrong. 5. Which elements can be improved with either stricter or looser enforcement? There are many areas where NSW fi rearms laws could be improved, but if you go back to principles, I'd rip it up and start again. From the perspective of the presumption that shooters are not dangerous people, guns are not inherently dangerous, they can be misused but there are many other things that can be misused as well. All you have to really do is keep them out of the hands of dangerous people. Safe people are safe people, and in

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