SSAA NSW

Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (NSW) Inc. 3 Austerity drive Our new CEO Jai Rowell has been tasked with reducing costs to our organisation so funds can be better spent to support members. A major hit to the budget was the liquidation of the Exhibitions Group that ran Shot Expo. We are working with the receiver in an attempt to recover funds. There have been discussions with Devil Ark management about our ongoing support for this excellent conservation program, but with minimal expenditure for this year. Importantly, SSAA NSW is financially secure with an extremely strong balance sheet. It is only the budget that needs to be reviewed. Jai has been tasked with securing external funding to support our ranges. Firearms Registry meeting The Registry has a new leader – Commander Anthony Bell. Commander Bell is a serving Police Officer unlike his predecessor who was an ex police officer serving as a civilian director. Mitch Newbury and myself met the new Registry team in December last year. Recently Jai and I travelled to Murwillumbah to begin serious discussions working together to support LAFO's, public safety, Registry's processes and Registry's legislative requirements. We had a list of issues to present to Registry and in all cases where Registry had management control, we have good outcomes. Where the outcomes are legislative, we need Registry to be supportive of our position so we can lobby Government for change without roadblocks. We want to provide a higher level of training to our hunting members and one barrier to providing hunter based marksmanship training is the clause in the NFA that mentions international match affiliation. Our position is that the NFA does not insist on international or Olympic affiliation and we submitted a legal opinion to Registry on that position. In the interim we have agreement from Registry that hunter specific training is in the interest of public safety and we are now able to submit training courses for approval on our ranges. One such course is already partially developed and will be tested very soon. Appearance laws are inconsistent across Australia. This requires legislative change in NSW and we are working with Registry to ensure it is action based rather than appearance based. Achieving this puts SSAA NSW in a strong position as we align with firearms positive politicians to lobby for effective change. Larger caliber rifles on ranges were also discussed. It is now a project for SSAA NSW to provide data on projectile carry and ricochets that proves these projectiles would not carry outside our templates at which time the restrictive energy based component of the range approval can be tackled. I welcome any member with genuine scientific information on this topic to contact me at lancem@nsw.ssaa.org.au for the formation of a committee to prepare this report. I will also seek the support of our National body for this important potential breakthrough. Discussions around Dubbo (Lucknow) and Armidale (Hardacres) range sites where 1000m ranges with templates wholly contained within our land were had. This is extremely important for long term sustainability. Obviously local councils and neighbors also have input to these decisions. We are working with Registry on a range of issues including improving processes and will continue to update you. SPC program with National Parks Last week we met with NPWS to reaffirm the SPC program as an ongoing program. Jai signed a new MOU which sees us moving on from the highly successful three year trial. There will need to be re-accreditation of existing SPC qualified members, and they will be first to be offered this training. After that there will be training offered for new applicants. I am very pleased with this ongoing opportunity for our hunting members. Political activity for the March NSW State electionsWe support political parties that support SSAA NSW and LAFO's. In this magazine we have improved on our previous tick box review of political parties and have asked some direct questions of all parties. I thank the parties that have responded quickly and the answers we have received so far are presented in this magazine. Jai has commented further on the State election where he points out our potential opportunity in the Upper House. You need to consider your political position for government in the Lower House and what you wish to do in the Upper House. You can vote for more than one party above the line in the Upper House (LC) if you want to support more than one party. For example, you can vote 1, 2 & 3 above the line as per your preference for parties, if you want to support three parties, and then not vote for any more above the line. This is still a valid vote. If you vote below the line you must number at least 15 squares. Stay safe on the range and in the field. Lance Miller President - SSAA (NSW) Inc.

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