ONE of Australia’s largest shooter representative bodies says it has “Absolutely Zero” faith that Western Australia’s Government will pay any attention to consultation regarding its draconian new firearms laws.
The Western Australian Government has released a draft Consultation Paper of its completely rewritten firearms laws, which contain a number of anti-law abiding firearm owner measures including hard limits on the number of guns a licensee can own, the requirement for regular physical and mental health assessments, and considering a person’s “views, opinions, and attitude” when deciding on their fitness to hold a firearms licence.
Shooters Union Australia president Graham Park said it was obvious the Cook Government, which had a supermajority in both Houses of Parliament, was going to do whatever it liked, and that meant any objections to the “core” elements of the laws would end up tossed straight into the bin.
“We have absolutely zero faith the Western Australian Government will engage in any sort of good faith consultation with the law-abiding firearms community,” he said.
“Some of the proposals in this legislation actually seem malicious to us – for example such as deciding that someone with opinions or an attitude WAPOL don’t like will not be a Fit & Proper Person to have a firearms licence.
“Our WA supporters have told us they were not consulted with, but rather dictated to about what the new laws would involve – and absolutely none of them support any sort of cap on how many guns a licensed shooter should be able to own.”
“Even the Law Reform Commission Report did not think firearms limits were necessary.”
Mr Park said the WA Government had form when it came to ignoring or dismissing anyone who disagreed with their agenda, and there was no reason to think that was going to change.
“This is the same state government that had identifiable maps showing where Perth gun owners lived published on the front page of the newspaper, and they just shrugged when people rightly complained about the very real threat to licensee safety they had created,” he said.
“We don’t believe for a moment that the WA Government will seriously take on feedback from us or other firearms users regarding their new laws, and any minor tweaks they do make will be on largely inconsequential stuff that will act as a fig leaf so they can pretend they did some consultation with people before they ram the laws home anyway.”