View the recording of this speech here.
Record of Proceedings, 22 August 2024
As a member of the committee that reviewed this bill, I want to make a few comments mainly around the changes to the Weapons Act. I think the role of the committee has been quite instrumental in this bill. As a non-government MP, part of my role is to get to the bottom of what is actually contained in the amendments but also to call out the government when they fail in their process and in some areas of the bill. I think a lot of concerns have been raised especially in relation to provisions that amend the Weapons Act for the reason that very little consultation was undertaken with stakeholders prior to the introduction of this bill. When there have been discussions, some of those concerns were able to be allayed.
In fact, we are seeing amendments foreshadowed by the minister that are a result of that consultation that took place, unfortunately after the committee process and after the bill was introduced. If that consultation had been done beforehand, we would not be having to make those amendments. Also the concern in the community would have been at a far lower level if there had been proper consultation. For example, while the Firearm Dealers Association were consulted, they informed the committee that they were unable to consult with their members given the timeframes involved. The other thing that the committee has to do and what I will seek to do through my comments is to also point out where the government has marked their ground about the impact of this bill and, in particular, the firearm prohibition orders.
The introduction of this bill was the start of the bizarre nature of how this bill proceeded. It was introduced at 9.30 am on a sitting day, and it is very unusual for a bill to be introduced at that time. It was all rushed at first. The committee was given a reporting deadline of 14 June. It was a very tight timeframe for this to be turned around. We proceeded to have a very short submissions period and we were to report by 14 June. In the end that was pushed out to 2 August. Bizarrely, though, the committee had almost finished its entire process by 14 June, which deprived people of the time to make submissions in a considered matter. It also gave the impression that it was being rushed.
I want to point out that the commissioner, the department and now the minister have repeatedly stated that firearm prohibition orders are only for the most serious and violent offenders, not for law-abiding people and likely not even for licence holders. Commissioner Gollschewski said at the public briefing on 10 June—
… we are talking about … people involved in major and organised crime, people who have very violent tendencies such as high-end domestic and family violence offenders … I cannot imagine a situation where we are going straight to an FPO with a person who is holding a licence.
We need to take the commissioner, the government and the departmental officials at their word on this because the issuance of a firearm prohibition order by the Commissioner or by a delegate can have effect for 60 days before it needs to be reviewed by a court, but the impact on a licence holder is that their licence is immediately revoked. Even if the FPO is not reinstated after 60 days the licence remains revoked, which means they have to go through the entire process of applying for a licence again. If someone works in an industry or in a rural area where they depend on having a licence to make their livelihood, to earn money, that is a very serious implication. We need to hold the government to their word that these FPOs will not be levelled at licensed firearm holders and only at the most serious violent offenders, people involved in organised crime and the like, because that is what they have said. The implementation is the most important issue when it comes to the issuance of FPOs.
I also want to talk about the fit and proper person test, which was set out in the bill and which has been dealt with by one of the amendments foreshadowed by the minister. The fit and proper person test set out in the original bill would have changed the definition of people who would fail that test significantly. Again, it is a failure of consultation because the people who are stakeholders in this were not consulted properly about the original bill. I note that the amendment being put forward by the minister will deal with many of the concerns that have been raised after the committee process in relation to the fit and proper person test, but there is just one other point that needs to be made in that regard—that is, whether or not unrecorded convictions are taken into account as part of the fit and proper person test.
There is a reason why judges and magistrates are given the discretion not to record a conviction in some cases and there is a reason why in the Weapons Act at the moment unrecorded convictions are not a part of the process. The original bill would have changed that situation dramatically and the amendments deal with most of those concerns, but they do not deal with the issue of people who may be able to use a firearm on a firing range or a sporting range. Whilst it takes the issue of unrecorded convictions out of the remit of the fit and proper person test, there does remain an obligation on people to notify the police about an unrecorded conviction for a whole range of offences either before the commencement of this act—so retrospectively—or after the commencement of this act. That brings me back again to the issue of the intent and the words of the commissioner and the minister and the departmental officials about how this bill is going to be implemented and the way in which those provisions will be implemented after the commencement, bearing in mind that the discretion of judges and magistrates in relation to unrecorded convictions has been utilised at the time of trial and decisions were taken by those judicial officers not to record convictions.
The other issue that has raised some concerns, especially for dealers, is in relation to the changes to the Explosives Act and the use of an online verification system for licensees and what would happen to that business, especially in rural areas, if the online verification system run by the state was unavailable at the time of a sale. That would require not only the production of a licence to purchase particular ammunition but also the online verification through electronic means across the internet of those licence details. We all know that sometimes online things do not work perfectly and there were concerns raised about this. I note that the amendment to the bill does appear to deal adequately with those concerns, although it would certainly have been preferable if it had been dealt with in the initial bill.
There were also concerns raised about the issue of people working on farms where they are employees who have a firearm prohibition order issued against them. I point to the words of the departmental officers in the committee process where it says that there is only one offence that may apply to somebody else—that is, in relation to an FPO—and that would be supplying a firearm if someone is subject to a firearm prohibition order, but in order to be liable for that offence the person has to knowingly supply that weapon. If you are employing someone and you have no idea that they are subject to an FPO, there is no chance that a farmer or a farm manager is going to be caught up in that firearm prohibition order regime.
There was also consternation about what is an associate of a person who is involved in crime. Again, the department was quite clear that there is a very specific list of offences that someone has to be convicted of and then you have to associate with those people in order to be caught up in that regime. The consorting provisions—that is, the laws implemented in relation to organised crime and bikies— are the list of offences. It is set out in the legislation, but, again, there was very little consultation at the outset.
The other issue that was raised in relation to knives—I know that AgForce had some things to say about this—was whether people who carry knives in their daily vocation would be caught up by the legislation. There is no change to the knife provision in this bill. There is a change to the penalties that can be applied for people who breach the knives provision, but there is no change in relation to how the offence of unlawfully carrying knives applies. People who carry knives in their daily vocation—like farmers, who do it as a matter of course—are not subject to the law now and there is no change in this bill in relation to that.
There could have been better consultation. The committee process was obviously disjointed from the start. We had a very short reporting date and then pushed out right to the end. If we had a better process, it would have been a better bill from the start.