March 9, 2021
The Shooters Union Australia claims policy changes in Queensland’s Weapons Licensing Branch has led to legitimate firearms owners having their weapons seized or their licences cancelled.
The pro-shooting lobby group says it has spent nearly $10,000 in legal fights on behalf of it members about licensing issues.
On February 25, Katter’s Australian Party member for Hinchinbrook Nick Dametto demanded an explanation for firearms licensing delays, cancellations and seizures in a Question on Notice in State Parliament.
A reply from Police Minister Mark Ryan is due by March 29.
Shooters Union Australia president Graham Park said the current situation was “completely unprecedented”.
“It all stems from a deeply flawed audit into Weapons Licensing, and in particular the auditors essentially not understanding what they were looking at and deciding, for some inexplicable reason, that law-abiding firearms users were the issue and not the incredibly outdated and not-fit-for-purpose systems in the State’s firearms registry,” Mr Park said.
“We’ve supported more than a dozen applications to the Queensland Civil Administration Tribunal (QCAT), covering everything from people having licences taken off them for speeding offences from decades ago, to primary producers who the Weapons Licensing Branch deemed didn’t earn enough as a farmer to keep their licence.
“In a lot of cases, the situation is sorted out amicably before the QCAT hearing, but a number of cases have gone all the way with rulings in the shooter’s favour.”
Mr Park said the situation now was simply chewing up vast sums of taxpayers’ money and administrative resources for no reason other than political appearances.
“Every dollar wasted by police justifying a pointless QCAT case because someone got busted smoking a marijuana joint in 1998 is a dollar that’s not being used to ensure frontline police and emergency services personnel have the equipment and resources they need to fight real and serious crimes like assault or robbery,” he said.
“What makes it worse is this problem could literally go away today if Weapons Licensing stopped actively looking for reasons to deny licences to people, and went back to the way things were before the audit when everything was working more or less satisfactorily.
“Imagine if the Department of Transport decided to refuse you a driver’s licence because of a decades old misdemeanour, or because you had dodgy mates, or because they decided you didn’t live far enough from your work to need a car – that’s pretty much exactly what happens to law-abiding shooters all the time.”
If we don’t push back it will ultimately be the demise of our sport. As far as your remark on driver’s licences, the Department of Transport is already telling us that a driver’s licence is a privilege not a right. Big Government is getting bigger everyday and it has an insatiable appetite for your tax dollars.