The Liberals’ Firearms Reform Bill doesn’t meet the expectations of the community or stakeholders. When the bill is debated in Parliament this week, the Greens will put forward amendments in the aim of protecting public safety.
Instead of having a genuine conversation about increasing public safety in the wake of the horrific events at Bondi, the Rockliff Government have allowed their Police Minister to politicise this debate and pander to the guns lobby. It’s shameful.
The Greens have been working in collaboration across the Parliament for some time on various amendments, informed by experts from the public health and family violence sectors.
We’ll seek to remove provisions which grandfather changes to firearms reclassification and remove the Minister’s proposed new power – the ability to prescribe additional genuine reasons to possess a firearm.
The Greens will put forward a number of amendments which seek to increase protection against the use of firearms as instruments of family violence and coercive control. Key to this is changing who can be considered a fit and proper person to hold a firearm and excluding family violence offenders for ten years after an incident.
We’ll be supporting Labor’s proposed caps. Reducing the number of firearms in the community reduces the threat to the community.
We hope members of Parliament will put improving community safety front and centre during this debate, and vote with us on these amendments.
