The Greens are proud of our successful amendments to the bill reforming Tasmania’s firearms laws, which has passed through the House of Assembly.
The bill the Liberals delivered to Parliament was way off making the necessary changes to make Tasmania safer. The Greens worked with health, family violence, public safety advocates and members across the Parliament to make changes to the legislation to improve community safety.
The Greens’ successfully removed the contentious grandfathering provisions to firearms reclassifications which wouldn’t have achieved the intended outcomes. There are now instead fair transitional provisions. This is a such an important measure to reduce the number of guns currently in the community, and enhance community safety.
We secured significant family violence safety measures, that mean family violence offenders will be excluded from holding a firearm for 10 years.
Other Greens’ amendments to the bill will exclude a person from holding a firearm license if they’ve been convinced of fraud relating to acquiring a firearm or license, threatened to use a firearm for violence or unlawful purposes or have a prohibition order against them in another state.
The Parliament also voted against the proposed new Ministerial power to prescribe additional reasons for holding a gun, which we were in strong support of.
Having spoken out about the need for firearms caps for months, the Greens were proud to stand behind Labor’s amendments for these. It was very disappointing to see these changes fail. It’s a testament to the insidious nature of the guns lobby, and the harm the Minister of Police has done in pandering to it.
Amendments from the crossbench and the Greens significantly improved the bill’s ability to reduce the threat of firearms to the community. The Greens will continue to work with the advocates and the Parliament as the bill moves to the Legislative Council.
