Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin – Leader of the Greens) – Honourable Speaker, the genesis of this bill is the Bondi mass shooting of innocent and defenceless Jewish people as they were going about their day, celebrating a faith event on the beach. The Greens extend our condolences to the families and friends of the 15 people who were killed that day and the many others who were wounded and who live with the consequences of what happened. I want to acknowledge, again, the bravery of many people in the vicinity and especially the first responders who helped prevent greater loss of life. They also live with the ongoing trauma of this horrific gun violence.
It was a horrifying event and has rightly evoked a national outpouring of grief, but also a determination that has culminated in public statements made following National Cabinet to tighten laws to reduce the threat of firearms that cause avoidable loss of life across all states and territories. We’re here today because the majority of Australians, including Tasmanians, came together and recognised the importance of taking this strong stance. I believe it goes without saying that that was an overwhelming majority of Australians and Tasmanians who felt this.
In Tasmania, our history and determination for stronger firearms laws and a safer community makes us even more resolute. The tragedy at Port Arthur in 1996 is still a daily lived trauma for many individuals and the community continues to feel its profound effects today. In its wake, the Greens, in close company with the Liberal government and Labor opposition of the day, with strong supporters of tripartisan law reform efforts that led to the formation of the National Firearms Agreement 10 days later and, of course, to Tasmania’s subsequent changed state laws.
Collectively, these have substantially increased community safety on our island since then and we continue to defend this incredibly important bulwark for firearm safety. That defence is evident in our manner of approaching this bill. We are determined to prioritise the views of victim/survivors, early responders, the health and family violence sectors who care for and support wounded and trauma-affected victims of gun violence and, of course, for gun reform advocates who quietly and tirelessly attend to unceasing efforts of uncovering and responding to the efforts of the United States National Rifle Association to erode and weaken Tasmania’s firearms laws.
We know the Tasmanian community, more than any other, understands how important strong gun laws are. Of Tasmanians, 94 per cent do not own firearms, and they want their elected representatives to look to community safety first in the decisions that we make before then, considering individual firearm owners’ needs of convenience and business or sporting interests.
I make this contribution today as the Leader of the Greens and also as a person who holds a firearms licence. On both counts, I uphold the National Firearms Agreement and every one of the individual resolutions within it. The first principle of which is that firearms ownership and use is a privilege and not a right, and it comes with responsibilities. The primary responsibility, as well as upholding existing laws, is to bend to updated law reforms that are needed to keep all Tasmanians safe from lethal weapons.
The day before the state election in February 2018, 22 years after Port Arthur, Tasmanians were rocked by the news that the Liberals’ police minister, Rene Hidding, had made a secret deal with the shooting lobby to weaken our state’s gun laws. It was a written deal that promised that the Liberals’ intention was to introduce changes that would unambiguously and substantially violate the National Firearms Agreement. They promised to double the firearm licence period to 10 years, to widen access to the restrictive Category C, and to create a whole new entirely prohibited category.
It was a deal that was deliberately hidden and only came to light because the Greens made it public the day before the election. Labor, at that point, did not cover themselves in glory, because we also subsequently found out that they had made a similar policy suite in an attempt to neutralise the vote of the gun lobby. Following the election, and backed by the incendiary outrage of the Tasmanian community at these secret announcements, we forced the Liberals to establish a House of Assembly Firearms Law Inquiry. The Greens secured amended terms of reference that focused the inquiry into investigating the current compliance of Tasmanian laws with the National Firearms Agreement. We rejected the establishment of the Liberals’ proposed Tasmanian firearms owners’ council that was to effectively be a gun owners’ lobby group in the ear of the police minister, and instead advocated for the need for a broad-based advisory group with stakeholders from gun control advocates, family violence survivors, and medical groups.
In November 2019, the Firearms Inquiry report was released and, honourable Speaker, I want to recognise your important role as chair of that Select Committee for the Firearms Inquiry. Your role was very important.
The evidence it amassed was wide-ranging and included hundreds of submissions made to the House and from a prior Legislative Council inquiry. The findings were conclusive. The support to maintain Tasmania’s strong gun laws and to further strengthen them was overwhelming. Health professionals, police officers, victim/survivors and child safety advocates were united in their total opposition to any attempts to weaken gun laws. The first and most important recommendation of the Firearms Inquiry was that Tasmania wanted to uphold the National Firearms Agreement and all its resolutions. Respondents spoke passionately for upholding our laws and recognised that we benefit from the safer community we all have as a result.
I mention this history because it’s clear that the history of the Liberal Party has been one of division on their commitment to public safety from firearms. We see that in the final bill we have before us today, unfortunately. The initial strong statements Premier Rockliff made shortly after Bondi, when he seemed to indicate that he would heed the mood of Tasmanians to take this once in multiple decades opportunity to fix up the flaws and reform our laws to match the times we live in, were sadly dismissed. The bill before us and the divisive pro-gun lobby statements of minister Ellis over the previous months makes it clear that Cabinet under Jeremy Rockliff’s leadership have bowed to the crushing pressure of the National Rifle Association in the US, which funds and fuels social media campaigns and pro-shooting lobby groups in Australia and Tasmania.
Despite this bill ostensibly being a response to the national Cabinet requests of each state post Bondi, it’s missing key safety elements. Arguably the most notable is the lack of caps on firearms. The government’s arguments for not having caps rests on the assertion that it’s an attack on law-abiding firearm owners. We’ve heard that repeated again just then. Who would be, they say, unfairly penalised? Implicit in this idea is the idea that owning a firearm is a right. It is not. We are not the United States of America. Too often firearms are misused, stolen or the wrong people are allowed to get or keep a licence, and the consequences that we see can be tragic. Bondi has been a wake-up call. We hear it. It’s past time to strengthen laws that were substantially weakened post-1996. As the Alannah and Madeline Foundation submission says, gun laws haven’t kept pace with firearms technology, ownership patterns, commercial interests, marketing or social media.
With nearly 1000 firearms stolen in Tasmania in the six years between 2018 and 2024, and another 155 in just the last year, we need a cap on the number of lethal weapons that people can collect in one place. The Greens have been consistent in our support to call for caps on the number of firearms a person can own, and we’re in good company with many stakeholders who have real concerns for the risks that the current situation poses to community safety. This includes police commissioner Donna Adams, who said [TBC if this is a quote]:
There are now 157,022 registered firearms in Tasmania owned by 36,598 licence holders. Almost 9000 licence holders own six or more firearms. Firearms theft means that even legally registered and stored firearms can fall into the wrong hands, enabling serious criminal activity, including family violence.
She says:
I reiterate my support for the national firearms reform agenda, including a proposed firearms cap.
Gun Control Australia has also commented on caps, saying:
The theft of firearms is a significant problem. What’s critical are limits on the number of firearms that any licence owner can have. Firearm ownership has changed since 1996. There are less shooters but more guns. Gun theft is on the rise, Tasmania having among the highest rates in the nation.
Caps were also a recommendation of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. On the basis of all of those views and the evidence, the Greens will be supporting Labor’s amendment for a five and 10 threshold cap and the exemption from the cap that are included. I thank Labor for the work it has done with the Greens’ Ms Badger on our behalf and some other members of the crossbench who have shown great collaboration and good heart in working together on coordinating these amendments.
The bill before us is also quite different from what was put out for public consultation, in particular the provision for grandfathering the reclassification of firearms, which Ms Badger has already indicated we will be amending. Unfortunately, in relation to family violence, as it stands, the bill is a gross missed opportunity to have the key safeguards that have long been called for by advocates. It’s now 30 years since the National Firearms Agreement was written and we know far more about the reality of family violence, about how firearms are regularly used to maintain coercive control over partners, pets and property. These reforms must reflect what we know and have learnt about making Tasmania safer for many women and children. We heard loudly from the family and domestic violence sector during the 2019 firearms select committee inquiry that there needed to be these changes, but there has been no appetite since then for the government to make the reforms. As Ms Badger has foreshadowed, we have a range of amendments that are complementary to those proposed by Ms Johnston to improve the fit and proper person test that’s required to grant, hold or renew a firearms licence for the purpose of preventing family violence or a firearm’s use as a tool of threat and coercion. I acknowledge the productive work of Ms Johnston in bringing these amendments, coordinating these with Ms Badger on behalf of the Greens.
The Liberals’ language has been about getting firearms out of the wrong hands from people who represent a real risk to the Tasmanian community. Given what has been said, we hope and expect that they would support each of the Greens’ and Ms Johnston’s amendments to improve the fit and proper person test to make partners, children and pets and property victims of family violence safer.
We do not support the grandfather provisions in the bill in relation to reclassification. They cut the heart out of the originally-stated purpose of the bill. Our amendment would establish arrangements to transition in an ordered way similar to what New South Wales has in place, and they would allow for a person to retain a reclassified firearm while they apply for a licence in the new relevant category.
The Greens want to thank, with great heart, the tireless advocacy of people in the public health and safety, firearms reforms and family violence sector for their work in making Tasmania a safer place from the threat of firearms violence. I want to particularly thank Walter Mikac and Stephen Bendle from the Alannah and Madeline Foundation. Walter has shown incredible leadership, not just for Tasmania, but for Australia and the world in what he’s been able to achieve.
For Roland Browne from Gun Control Australia: Roland does quiet and tireless work. He’s always there, always watching, always with an eye to public safety. To the Medics for Gun Control and all the different groups they represent – workers from the ANMF, HACSU, AMA, RACGP, paramedics – they are all too often on the frontline and they understand full well the importance of strong firearms laws. Thank you for your voices and your advocacy. I want to recognise Ms Badger’s work for the Greens as the portfolio holder. It’s been a lot of conversations, and she has worked with the shadows and Independents very closely.
Tasmania holds a special role in the world for our firearms laws. We’re seen as a beacon of strength, sagacity and steadfastness. The terrible loss from the mass shooting at Port Arthur has been the catalyst for positive changes that had been, to that point, resisted for many decades. We continue to model for the world the effectiveness of these laws in cutting or dramatically reducing mass shooting incidents and suicide deaths from firearms in Tasmania since they were introduced. But times have changed and there is more that we can and must do to keep up with the ballooning number of firearms in Tasmania, the false narrative that’s paid for and spread by the US gun lobby that firearms ownership is a right, not a privilege, and the serious threat of firearms in family and domestic violence.
If aspects of the National Firearms Agreement, the Firearms Act 1996, and the bill with its proposed amendments before us today appear restrictive and inconvenient to some firearms owners, then we say that’s a small price to pay for living in a safer society. When we look around the world, it’s pretty obvious that no Tasmanian wants to be subjected to the sort of violent and dangerous social conditions that people in other countries have to suffer. There will always be firearm owners who find some aspect of the National Firearms Agreement restrictive, but we stand with the people who are advocating for a safer Tasmania. I look forward to proposing and working on the amendments that I’ve discussed in the bill before us today.
