Ms BADGER – Minister, on Monday, tabled in another committee were the conservation areas and reserves that are going under assessment to be opened up to recreational deer shooting under the guise of deer management, although I note most, if not all of them are nowhere near the priority conservation areas we’re trying to eradicate deer from. Does Tasmania Police have safety concerns about expanding to recreational shooting on multipurpose land? I note some of these reserves are well-visited tourism areas that have tourism businesses operating out of them as well. Has there been any consultation with Tasmania Police about this proposal?
Mr ELLIS – We’re obviously working through a process. There has been hunting enabled on multi-use recreational land for generations in Tasmania. I’m happy to talk about that as part of the STT government business enterprise scrutiny hearings in the coming week. Certainly we want to make sure that when people are doing it they’re acting in a responsible way, which is the vast majority of Tasmanian firearms owners.
It’s important to get the balance right between community safety and supporting responsible firearms owners, supporting the Tasmanian way of life, and hunting’s been a part of the Tasmanian way of life for 35,000 years-plus. We’ll work through the arrangements when it comes to the firearms matters for landowners. I’ll pass over to the commissioner if there’s anything further she wants to add.
Ms ADAMS – The only thing I would add in relation to the exemption I have granted for NRE to undertake activities in terms of culling, as I indicated before, we’ve initiated a community safety firearms review committee. There is legal representation on that committee and they consider requests for exemptions on the basis of community safety. As part of granting that exemption, it is limited to a specific number of employees. It also requires that the shooting activities must be subject to supervision and control as per NRE’s approved culling plans. They need to have a reserve closure plan, and they also need to address public safety in a plan. There are a number of requirements for that exemption that they must comply with those conditions.
At the moment, that exemption has been granted for two years and is due to expire on 30 July 2026 as part of when an exemption is coming to an end. We will then review the way in which the exemption has been managed during that period of time, as part of our deliberations, and I take advice from the Community Safety Committee.
Ms BADGER – Through you, minister. Can I just confirm that the supervision and control and the exemptions you have in place, that’s on the existing land that’s permitted for culling by professional operators? Are you applying those same standards to the new land that’s being proposed to be opened up? Have you been consulted on those 15 parcels of land? That was the original question.
Mr ELLIS – Exemptions are quite a different matter compared to permits for hunting on certain land, particularly for recreation. We’re working through a process, as I mentioned, Sustainable Timber Tasmania (STT) makes very large tracts of land available for hunting purposes, and you can go to the STT website and have a look at where those areas are and what the opportunities are for hunting there. There’s a range of other public landowners that do the same.
I think there are some really good opportunities for us to collaborate between our landowners, to talk on the fire side of things about the approach to a tenure‑blind approach on public land for a whole range of those operations. Thinking about how we can work more closely across our public landowners, I think is a commonsense approach.
Certainly, in discussions that I’ve had, the approach that New South Wales takes in a technology‑facilitated way to provide recreational hunting access to public lands in a modern way that provides more visibility for hunters, better ability to stage access through that land, is a really interesting opportunity that’s been facilitated by some forward‑leaning work on technology.
We will continue to work through that process and certainly we want to make sure we get the balance right between community safety and supporting responsible firearms owners.
Ms BADGER – I will ask, for a third time: have these 15 parcels of land been consulted on with Tasmania Police? I just note, what happened in New South Wales was accepted by the shooters, but it put a lot of fear in the general public that use those public lands, and we do not want to see a repeat of that happen in Tasmania, minister.
Mr ELLIS – I think you’re mischaracterising there. What I’m talking about is the ability to use technologies to manage access to public land, because obviously public lands, from what I understand, New South Wales is similar to Tasmania, it’s been hunted on for generations. There are ways that we can use technology to facilitate that in a way that increases safety for the hunters, for the community, and make sure that we get the balance right.
It’s probably too early, at this stage, to be consulting on particular parcels, but I’ll check with Tasmania Police if that works happened at this stage.
Mr OOSTERLOO – Through you, minister. No, there hasn’t been any consultation with us, but the act quite clearly allows for – our role as police in administering the legislation is to ensure that recreational hunters who hold a valid firearms licence have permission from the landowner or the responsible government agency, in this case, to shoot on that land. That is effectively what we’re interested in.
We obviously play a broader role in terms of making sure that the hunters that have licences, that have permission to shoot on a parcel of land which currently exists and has existed for many years, do so responsibly in accordance with the other firearms laws, which are about safety of the hunters and the people around them.
Mr ELLIS – Chair, I will just introduce Assistant Commissioner, Doug Oosterloo, to the table.
