Despite the Port Arthur tragedy and the stricter gun laws the fact is that Australia’s gun laws still have over a dozen serious weaknesses. The gun lobby wants to weaken our gun laws even more, and they have won important concessions recently in Victoria and Queensland. There al danger however is that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party now has a strong presence in the Queensland government. There are now major pressures to make semi- automatic shotguns and rifles readily available.

The gun lobby would normally back the Nationals but they are now backing the One Nation Party because the National Party agreed to support the National Gun Law Agreement following Port Arthur gun massacre. Here is an outline of One Nation’s gun policy as enunciated in September 1997.

1. Australian’s have a right to defend themselves, their families and their property.

2. Shooting is a legitimate sport and pastime and participants should be treated accordingly.

3. Disarming law abiding Australians is not in the national interest and will do nothing to reduce crime.

This policy defies good logic, it is superficial and could have been written by the gun lobby. It is one of the most dangerous gun policies which Gun Control Australia has seen presented, in the history of Australian Party politics.

It is not surprising that Brisbane’s Courier Mail newspaper headlined on 24 May that a secret army was being recruited and trained in Queensland. This newspaper said that “The Freedom Scouts, similar to armed militia’s in America, aim to establish a force of 160,000 to be divided into as many as 10,000 small guerrilla units across the nation. The organisation claims large memberships in Townsville, Toowoomba, Mackay and Mosman.”

In the newspaper interview with Freedom Scouts leader Ron Heppes, he is reported to have said that “some Freedom Scouts had not handed in their semi-automatic weapons in the national gun buy-back”, and he commented that even if they had handed them in, they would be easily obtained by smuggling into Australia. Gun Control Australia believes that a major weakening of the gun laws in Queensland will create enormous difficulties for the National Gun Law Agreement to be effective.

On 17th June 1998 the Herald Sun reported that extremist groups had become members of the One Nation Party, in Victoria. It is a great pity that the 1996-7 National Gun Buy-back Scheme has been partly responsible for the growth of extremist politics in Australia.