GCA HAS SENT THIS OPEN LETTER TO ALL NSW PARLIAMENTARIANS REGARDING THE GROVELLING OF THE NSW GOVERNMENT TO THE GUN LOBBY.

Our special concern with this Bill is the extraordinary power it gives to one of the most poorly behaved segments of our community, gratuitous hunters. In short this Bill takes away the responsibility of the parliament for shooter misbehaviour and greatly reduces the accountability of parliamentarians to the public. As such it is a deplorably irresponsible piece of potential legislation.

GCA spokesperson Mr Randy Marshall said “The Bill’s political supporters do not seem to realise that the hunting fraternity acknowledge that their real reason for killing with a gun is precisely that – they love killing with bullets. There is no honour or good public purpose in gratuitous hunting yet this Bill, with its creation of a shooter dominated Game Council, seeks to give them a degree of legitimacy that rivals the most educated and sensitive of animal welfare experts”.

Mr Marshall said, “Our experience over several decades is that shooting organisations pretend to be concerned with public safety as a diversion from their real aim which is to ensure as great an access to guns as possible. We point out that this Bill is likely to lead to an increase in the NSW gun inventory. The NSW gun problem is serious enough already and one wonders why more power is being placed into the hands of a segment of the community who have opposed every important gun law in Australia’s history”. ABS figures for 2000 show that almost half the gun homicides in Australia occur in NSW (26 out of 57)

Mr Marshall said, “Generally, gun groups have opposed restrictions on private use of military weapons, the post-Port Arthur National Agreement on Gun Laws and the 2001 improvements to safety training proposed by the federal government. Gun groups in Australia have a history of wanting to weaken proper gun controls and a desire to have as many guns as possible in the community. The results are that in 2000 no less than 45 Australians died in gun accidents. The Australian Institute of Criminology showed that in 1998-9 over 70 NSW people were hospitalised because of incompetent gun use”.

A responsible Government or Opposition would abandon the concept of the Game Council in favour of a special standing committee of the Animal Welfare Advisory Council which might contain representatives of no more than two of the most reputable shooting organisations. Surely it is irresponsible to give representation on a government body to gun hunting organisations which support trophy hunting – this is nothing to do with sport.

Mr Marshall concluded that, “The grovelling to the gun lobby nature of this Bill reminds one that a decade ago the NSW Coalition government under Premier Greiner introduced frightful legislation which was exactly what the gun lobby wanted. Within a few weeks seven people died in the Strathfield Mall gun massacre and soon stricter gun laws followed. The 2001 Game Bill is copycat grovelling by a subsequent government of a different colour”.