The NSW Labor Government has belatedly thrown $39.3 million into additional resources for the state’s beleaguered Firearms Registry, which has been virtually crippled in the wake of new laws after the Bondi terrorist attack last year.
The government is framing the massive spending as “backing Australia’s toughest firearms reforms with the resources needed to make it happen,” according to Police Minister Yasmin Catley.
The pledge comes almost six months after the Minns Government rushed hasty, ill-conceived laws through parliament without examining the fallout they might cause — including overwhelming the already limited resources of the Firearms Registry.
One of the effects was to blow out application waiting times. Whereas Permit to Acquire applications were previously resolved within days, now they are taking up to six months, and licence applications — which have spiked as a direct result of the new laws — also face massive delays.
Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party MLC Mark Banasiak described the announcement of funding as “an absolute joke”.
“This is not reform, it’s damage control,” he said.
“What they’re trying to do is stop the system from collapsing under their failures.
“Labor dug the hole. Now they expect the public to pay for the ladder.”
The Registry will gain an additional 22 staff through the funding, but the government put no firm timeline on it, instead simply announcing that the Registry “will begin recruiting for these positions shortly and roles will be filled as soon as possible”.
The government’s announcement did not address the delays its laws had caused, instead framing the massive funding injection as as “uplift to the NSW Firearms Registry to implement changes to firearm licencing [sic] intended to help keep the community safe”.
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