The 2026/27 NSW budget, handed down on 23 June, has nothing of benefit for shooters or the industry, and lacks any costings for its planned firearms buyback.
The shooting industry and community in NSW have been left in limbo since December, when knee-jerk, flawed laws were rammed through Parliament late at night, punishing law-abiding firearms owners for a crime they had nothing to do with.
Those laws include caps on the number of firearms shooters can own, and the planned implementation — in conjunction with the Federal Government — of a buyback of firearms owned in excess of those small quantities.
To date, no details about how the buyback will work, or more importantly, how much money NSW gun owners might expect to receive in exchange for having their property confiscated have been made available — a state of affairs which remains unchanged following the State budget.
The uncertainty has been devastating for NSW shooters and businesses alike, with the regulations still being drafted more than six months after the laws were passed.
Firearms dealers in particular left in dire straits as shooters hold off buying guns due to being unsure what limits will apply to them, and the processing of licence and PTA applications slows to a crawl.
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party MP Mark Banasiak didn’t hold back in his criticism of the budget, calling it “not serious” and a “f-ing joke”.
“There is absolutely nothing in there for the firearms industry in terms of support,” he said.
“Industry is continuing to be left high and dry, continuing to bleed out even though the government will need them if there if a buyback ever happens.
“They [the government] make a loose commitment so that they’re still committed to a buyback, but there is absolutely no information about what that means in terms of dollars.”
He said it was quite possible NSW shooters and industry could be waiting another year to know if they were going to have to hand in their guns — and that if they did, whether they’d be getting any money at all for them.
Shooting Industry Foundation of Australia (SIFA) CEO James Walsh said the laws had been absolutely devastating for the shooting industry in the state, and the lack of anything to mitigate that in the budget amounted to another attack on it.
“Chris Minns and Labor’s gun laws have decimated the NSW shooting industry,” he said.
“Businesses are reporting losses of up to 80%, and there is no sign of any compensation or support as a result of his reckless knee-jerk legislation.
“Despite promises from several of his Ministers, nothing has come to light and given there is [nothing] mentioned in the budget, this is just another attack on our essential Australian industry.
“It shows the buyback is a failed policy. Every other state and territory has rejected this bad labor policy, but Minns is persevering and destroying businesses, and costing people their jobs and livelihoods.”
While there is nothing to help shooters in the budget, it does contain $48.5m over the next decade for the NSW Firearms Registry to “strengthen checks, process licence renewals and upgrade systems” — none of which helps the NSW dealers facing the very real prospect of losing their businesses, or the shooters potentially set to be tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars each out of pocket because of a government absolutely refusing to admit it has made bad, emotionally driven laws.
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