Both NSW parliamentary petitions are now the largest ever put before the upper and lower houses, and most astonishingly, they achieved this record only a day or so after they were opened.
Shooters outraged by the NSW Premier Chris Minns’ rush to implement what he described as ‘emergency’ legislation after the Bondi Beach terrorist attack have swamped the parliament’s website as they added their names to the petition opposing his knee-jerk reaction.
The website has often been so overwhelmed people could not get on to sign.
The epetition to the Legislative Assembly (lower house) had exceeded 40,000 signatures only 28 hours after it was opened, an unprecedented speed, and then 60,000 within 48 hours.
NSW Parliament will be forced to debate that one because it has passed the threshold of 20,000 signatures, an achievement only reached 22 times in the nearly 300 petitions previously presented.
The epetition was drafted by a collaboration of shooting organisations, politicians and community, including SSAA and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party.
It does not close until March, so it will not be debated until after that — when the new laws, if they pass through parliament next week, will already be in place. But that does not diminish its effect now, according to its backers.
“It is a message to politicians,” SSAA NSW President Lance Miller, whose name is on the petition, said. “The vehemence with which SSAA has responded — and it’s all shooters in NSW — the speed at which it was taken up indicates the vehemence and cohesiveness we have.
“The Labor government will recognise that.”
The opposition and other parties will, too, and there is a feeling it will influence the debate and possibly part of the outcome when the Minns laws are rushed through parliament next week.
“We are very happy with the momentum that we’ve received initially,” Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party spokesman Robert Borsak Jnr said.
He said the party had been running a campaign through its website enabling people to email a pro forma to their local politicians, and that 10,000 had already gone out.
“We’re hitting them with numbers,” Mr Borsak said. “Those MPs receiving the bombarding emails, they’re going to listen and then they’re going to see the petition.
“The petition will resonate now. It’ll resonate after it finishes. It’ll resonate during the debate. It will have an impact.”
The largest until now was an epetition that achieved more than 38,000 signatures, calling for fair pay for nurses and midwives, a popular mainstream cause (except, it seems, within government and treasury).
The next two were close: save the race track at Wakefield Park near Goulburn (28,950 signatures) very closely ahead of a firearms-related one “against the negative consequences of the Firearms and Weapons Legislation Amendment (Criminal Use) Bill”, which had set its own record by the time it closed in 2021.
Other high achievers were about saving the live music scene, increasing random breath testing, koala habitat, recalling parliament during ongoing Covid lockdowns and plea not to enact over-reaching new animal welfare laws.
Given that the animal welfare laws potentially encapsulated animals in hunting scenarios, three of the top 10 Legislative Assembly epetitions were firearms related.
In the upper house list of epetitions, the current one on gun laws topped the previous leader (27,230 signatures) which called for greater public access to National Parks for many activities, including hunting.
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