South Australian Labor government appears to be backing away from making changes to the state’s firearm laws, with Police Minister Blair Boyer telling ABC radio, “I can confirm that there are no changes to firearm legislation currently under consideration.”
“We’ve made it clear that South Australia already meets or exceeds many of the standards now being discussed nationally,” Mr Boyer said in a statement to the broadcaster, which was read out after an interview with SSAA CEO Tom Kenyon.
However, he had also told The Guardian that his government supported the federal government’s proposed buyback, at least in principal.
A month out from the South Australian state election, the opposition Liberal Party has stated it will not make changes to the firearms laws in the state if elected.
Mr Kenyon told ABC that there was no need for any changes to firearm laws.
“The government currently has all of the powers that it needs to have prevented the Bondi terror attack,” he said.
“The federal changes made recently meant that the ASIO and other intelligence agencies are able to share information with the state. That means the state can now take that into consideration when they are making decisions about firearms licenses.”
He said that of all the changes made in WA and NSW, and mooted elsewhere, ownership limits were the worst.
“But our biggest, biggest pushback would be on limits,” he said.
“Limits don’t make sense. They restrict the ability of people to go about enjoying their sport or undertaking their job in the case of farmers or professional shooters.
“They restrict the activities of families who enjoy shooting and hunting and everything else, and they provide no public safety benefit whatsoever.”
He added that restricting firearms because of their actions was also wrong-minded.
“If you’re having an argument about the type of firearm that a terrorist has chosen, rather than how that person got a firearms license in the first place, or even more critically, how they got radicalised in the first place, you’re missing the point.
“You’re not arguing about the right thing, and you’re not making policy changes about the right thing.
“We should be trying to prevent people being radicalised in the first place, or preventing people who shouldn’t have a firearms licence from getting firearms licence.”
Listen to the full interview here.
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