Who holds the NSW Firearms Registry accountable?

If you make one administrative mistake as a licensed firearms owner, the consequences can be immediate. Miss paperwork. Forget to notify a change of address. Breach a licence condition.

You could lose your licence. Your firearms. Your livelihood. That is the standard expected of every licensed firearms owner in New South Wales.

Owning firearms carries enormous responsibility, and every responsible shooter understands that.

So why isn’t the NSW Firearms Registry held to the same standard?

This week, the Minns Government proudly announced the next phase of its post-Bondi firearms reforms.

From 1 July, law-abiding firearms owners face another wave of changes. Two-year licence terms. Additional identity verification. New permit-to-acquire requirements. More compliance. More paperwork.

At the same time, the government announced another $42.8 million investment into the NSW Firearms Registry to help implement these reforms.

It was presented as a victory for public safety. But after reading the Minister’s latest media release, I couldn’t help asking a simple question.

Who holds the NSW Firearms Registry accountable?

Because accountability seems to work very differently depending on which side of the counter you’re standing.

When a firearms owner gets something wrong, there are immediate consequences.

When the Registry struggles… There seems to be another funding announcement. Another staffing announcement. Another promise that this time things will improve.

Don’t take my word for it. Go to your local gun club this weekend. Walk up to the first licensed firearms owner you see and ask them a simple question:

“What’s your latest experience with the Registry?”

Ask someone who’s trying to add another licence category. Ask someone waiting on a permit to acquire (PTA). Ask someone trying to navigate the latest changes.

The chances are you won’t hear a story about a system becoming more efficient.

You’ll hear about delays. You’ll hear about uncertainty. You’ll hear about waiting … and waiting … and waiting.

We’re hearing reports from licensed firearms owners waiting more than 120 days just to add another licence category, with little or no meaningful update.

Others are reporting they’re being told PTAs could take up to 270 days.

We’ve spoken to shooters who lodged PTA applications in January and didn’t receive approvals until June.

Think about that. Six months to acquire a firearm you’re already licensed to own.

And now, under the government’s latest reforms, applicants must satisfy additional requirements before a PTA can even be issued, including demonstrating compliant safe storage.

How long will it now take to organise a safe inspection under an already overloaded system? How many more weeks — or months — will that add?

Nobody seems willing to answer those questions.

Increasingly, the official language coming from the Registry doesn’t even use numbers for processing times. Applicants are simply being told there is a “backlog”.

Backlog.

That’s now apparently an acceptable explanation from a government regulator exercising enormous power over more than 261,000 of the best Australians.

The problem is that the Firearms Registry publishes very little meaningful performance data that allows firearms owners to judge how the system is actually performing.

So people do what Australians have always done. They compare notes. At gun clubs. At ranges. At gun shops.

They ask each other:

“How long have you been waiting?”

“Have you heard anything yet?”

“Did yours finally come through?”

And the stories being shared are becoming remarkably consistent.

How has this become normal?

The government’s own media release says these reforms are being introduced in stages to allow the Firearms Registry to “effectively operationalise the reform”.

Think carefully about what that sentence actually means.

If the Registry required staged implementation, tens of millions of dollars in additional funding and more staff simply to administer these changes, wasn’t that something government should have considered before imposing them?

That’s not an attack on staff inside the Registry. It’s a question about accountability.

If these reforms supposedly reduce the burden on responsible firearms owners, why does every announcement seem to create more administrative work while simultaneously requiring another funding injection just to keep the Registry functioning?

THEN CAME BONDI

After Bondi, the government told the public stronger firearms laws would make NSW safer.

Since the Interim Report was handed down, the Royal Commission hearings have raised even more troubling questions.

We’ve heard evidence that the Firearms Registry operated for years without a dedicated senior intelligence analyst.

We’ve watched senior police publicly disagree over intelligence sharing and responsibility for critical decisions leading up to Bondi.

We’ve watched agencies appear to point fingers at one another rather than accept responsibility.

Yet somehow, the biggest practical consequences have fallen on the people who had absolutely nothing to do with those failures.

LAFOs lost appeal rights. LAFOs gained more bureaucracy. LAFOs now face licence renewals every two years instead of five.

How does that make sense?

More importantly, has anyone actually been held accountable? Has anyone lost their job? Has anyone accepted responsibility?

A STRUCTURAL PROBLEM

The NSW Firearms Registry isn’t just another government office. It exercises extraordinary powers over ordinary people.

It decides whether farmers can continue working. Whether competitive shooters can continue competing. Whether collectors can continue preserving history. Whether firearms dealers can continue operating.

Whether thousands of otherwise law-abiding Australians can continue enjoying a legitimate pastime they’ve pursued safely for decades.

Those decisions deserve competent administration. Transparent decision-making. Independent oversight. And accountability.

Which brings us to the biggest question of all: Why is the Firearms Registry still part of NSW Police?

Police should investigate organised crime. Police should investigate illegal firearms trafficking. Police should investigate terrorism. Police should arrest violent offenders.

But administering licences for law-abiding citizens is a completely different function.

The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party has long argued the Firearms Registry should be removed from NSW Police and re-established as an independent statutory authority based in Sydney. Parramatta would be an obvious choice.

Professionally administered. Transparent. Accountable. Independent.

That isn’t about weakening regulation. It’s about improving it.

Police should focus on criminals. An independent Firearms Authority should focus on licensing.

CONFIDENCE MUST BE EARNED

Governments routinely measure public confidence in hospitals, transport, councils and policing. Yet remarkably little attention has ever been paid to one simple question.

Do licensed firearms owners actually have confidence in the Firearms Registry?

Perhaps it’s time somebody asked.

LAFOs don’t fear accountability. They live with it every single day. They simply expect the government to live by the same standard.

The Registry measures us every single day. Perhaps it’s time somebody measured the Registry.

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