The consultation period for a controversial Community Safety Bill in Queensland has been blasted as “spectacularly inadequate” by Shooters Union Australia, which says the planned law will strip Queenslanders of civil liberties, revoke gun licences from people who have done nothing wrong, and achieve the complete opposite of what its name implies.
The Community Safety Bill 2024, introduced to Queensland Parliament on May 1 by Police Minister Mark Ryan, makes changes to 14 different Acts, particularly the Weapons Act, Criminal Code, Police Powers and Responsibilities Act, and the Explosives Act.
Shooters Union president Graham Park called some of the Bill’s provisions “truly frightening” and said it was outrageous the consultation period was a mere fortnight.
“The explanatory notes alone are 100 pages long – there’s no way people can properly go through the legislation, analyse it and make an informed submission to the government in that time,” he said.
“There are some truly frightening provisions in the Bill for shooters.
“In particular, there are sections which will potentially allow the police to revoke the firearms licence of people because of things their family members have done, there are things which make the friends and family of people with a Firearms Prohibition Order subject to warrantless searches, and the Bill would allow the police to order people to take down social media posts with certain firearms content in them.
“A mere fortnight of community consultation is spectacularly inadequate and a less charitable interpretation might be that it’s intentional, to keep the number of submissions to a minimum.”
Mr Park said the Bill’s contents were extremely wide-ranging and affected literally everyone in Queensland, and SU was calling for the community consultation period to be extended as a result.
“Besides the various Weapons Act matters, the Bill also includes the ability for the Government to force individuals to take down social media posts the authorities don’t like, and expands the situations for when police can conduct warrantless searches – which can potentially include while someone is minding their own business on the bus home from work,” he said.
“We’re calling on the Miles Government to significantly extend the consultation period for the Community Safety Bill so everyone in Queensland — regardless of whether or not they are a shooter — can properly look over the Bill, understand its implications, and make an informed submission on it.
“Right now, this Bill claims to be about community safety, but what we’re seeing is an erosion of civil liberties and an expansion of police authority, which will further erode Queenslanders’ quality of life and, ironically, make them less safe than if the government was to focus on actual, real-world solutions to issues instead of just making more things a crime.”
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