A group of 25 organisations have collectively put their names to a full-page open letter in the Daily Telegraph calling for a rejection of the state’s Feral Animal Legislation Amendment (Conservation Hunting) Bill 2025.
The 16 September open letter, addressed to NSW Premier Chris Minns, is co-signed by organisations including Gun Control Australia, the Allanah & Madeline Foundation and the RSPCA.
It describes the Bill, championed by Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party leader Rob Borsak, as “the most regressive firearms legislation in Australia in 30 years”.
This is despite the fact the Bill does not change NSW’s firearms laws relating to licensing, genuine reasons, fit and proper person requirements, weapons categories, or the like.
The letter also claims the Bill’s clear objective is “to promote hunting” and that it puts public safety at risk via its “right to hunt” provisions and expansion of land available for hunting under NSW’s highly successful R-licence regulation system.
The letter further goes on to claim that, “Passing any part of this Bill would ignore over 8 million people in NSW who do not use firearms and put their safety and public spaces at risk”.
This is an interesting tack, given that in recent history, when people advocate against things which would benefit minority groups, activists are quick to label those opponents as phobic or bigoted.
Shooters Union Australia president Graham Park said the open letter was alarmist scare-mongering, and not only inaccurate but inappropriate.
“Some of the claims being made in this open letter are ridiculous and some of them – particularly the assertion the Bill will somehow increase the risk of family and domestic violence – are outright offensive and completely out of line,” he said.
Mr Park also said he was surprised to see gun control groups putting so much effort into fighting what was a fairly mundane Bill relating to a lawful, regulated, economically and environmentally beneficial activity.
“I can understand animal rights groups objecting to the Bill, as it’s very much in their sphere of interest, but there is nothing in the Bill that relaxes NSW’s gun laws or makes it easier to obtain a firearm,” he said.
“Nothing in the Bill makes it easier to get a gun licence, it doesn’t change the fit-and-proper person requirements for obtaining a licence, it doesn’t suddenly let hunters buy AR-15s — so it’s a very strange thing for the anti-gun activists to devote so much time, energy and money towards fighting when it doesn’t really have anything to do with them.”
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