The Queensland Police Weapons Licensing Group is wasting millions of taxpayer dollars defending itself in a rapidly growing number of Civil and Administrative Tribunal appeals made by shooters fighting unfair police decisions.
A Right to Information request by Shooters Union Australia has revealed WLG’s QCAT-related staff salary costs have ballooned from $62,634 in 2020 to $227,610 in 2024/25, totalling more than $700,000.
The number of QCAT cases that WLG was defending jumped more than five-fold between 2018 and 2022, from 93 to 475 — and it appears the police are losing the vast majority of them, judging by the figures available from the Shooters Union.
“Our solicitor has taken on over 300 cases in the past 18 months; he has lost two,” Shooters Union president Graham Park says.
Mr Park says it was not possible to estimate the full extent of WLG’s QCAT expenses, but believes it is well into the millions.
“Retired senior police have said to us that the costs are far in excess of what we have quoted [in salaries],” he says.
“The fact is there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people appealing decisions. That has never happened before.”
This is despite there being no change to firearm legislation since 2018.
“WLG has obviously changed the internal policies and have irritated a lot of people and made what people feel are unfair decisions.”
Mr Park believes a major motivation for WLG to allow so many cases to go to QCAT is to abrogate responsibility for decisions if something goes wrong in the future.
“Its putting pressure on the whole QCAT system, which historically would have been lucky to see 15 to 20 firearms cases a year and is now seeing hundreds,” he says.
“There are, I think, 368 weapons-related cases waiting to be adjudicated as we speak.
“QCAT times have gone from 3-6 months to 9-12 months.”
The number of firearms cases flooding QCAT is affecting waiting times for non-firearms issues — the minor disputes the tribunal was established to deal with in the first place.
Mr Park believes the blowout is testing QCAT adjudicators, who are apparently becoming more and more impatient with the police tactics.
He is having talks with the Queensland government about this and other matters that are holding back the state’s shooters.
“A change in management would probably stop it or a change of directive from the government,” he says.
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