Labor and Greens targeting deal with Shooters and Fishers Party in the case of hung parliament
Voters in NSW want to see Australia’s gun laws tightened even further. It comes as the state stares down the possibility of the next premier of NSW having to operate in a minority government which could force them to seek support to pass legislation from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers.
Voters in NSW want to see Australia’s gun laws tightened even further, with polling by an anti-gun lobby revealing there is minimal appetite for watering down the laws.
It comes as the state stares down the possibility of the next premier of NSW having to operate in a minority government which could force them to seek support to pass legislation from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers.
The SFF are dogged by the pro-gun policies they have put forward in the past, including giving 10-year-olds gun permits, but they insist gun reform is not on their current agenda.
Labor has come under fire for giving preferences to the SFF in a bid to snatch crucial lower house seats with Premier Gladys Berejiklian arguing this puts Labor in debt to the minor party.
Labor leader Michael Daley was forced to commit to resigning from parliament if gun laws are watered down on his watch as he attempted to distance himself from the SFF.
The Greens have canvassed policy areas they believe they could work with the SFF and Labor on in the case of a minority government, but insist this will not include gun reform.
This morning Premier Gladys Berejiklian “absolutely” ruled out weakening gun laws if she remains in the top job.
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“I’m actually acting on what I’m saying …. How can you say you’re not going to weaken gun laws as the Leader of the Opposition does when Michael Daley has done a deal with 19 seats where he’s preferencing Shooters?” she said.
“That is misleading the public. I’ve taken a positive stance. I’ve said I’m not doing any deals and we’ve actually acted on that by not providing preferences to the Shooters.”
The Liberals are not preferencing the SFF however their Coalition partners The Nationals have some preferences for the Liberal Democrats — who have favored significantly weakening gun laws — in the Upper House.
The issue of gun reform being put on the agenda of the next parliament of NSW has significantly worried anti-gun groups, including Gun Control Australia.
The group this morning released examples of Labor and Liberals passing legislation since 2002 that they say were a “significant weakening of NSW gun laws”.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal polling conducted for Gun Control Australia — just after the Christchurch terror attack — shows 37 per cent of people in NSW think the current gun laws are too weak.
This was a jump from 26 per cent when the poll was conducted in 2018.
In the same time, the proportion of people who think gun laws are “about right” declined from 65 per cent to 52 per cent
Meanwhile the proportion of people who believe that laws are “too strict” remained low at 6 per cent, a slight increase from 5 per cent in March 2018.
The polling found people aged 18-34 are most likely to think the laws are about right while people aged over 55 are most likely to believe the laws are too weak.
The poll — of 550 people in NSW — found slight differences between Liberal-National voters and Labor voters with 41 per cent of people who will vote for the coalition believing the laws are too weak compared to 34 per cent of opposition voters.
Gun Control Australia said they were concerned that a minority government comes “with the threat of deals to weaken gun laws in order to secure the passage of government legislation”.
“Voters deserve confidence that the temptation of a parliamentary deal with the Shooters won’t result in a weakening of our gun laws,” the group’s president Samantha Lee said.
“History informs us that when governments want to push legislation through a hung parliament they do dirty deals with the gun lobby.”
“There is already 1 gun for every 8 people in NSW, an increase of nearly 90,000 in just over two years. This is a direct result of political deals weakening our laws. Without change this alarming number will continue to rise.”
GLADYS RESPONDS TO GUN LAWS IN NSW
By Danielle Le Messurier
Gladys Berejiklian has given voters an iron-clad commitment that NSW gun laws will not be weakened if she remains premier after tomorrow’s state election.
In a final pitch to voters, Ms Berejiklian is spending today visiting a number of marginal electorates to spruik the government’s strong economic credentials and various cost of living measures.
She has also assured them there will be no weakening of gun laws if she remains premier and is forced to deal with the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party.
Ms Berejiklian is facing a hung parliament with polls showing both parties remain deadlocked at 50-50 on two party preferred.
Labor Leader Michael Daley has a preference swap deal the Shooters but has promised to resign from parliament if gun laws are weakened.
Asked whether she would rule out the winding back of gun laws this morning, Ms Berejiklian said: “Absolutely”.
“I’m actually acting on what I’m saying …. how can you say you’re not going to weaken gun laws as the Leader of the Opposition does when Michael Daley has done a deal with 19 seats where he’s preferencing Shooters?” she told reporters in Engadine, in the Liberal-held seat of Heathcote.
“That is misleading the public. I’ve taken a positive stance. I’ve said I’m not doing any deals and we’ve actually acted on that by not providing preferences to the Shooters.”
Ms Berejiklian also hit back at questions over whether it was hypocritical to criticise Labor over its preference deal given the National Party was directing its supporters to preference the Liberal Democrats, a pro-gun party that want to remove prohibitions on semi-automatic weapons.
“They (Liberal Democrats) have no chance of forming government or being part of a government,” she said.
“You cannot compare the fact the Labor Party is aiding and abetting a party with extreme views on guns that can form part of a future government — now that is a huge distinction.”
The Premier kicked off her final day on the campaign trail in East Hills, which the Liberals hold on a wafer-thin 0.4 per cent margin by Glenn Brookes.
Surrounded by cheering children from Revesby South Public School, the Premier spruiked one of the Coalition’s key election promises to roll out before and after school care for all primary students.
She then went on to shore up votes in Heathcote, held on a 7.6 per cent per cent margin by Lee Evans, with cost of living incentives.
Ms Berejiklian visited Engadine train station to remind commuters the maximum weekly Opal cost would be capped at $50 — down from $63.20 — if she is re-elected.
The Premier was coy on her chances of winning tomorrow, saying: “It’s up to the people of NSW and all the speculation will be over in just over a day”.
“There is a lot at stake and I’m passionate about the future of NSW and I’m passionate about what we need to keep doing,” she said.
“What we’re reinforcing is that there is a clear choice — you can choose to support our government which will continue to provide the projects our communities need, which will take pressure on families, which will provide a strong budget … or unfortunately the Labor Party who will cobble together government with the Shooters, Greens and minor parties who don’t know how to run a state budget … and who want to cancel projects and raise taxes.”
Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said Labor presented a “clear and present danger to the state’s finances”.
“This election … is a referendum with a government with a leader in Gladys that will take our state forward or an Opposition that will take our state backwards to the dark old days,” he said.
Ms Berejiklian is travelling to the battleground Western Sydney seat of Penrith next, which Liberal frontbencher Stuart Ayres holds on a 6.2 per cent margin.
FORMER PM JOHN HOWARD JOINS CAMPAIGN
Former prime minister John Howard has joined the campaign trail for the second time in the battleground Western Sydney seat of Penrith.
Crashing games hour at Nepean Valley RSL, Mr Howard praised the leadership of Ms Berejiklian and local member Stuart Ayres.
“I’m just along here as a supporting extra to say what a tremendous job these people have done,” he said.
“I’ve always been a tremendous fan of her (Gladys) because she’s straightforward - what you see is what you get. She stands for things, she’s said what she believes in, she’s very authentic.
“She also can add up and does her sums and understands things very well.”
Mr Howard also highlighted Mr Ayres’ work in the electorate which he said he knew “fairly well”.
“He’s worked very, very hard since he became the member,” he said.
LABOR, GREENS TARGET SHOOTERS AS DALEY TO REMAIN LEADER
Before the ballot boxes open Opposition leader Michael Daley has confirmed he will stay on as Labor leader if he loses tomorrow’s election.
Mr Daley has endured a horror week.
On Monday, The Daily Telegraph revealed Mr Daley told a community forum that Asian migrants are taking young Australians jobs.
On Tuesday, 2GB announcer Ben Fordham managed to get him to admit his comment about SCG Trust ripping sprinklers out of Allianz stadium was wrong.
On Wednesday, he made a series of errors around key policy budgets during a debate with the Premier.
This morning, Mr Daley was assertive in saying he would remain, leader of the party if Labor loses tomorrow’s election.
“I’ll stay on (as Labor leader),” he told the ABC.
“I’ve had three months in the job. I took it at short notice. I have been sprinting as hard as I can.”
“As Paul Keating, my mentor and hero says when you get into public life ‘you hop on the bike and you peddle like buggery’. That is what I have been doing.”
The interview comes as Daley and the Greens plot an unholy alliance to form a bizarre minority government with the Shooters Fishers and Farmers party in the case of a hung NSW parliament.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the government is bracing for the loss of another two lower house seats to the SFF in Saturday’s election.
That would give the party a powerful bloc of three in the lower house with NSW facing the possibility of a parliament without a workable majority.
The rural seats of Barwon and Murray are both at risk of being lost by the Nationals to the Shooters Fishers and Farmers on the basis of support from Labor preferences.
The Nationals will launch a last-ditch effort to urge Labor voters to only vote one, instead of following how to vote cards and issuing preferences in a bid to keep the Shooters out of the lower house.
With the polls deadlocked 50-50, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has explicitly ruled out doing a deal with the SFF but Mr Daley remains open to the prospect.
“They can support us on confidence and supply,” Mr Daley told Wednesday night’s People’s Forum.
“We will take support of anyone these people dish up but we will not be beholden to them and we will not do deals with them.”
The Daily Telegraph can also reveal the Greens have drawn up a hit-list of potential “common ground” issues with the SFF on which the two parties could work together under a minority Labor government.
Taken together, this scenario opens the door to a parliament driven by the priorities of the minor parties.
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The Australian Gun Safety Alliance, which includes Walter Mikac who lost his daughters Alannah and Madeline in the Port Arthur massacre, has warned against the SFF holding the balance of power.
“The gun safety framework as we know it is under threat from many candidates in this forthcoming NSW election,” the Alliance said.
“We are serious about gun safety and, more than most, understand how important strong gun laws are to national safety. We ask all NSW voters to make sure that their vote counts for community safety and not to support any candidate who wants to weaken our gun laws.”
The SFF have previously advocated for 10-year-olds to have gun permits.
SFF leader Robert Borsak told The Daily Telegraph the party had “nothing on the agenda as far as firearms are concerned”.
However the Nationals and Liberals argue that the party will put firearms on the agenda once the election is over.
Mr Borsak said the party was not willing to form government with either major party and would use its power on a bill by bill basis.
He conceded his voter base would expect his party to align with the Coalition over Labor. “But if Labor will preference us, we’ll take it,” he said.
The SFF internal research indicates it should retain Orange and the party is confident in Barwon.
Both major parties have struggled with phone polling in Murray and Barwon with voters unwilling to pick up the phone.
Deputy Premier John Barilaro said if the SFF won three seats it would empower the party.
“With three MPs in parliament, the Shooters would have the power to hold the State to ransom unless it agreed to a reversal of John Howard’s gun laws,” Mr Barilaro said.
“At the Orange by-election, Labor preferences were the sole reason the Shooters took a seat in the lower house and now they are trying to do it again in Barwon and Murray.”
Greens Upper House MP David Shoebridge said his party would work with the SFF on stopping stadiums spending and retaining the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney city and on a royal commission into planning.
“It’s a reform agenda we could push Labor on,” he said. “It’s really going to be an arm wrestle over the next four years.”
Mr Shoebridge said winding back gun control would be on the SFF’s agenda.
“If there are a series of additional Shooters in the lower house it is inevitable that they will push to weaken gun control. They will use language like simplify and modernise but the goal will be to strip them down,” he said.
VOTERS OPEN TO NEWBIES
By Danielle Le Messurier
The Keep Sydney Open Party is eating away at the Greens’ vote, with young Sydneysiders being won over by the pledge to end lockout laws and repeal new restrictions on music festivals.
New polling from the seat of Sydney shows in the 18 to 35-year-old vote, the party leads the Greens by 4.3 per cent in the race for the upper house, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
According to the polling from last Saturday, Keep Sydney Open secured 13.3 per cent of the younger vote while the Greens only secured 9 per cent.
But the Greens were still more popular overall, scoring 13.3 per cent of the total vote compared with Keep Sydney Open’s 8.4 per cent.
Both parties share similar policies on the lockout laws and support pill testing.
There are 63 candidates running for Keep Sydney Open in the state election tomorrow and they have an average age of just 32.
Among them are former City of Sydney deputy mayor Jess Miller, who is running for the upper house.
The organisation was recently registered as a political party by leader Tyson Koh.
At 18 years old, Campbelltown’s Wendell French — who performs in drag as Felicia Foxx — is the party’s youngest candidate.
Mr French said the lockout laws had a serious impact on the drag community.
“We don’t have as many platforms now in the pub venues,” he said. “Drag is a form of me telling a story — like Aboriginal people telling their stories through art.”
Greens MP David Shoebridge said he was not worried about the party grabbing voters.
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