Police knew their cost-cutting, inaction on gun control put public at risk

An internal report on the performance of the Queensland police weapons licensing branch found public safety was compromised by decades of cost-cutting and inaction on numerous reform recommendations.

Despite 32 reviews in 25 years, the Queensland Police Service had implemented only “short-term stop-gap measures,” the report found, and the branch struggled to oversee more than 1 million registered firearms and 215,000 licence holders.

The report – dated June last year, six months after the Wieambilla shootings – warned the problems were getting worse: licences could have been given to “inappropriate people”, and 481 registered weapons were lost or stolen in one year alone when compliance inspections were almost non-existent.

An internal audit has criticised the Queensland Police Service for failing to deal with problems in its weapons licensing branch.

While the number of registered weapons in Queensland had increased 28 per cent since 2016, the weapons licensing branch had seen an 18 per cent reduction in permanent staff in that time.

“Overall, this internal audit found that the issues raised as part of previous reviews continue to exist and further elevate the risk,” the report found.

“This includes under-resourcing of the WLB, inadequate structure of the WLB, a not fit-for-purpose system, a lack of adequate quality assurance processes, and extensive manual and inefficient processes.

“In addition, whilst some controls are in place to inspect weapons licence holders, these have design flaws and are also not operating effectively. This has resulted in inadequate monitoring of weapons licence holders and an increased risk of weapons theft offences which threatens public safety.”

One officer told the audit “we have been given no training or procedure to follow for weapons inspections,” while another said license holders “had more up-to-date information than we did”.

The report was obtained under the Right to Information Act. Some passages were redacted because Queensland police feared the release of those audit findings could compromise public safety even more.

Queensland police accepted key recommendations from the audit.

In a statement on Friday, a police spokeswoman said more than 260 inspections were conducted in 2023-24, two new work units had been established, processing backlogs reduced, and an inspection and compliance program prepared for 2024-25.

The report had noted more recent efforts to improve performance, including through the belated provision of a national gun register. But with a “recent rise in the severity of weapons offences,” it called for greater leadership to ensure the reform effort wasn’t delayed any further.

Among the 32 previous reviews was a Queensland Audit Office report tabled in parliament in 2020. At the time, a deputy police commissioner publicly accepted its 13 recommendations, but the internal report found none had been implemented by June last year. Queensland police subsequently agreed to revisit those recommendations - without giving a timeframe.

In recent weeks, a man with a gun licence fatally shot his aunty and then himself in Albany Creek, and a man who previously had a gun licence fatally shot a neighbour in front of children in Mackay.