Gun Control Australia launches Supreme Court action over firearms law changes in Tasmania

ANTI-firearms campaigners are taking Premier Will Hodgman to court in a bid to make public legal advice over planned changes to gun laws.

Anti-guns campaigner Roland Browne.

ANTI-firearms campaigners are taking Premier Will Hodgman to court in a bid to make public legal advice over planned changes to gun laws.

Gun Control Australia today announced it had launched proceedings in the Supreme Court

to review the State Government’s refusal to release the legal advice on the grounds it was not in the public interest.

Spokesman Roland Browne said the case listed the Supreme Court on June 18.

“In late February 2018, the Government released a firearms policy which proposed to move

Tasmania away from the 1996 National Firearms Agreement,” he said.

“The Premier said at the time he had advice from his Police Minister that the policy did not

contravene the National Firearms Agreement.

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“Under the Right to Information Act, Gun Control Australia Inc. sought release of the advice

referred to by the Premier.

“The Premier by his delegate refused release of the information.

“He concluded that ‘it would be contrary to the public interest to release’ the information sought.”

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The National Firearms Agreement — forged in the wake of the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre — placed tight restrictions on the ownership of fully and semi-automatic weapons and imposed tighter rules around justifications for owning and using firearms and how they are stored and limited gun licences to five years.

It was revealed shortly before the March state election that the Government was considering changes to gun laws that would give farmers greater access to Category C firearms such as semiautomatic rifles, self-loading rifles and pump-action shotguns, and increase the duration of some licences to 10 years.

Premier Will Hodgman said the Government would not introduce changes to the law that were outside the National Firearms Agreement and the legal advice indicated the plans did not breach the deal.

“Changes to our firearms laws have occurred in the past including as recently as last year when we strengthened them, so they can be changed. It needs to happen within the context of the NFA,” he said.

“Our aim and our objective here is to ensure that people who lawfully use firearms — they might be a farmer needing to protect their crops, it could be a recreational shooter — are able to do so safely and not in endanger any Tasmanians but able to use their firearms in a way that is contemporary under laws that are very strong and retain the integrity of the National Firearms Agreement.”