Cancel culture takes aim at Australia’s firearms industry

A foreign company allowed to buy an Aussie firm has cancelled an entire industry worth $2.4 billion. Questions must be answered.

The Australian firearms industry contributes an estimated $2.4 billion and 19,000 jobs to the Australian economy. Picture: Joel Carrett/AAP

Cancel culture is rife in Australia, with large corporations using their market power and dominance to cast their moral assertions far and wide, disrupting legitimate Australian industries and businesses in the process.

The Australian firearms industry was estimated in 2018 to contribute $2.4 billion and 19,000 jobs to the Australian economy. Our essential industry supplies farmers, pest controllers, sporting shooters and hunters with the tools necessary for their trade. We are also a trusted partner to Australian defence and law enforcement, providing them products crucial to Australia’s security and safety.

Despite this, our industry is in a constant battle with organisations and institutions who refuse to provide our industry with essential businesses services. We battle banks and financial institutions who cancel accounts and refuse merchant services to retail gun shops, and we battle insurance companies who refuse to insure firearms businesses.

Now we are battling for vital nationwide freight services.

I hear people say, “just take your business elsewhere” I wish it were that easy. The problem is, the refusal of business services to the Australian firearms industry is very widespread, so what are we supposed to do?

TNT has been the main provider of freight solutions to the Australian firearms industry for decades, and they have been loyally supported with some industry accounts dating back 30-plus years.

In 2015 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission allowed foreign owned FedEx to purchase TNT. At the time, ACCC chairman Rod Sims stated, “the proposed acquisition is unlikely to result in increased prices or reduced service levels”. It was also widely publicised that there would be no disruptions to existing accounts.

Yet in a move blindsiding the entire Australian firearms industry, FedEx have announced from August 9, they will cease providing our industry with crucial freight services, giving a meagre four weeks to find another industry wide provider or grind to a halt.

This announcement could not come at a worse time. Covid-19 has made businesses more reliant than ever on freight solutions, and they are still working hard to overcome the financial impacts of the pandemic.

This decision will not only affect large importers and wholesalers of firearms, but also the hundreds of family-owned retail businesses across Australia. It will have a major impact on the ability of our industry to trade and that will ultimately cost Australian jobs at a time when they are needed the most.

Questions need to be answered. Something is very broken in Australia’s policy framework when a foreign owned behemoth is permitted to achieve local market dominance and then cancel an entire Australian industry.

What makes it even worse, is when it can happen to an industry that plays such a vital role in Australia’s safety and security.

• James Walsh is Shooting Industry Foundation of Australia chief executive

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