Ivan Dean, Speeches Index

Wednesday 3 October 2007

FIREARMS AMENDMENT BILL 2007

Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Mr President, I do not intend to make a long contribution at this stage either, but certainly there are a few issues that I intend to raise in the Committee stage. I just note, with some interest, in the second reading speech that this bill will align Tasmanian legislation with the National Firearms Trafficking Policy Agreement et cetera and that is wonderful and I think that is exactly what we should do. But I will be interested to see whether or not that sort of comment is in the next bill that we might discuss, the one tomorrow perhaps, the criminal compensation one, as to whether we will be aligning that legislation with the other State as well.

Mr Parkinson - With the national policy?

Mr DEAN - Yes.

Mr Parkinson - There isn't one.

Mr DEAN - There almost is. Every State has it. So I will be interested to see if that does occur.

I also refer to the last paragraph where it says, 'The whole Tasmanian community will welcome the provisions that amend the Firearms Act 1996'. I do not think that is quite right. There are a few people who have contacted me to say that they had some concerns with some of the amendments and so on. I am not saying that they are reasonable concerns at all, but there are some people out there who do have some concerns and have raised some issues. It is very important that we do get the firearms legislation right and there is a need, very clearly, to amend it from time to time and, very clearly, there is a need to ensure that we are up with and are in tune with the national position in relation to firearms.

I will be supporting the legislation. As I said, I had a couple of issues there, but I thank Mr Moore and the other members for their meeting at lunchtime. They were able to help me better understand some of the issues.

Mr Parkinson - He is very persuasive isn't he?

Mr DEAN - Yes, he is a very persuasive person, there is no doubt about that. It is fair to say that if somebody wants a firearm they will always get one. It does not matter how tight the legislation is, it does not matter how restrictive and how many controls we have; if they want a firearm they will always get one. And unfortunately we will always have misuse of firearms; even if they are firearms that are owned properly and in accordance with the law they will still be used inappropriately.

I noticed yesterday a number of road signs that were mutilated by gunshots and rifle fire. They are still being used as targets and it is disappointing that it is still occurring.

Mr Wilkinson - Probably strays from all those fox hunters.

Mr DEAN - It might have been those people shooting foxes. Perhaps they thought the sparkly stuff in the background was foxes and that is what has happened. But they are being mutilated still.

When we look at firearm legislation, we all go back to Port Arthur. Port Arthur saw the radical changes that we are now working with in relation to firearms. I do not think that anybody would ever want to go back to those days prior to the Port Arthur days when firearms were readily accessible to anybody and everybody; you could simply buy them over the shop counter. There were no cooling-down periods and you could have as many firearms as you wanted, without any real restrictions. In actual fact I owned four firearms myself at that time. I really did not need any of them.

We are now moving on further to strengthen those regulations and those controls all the time. One point that I wanted to talk about, and this was always a concern to police when I was in the job, is the close associations of firearms dealers with criminals. This has been an issue for police for some time. I think the changes in this legislation today will make that much better and much easier to work with. As I understand it, if a firearms licence holder has a close associate who is criminally minded or of a criminal background then that could well cause the deregistration of that person and strict controls in relation to it.

In fact, the Commissioner of Police must cancel a dealer's licence if he is satisfied that a close associate is a criminal and not a fit and proper person. Why should these people be entitled to sell and distribute firearms when they have close associates fitting that description? I think it is good legislation and will help control a situation that police have never been comfortable with.

The other point that I wish to comment on is the need to control the calibre of firearms in the security industry. When you see the size of the firearms these people carry today you have to wonder why they need to carry firearms of that calibre. I do not know whether it is to frighten people, to frighten offenders or to simply give them a cowboy look or something. But I think restrictions on the calibre of firearms is very good. What the security officers say, though, is that that is all very well but what about the criminal, the person who is committing crimes? They are not going to worry about the calibre of any weapon that they have and they will have the best weapon that they can get hold of at the time, irrespective of where it fits. They say that they need to have a firearm that is reasonable in all of the circumstances to repel violence and attacks and so on that they could well be subjected to, and they raise a pertinent point in relation to that.

The introduction of a militaria firearms licence I think is welcomed because there are a lot of people out there that do collect these firearms. In fact, a member of my own family has one and under this, if it is supported, they will now be able to apply to get the right permits to get that firearm back and have it on display, so I think that will certainly satisfy a number of people as well.

We discussed the issue of primary producers at lunchtime today, and they do need to be supported. The areas that I will be looking at more closely will be the transportation of firearms in the possession of primary producers in the main. It is important that they be able to use a firearm in the way they want to but not have to comply with the legislation in its control where they must either be retained in a receptacle or the magazine removed or different other things occur. They will be able to carry it from one site to another site without having to do that and they are protected and supported in that regard.

Mr Wilkinson - But they can do that within the act, can't they?

Mr DEAN - They can do that. There is a section there now that allows them to do that without committing any offence at all.

Mr Hall - Through you, Mr President - in the briefing that you had, if a primary producer is moving from point A to point B on a property across a public road and they don't remove the magazine and all that sort of stuff, which seemed to be rather -

Mr DEAN - They do not have to, and in the Committee stage I will probably bring it out more, but there is a section there which provides them with the right to be able to do that - a defence, in actual fact. It is a defence in connection with the defendant's employment or livelihood and it is to be applied 'no further than is reasonably necessary in the circumstances', and that is important. The point made to us was that it does not entitle a primary producer to carry that firearm in that situation, and the example given was, say, from Kempton to Oatlands, if there were two parts of a property - a part in Oatlands and a part in Kempton - it would not entitle them to carry it that distance, but certainly for much shorter distances they could carry it in a useable condition with the bolt down, et cetera.

I do not intend to take it any further other than to say at this stage I will certainly be supporting the bill, Mr President, apart from raising one or two issues in the Committee stage.

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