October marks a number of changes across the WA landscape, with harvesters getting ready to roll out across the paddock, boarders home for the last break before exams and the Perth Royal Show providing the annual opportunity for city people to remember that their food is actually grown on farms.
It also marks the six -month anniversary since the start of WA’s new gun laws came into effect and it is the chance for us to reflect on the battlefield that licensed firearm owners have had to navigate since March 2025. In effect we are halfway there and the challenge is to keep going.
As we reflect on the implementation of the new requirements to keep a firearm licensed in Western Australia, there are plenty of positive statistics that have been provided to the members of the WA Police Firearms Working Group, re stablished after the State Election to mitigate a path forward for lawful firearm ownership under the WA Firearms Act 2024.
In previous articles I have written about some of the crucial changes that we have negotiated at points in time throughout the past six months, resulting in a somewhat immediate easing of the pressure that firearm license holders have been faced with across our State.
Statistics
Effective the 1st of October 2025 there are now officially 55,000 existing firearm licence holders in “ Transition “. This means those licence holders that are still navigating the three key requirements to move onto the new digital system, even though everyone is still set to receive a paper licence until the first renewal year in 2026-2027.
WA Police Licensing Services have also issued 18,000 extensions of time to licence holders that have gone past their renewal date. This has provided additional time for licence holders to obtain a hunting or club authority, upgrade their safe storage or resolve an issue around accessing the firearms portal. In recent weeks firearm owners have been receiving emails notifying them on an extended grace period up until the 31st of December 2025.
The much-maligned portal has 30,000 firearm owners now fully processed, bar coded and somewhat relieved, as they have passed through to the other side. These include primary producers, club shooters, hunters, business licence holders and professional shooters.
The cold hard reality is that the number of licence holders in WA has now dropped to 77,000 and the numbers of firearms licensed has settled at 275,000.
Property Registration
After many months of hard-fought negotiations by the respected shooting organisations including the SSAA WA, and the WA Firearm Traders Association, we climbed the mountain on the minimum number of authorities that a landowner could issue.
It is now widely known that each property, where appropriate and suitable for hunting, can issue a minimum of 15 hunting authorities per registered title. This has seen the official numbers of properties registered with WA Police reach 22,000.
Since this whole saga kicked off, one of the biggest concerns has been how the largest majority of firearm owners would find the time and the skills required to renew their existing written authority with their landowner using the new digital platform.
By no means is it completely fixed, however this change has been a huge relief for many genuine hunters and landowners that require licenced shooters to continue to assist in their vermin management and retain their licenced firearms.
33,000 written authorities have been issued since March 2025
Calibre versus Property Size
The construction of the 2024 Firearms Act and Regulations contains countless sections and detailed descriptions about how privately owned land and pastoral leases would be assessed for hunting, deeded suitable by the Commissioner, and subsequently allow licence holders to retain or apply for a hunting licence. References to the capabilities of firearms, the size of the land and other matters that the Commissioner thinks relevant are also evident.
In recent times, historic policy documents used by the regulator, held the line that a minimum of 1000 acres was required to licence a ubiquitous .223 and a minimum of 2000 acres was required to licence a common .308 calibre firearm.
The Sporting Shooters Association of Australia WA has for many years challenged this unregulated policy, and constantly challenged that the purpose of a firearm carries more weight that property size alone. In an extremely positive sign that WA Police were willing to consider an evidence-based approach to safe firearm use in Western Australia, we now have a much more pragmatic framework for firearm licensing with respect to land sizes that are deemed suitable for genuine firearm use.
Contacting WA Police Licensing Services
We have been officially advised that the WA Police Licensing Services telephone lines are now fully operational. If you need any assistance with renewing your firearm licence, obtaining a firearm licence for the first time, adding a firearm to your existing licence, safe storage requirements, registering your property or are unable to access the portal, please contact WA Police Licensing Services on T: 1300 894 474.
Paul Fitzgerald
State President
SSAA WA