There is significant political activity in both Western Australia and New South Wales at the moment in relation to legislation regulating both firearms and hunting.
In Western Australia, the gigantic mess (aka the Firearms Act 2024) put in motion last year by former Police Minister, Paul Papalia MLA, continues its painful roll as the Government faces two disallowance motions this week from the opposition and cross bench in the upper house in relation to the Firearms Regulations 2024.
Despite these motions, and the Firearms Act formally being referred for review by the WA Parliamentary Standing Committee on Legislation, the WA Premier went on Perth radio this week saying that “there’s only one group that’s opposing our WA gun laws to keep people safer, and that’s the Liberal and National Opposition, and they should hold their heads in shame”. This is quite a remarkable statement given the broad criticism of this legislation from all sides of politics, medical practitioners, conservation groups, farmers and domestic violence victim survivors.
Continuing their extensive advocacy efforts, the SSAAWA supports both motions, with President, Paul Fitzgerald saying “this further demonstrates that the WA Labour Government has lost its social licence to comment on firearms regulation”.
In New South Wales, the Game and Feral Animal Legislation Amendment (Conservation Hunting) Bill 2025 inquiry by the Standing Committee on State Development is underway, with a report due by 10 October 2025.
As introduced to Parliament, the Bill intends to amend current legislation to:
- recognise the significant environmental, social and economic impact of conservation hunting in the State;
- facilitate targeted conservation hunting on declared areas of Crown land, other than national park estate land, by persons holding a conservation hunting licence; and
- promote the use of State-owned forestry areas for hunting and to allow a conservation hunting licence to be a genuine reason for applying for a permit to have a sound moderator on a firearm.
There has been significant recent media commentary by advocacy groups opposed to firearms and hunting that is misleading and fails to reflect the intent and safeguards outlined in the proposed legislation.
So far, the committee has received significant submissions (now closed) in support of the Bill, including one from SSAA NSW that recognises the Bill as a landmark reform to modernise and strengthen pest animal management across New South Wales. SSAA NSW also appeared in front of the Committee last week to represent their 64,000 members.