Disallowance motions
Firearms Regulations 2024
Disallowance motion
Pursuant to standing order 67(3), the following motion by Hon Dr Brian Walker was moved pro forma on 29 April:
That the Firearms Regulations 2024 published on the WA Legislation website on 21 December 2024 and tabled in the Legislative Council on 8 April 2025 under the Firearms Act 2024, be and are hereby disallowed.
Hon Dr Brian Walker (2:03 pm): I have to say, first of all, how I wish I did not have to give this speech. I am very much in favour of very firm firearms regulations. Members will also appreciate the very high regard I have for the members of this government and indeed of this chamber. In particular I hold in highest regard the Leader of the House, his office in general, and his personal and professional skills in particular, which give me cause for confidence in the probity of this government. But this house has a task of reviewing legislation to ensure it meets the highest standards. We trust the other place to present legislation that is appropriate, sensible, thoroughly crafted, and appropriate for managing the health, wealth and prosperity of our state, even if its confrontational nature results in scenes of a less than edifying nature. The firearms bill we received, however, had not been properly consulted upon and had been debated under emergency COVID regulations. As a result of that, only four of its 495 clauses were properly debated before the bill was passed under that emergency legislation.
As someone trained in the use of firearms—I learnt through the British Army, albeit in the reserves, to kill people; the targets I aimed at were human—I am as aware as any member in this chamber of the vast power of weapons, as I call them, because I was trained to use them in a warlike manner. There must be sensible legislation and sensible regulations to ensure public safety. I think that every single one of us can agree with this. It makes sense.
If only the act, as it now is, was such legislation. It is written by foreigners to our shores. They are espousing an irrational, foreign approach to our firearms that has attacked the very nature of Western Australian life. It has been like this for as long as anyone can remember—since colonisation perhaps. I would have expected a renewal of the Firearms Act 1973—a much needed and overdue renewal of that act—to be worthy legislation . It was certainly worthy of a good rewrite, but it was not a worthy rewrite. What recourse do we in this chamber have? The bill has become an act and to the act have been appended regulations and we are responsible for ensuring that the current legislation serves the people. Most of us in the chamber clearly see that the current legislation fails to serve the people. What we can do is disallow the regulations. That, members, is the task before us now—to disallow the regulations. By serving the people, by disallowing the regulations, we can allow a reversion to previous laws.
To be clear, my concerns are neither impractical nor wholly philosophical. Members who were here in the last term of Parliament will perhaps recall that I put some amendments forward for the Firearms Bill, as it was then, in particular referring to my concerns regarding the aspects of the medical need for an assessment of firearms owners. We all now see how the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Australian Medical Association are pretty much against us doing this and many doctors are refusing to do it. Regulation 222 deals with health standards. By my reading, it suggests that a patient with a temporary medical condition could end up with a permanent firearm ban. It then goes on to explain what is expected of medical practitioners in this space—medical practitioners who are already, as I can testify from personal knowledge, heavily overburdened. Many of us hold genuine and understandable concerns that the patients will withhold sometimes vital information that we need for proper assessment. It also calls to mind our concerns regarding that horrible case over east where a man with a knife killed several people. The psychiatrist who was responsible for giving that patient, or murderer, the ability to stop taking the antipsychotic medication some years previously was vitriolically attacked by the public and the profession for having had a medical opinion that possibly contributed to a mental state that resulted in people dying. What will happen to general practitioners if they were to allow someone to have a weapon, asserting that they have mental fitness and then are found to have had problems—stresses from marriage or work—and then used a weapon to kill themselves? Would they then achieve some measure of notoriety for the blame? My concerns could have been addressed, as I had listed them on the supplementary notice paper, but they were not debated. They were ignored in their entirety because of the improper use of the guillotine, which prevented us from properly debating a law that I personally think was completely inadequate.
I am in the unfortunate position here of being forced by a cloth-eared ministry in this government to disallow the regulations in their entirety. I must say, not all the regulations are bad—not at all—but I must disallow them in their entirety as a consequence. There has also been much talk among colleagues in this house and elsewhere, about the potential for disallowance to cause untold damage, even to be a nuclear option, as I heard my good friend Hon Dr Brad Pettitt say when he debated this referral motion last month, because there is a concern that no previous regulations are attached to this act. All the previous regulations were for the predecessor, and therefore the clause in the Interpretations Act that governs the re-enlivenment of regulations cannot in this instance be applied. That is a concern.
Indeed, this misinformation was spread in the other place by a minister of the Crown, no less. Strange that it happened on the day before this. One wonders about the focus of misinformation and disinformation. I will not dignify those undignified untruths with any repetition but I will address the situation now. Let us be clear. I have no doubt whatsoever that this Cook Labor government is an efficient machine. The people who are serving the government in the various ministries are doing an excellent job. I have no doubt of that whatsoever. The government has lived through this before because when it finally folded to public criticism and repealed the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2021, it came to us and, in short order, presented a repeal bill that reverted back to the 1972 heritage act—simple, effective. My recollection is that no-one in this chamber had any problems with that except for Hon Dr Brad Pettitt who voted against it. Hansard is a bit of a devil is it not? It is probably a bit of a touchy subject, not least for the Leader of the House who had carriage of the act when it was repealed. Nonetheless, although he is absent on urgent parliamentary business, he is, in my opinion at least, one of the most consummate politicians I know. I highly respect him and, as such, I would be extremely surprised and a bit disappointed if I were to hear that he does not have a repeal and introduction motion in his back pocket at this very moment, wherever he may be. Such a motion could be put before us before we rise this evening—I am being improper there—
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: There's no such thing, member. You do what you do today and there will be consequences.
Hon Dr Brian Walker: Very good.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: You need to be aware of it.
Hon Dr Brian Walker: If we rise this evening with, I sincerely hope, this preparation in the back pocket—if not, it can be rapidly obtained—I can certainly commit to supporting that because, after all, we all share the same principles that we need a healthy firearms act to support safety in our community. Not a single one of us here would doubt that. Indeed, all the people I spoke to earlier today on the steps of this very Parliament are in agreement with this. This is not an approach to have open slather on all the weapons that people might want to use however they wish—not in the least. These are people of the most conservative nature whose weapons are all kept safely in a safe, unlike what was said by the Minister for Police at that time who claimed that the 90,000 weapons brought back had been taken from the streets. I do not know what streets are filled with very secure safes, but they certainly were not on the open streets to be available to all and sundry. I do not think that the Governor, an ex–Commissioner of Police, is any stranger to late nights either. So if we are to sit late and require this to be done, I am sure that could be done.
There is another alternative, of course. The government could introduce new regulations today, tonight or tomorrow morning, which may be the same regulations with a few amendments. It could put them back into place or on the Government Gazette and that would just kick the can down the road. We could discuss it again. I would be very happy to support that too, but there is zero concern for being reduced to lawless anarchy. The outrageous concerns made by the current Minister for Police are completely unfounded. It is surprising because, as I said, he has sat through this before and surely he would know better, or perhaps I could be taught a different lesson. Whatever path is chosen, however, whether we repeal or disallow the regulations or whether they are reintroduced in a different form does not really matter. I believe that sane minds in government must realise that the best way forward is to practice humility, as indeed the Premier has suggested, and rewrite the legislation and regulation alike that meets the needs of the people and is directed to do what is right. I will talk for a few more minutes. I will not take long because many people want to speak.
The choice is clear. Support our law and the regulations, which was started with I think untruths—the idea that proper consultation had taken place and advice was taken from the firearms owners, the shooters. We did that comparison a while back and we see that actually no, they made changes. Had the regulations and the 1973 act been followed properly, of the 350 events that the police refused to reveal to me in which they had not collected weapons, or so I am told, only 55 would have occurred because the vast majority were perpetrated by people who, by the design of that act, would not have been entitled to have weapons in the first place. A quarter of them were out on bail. Another quarter had existing mental health problems. Of the remaining, over half were established criminals with convictions who would have had access to weapons denied, leaving a total of 55 events over four years. We supported a law, which started with untruths. We have had repeated misdirection and deception and now, finally, it has been supported by planned misinformation from senior levels. I wonder how anyone could actually vote to support such a situation, or we could vote to disallow these regulations. We can return to legislation that has worked since 1973, and would work even better if the police followed the instructions. We can work together to create legislation for this exceptionally important need, that with truth and justice we can support the freedoms of our people to follow their passions and also keep all of us safe.
I would like to finish with a broad call to society, which is quite simple: perdition to the criminals. May the next bill target the criminals and not the citizens.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas (2:15 pm): Thank you, President, for the opportunity to support the motion of Hon Dr Brian Walker today. It is a real shame that we have come to this position in the Parliament of Western Australia because there was an opportunity for the government to tighten gun laws in a way that was not disrespectful to honest, legitimate gun owners. Instead, the government is determined to demonise and vilify gun ownership as something belonging to someone who has something wrong with them.
I was pleased to see that the new Minister for Police, Hon Reece Whitby, had the courage to apologise for the rollout of the gun legislation. I would have thought that should have been a message to Labor members everywhere that maybe they were less than perfect. We should not find ourselves in this position. I have repeatedly said publicly that I am more than happy to work with Hon Reece Whitby to improve the gun laws to make them workable without undermining the things that people have to do that involve firearms, particularly in regional areas.
The government's arrogance has overwhelmed the debate. This government had a handful of clauses of this bill examined properly and then it rammed the rest of that bill home, and the mistruths that it has used to reinforce its actions are an absolute shame on the government. Sadly, if Parliament accepts them, it is an embarrassment to the Parliament of Western Australia. I would like to address just some of the things that have been said.
I will come back to the media statements of Hon Reece Whitby because he has put one out today—back to his old tricks. Back in April after the election, the new Minister for Police said:
"I want to say to gun owners, and I think this is important, they need to know that we understand their concerns," … Whitby said on Tuesday morning.
Obviously the government does not, but he did go on to say this:
“I want to apologise for the inconvenience and the trouble … when you have legislation that is updated after 50 years, of course, things are going to be different.
“So I say to those gun owners, I apologise for the inconvenience, I apologise for putting you out, but the underlying philosophy and court of this legislation is making the community safe.
The only problem I have is with the final part of the sentence, because it is not designed to make the community safe and it could have been. This could have been an incredibly positive exercise, but it was not because this was entirely based upon ideology, and the community is the loser out of that. There are a lot of mistruths out there about how this is being put together. I will start with a couple of the obvious ones because these really annoy me.
The suggestion that the tragedy in Floreat was a driving force for what has gone on here is absolutely untrue. It is a lie, and we know it is a lie because the Floreat episode happened months after the legislation was first tabled. It was not a driving force, despite the things that the government said. This was always part of its plan. It is an attack on honest, legitimate, law-abiding firearms users who use them either for recreation, work or simply to do the government's job for it on biosecurity. People are struggling out there to get control of feral animals, most of which come out of state government–controlled lands and end up on people's farms. I do not see the state government out there controlling that. The government is now making it more difficult for landowners to do that. Here is a quick tip: I do not care whether someone has a hobby farm or a large commercial farm, but the government seems to, because apparently hobby farms are not sufficient to control feral animals on someone's land. The legislation says people are supposed to, but the government does not care.
More importantly, the government had an internal report into the Floreat tragedy—the Floreat shooting—which was a shooting by a man who should not have had firearms at all. Nobody is defending the position that he should have had a right to firearms. Nobody has a right to firearms, but it should not be a point of attack, derision, vilification and demonisation. The government had a report done by the Internal Affairs Unit of the police. At this point, no-one else has seen it. It makes me angry every time a government minister goes out there and says, "We've released the report", because it has not, and I can prove it. Do members know how I can prove it? I FOI-ed it. If it is a public document, they cannot prevent me from getting access to it. I FOI-ed it, but members will be shocked to learn that my FOI request was denied, funnily enough. It was denied because it is a report of the Internal Affairs Unit of the Western Australia Police Force. I have appealed that decision. I am not out to vilify or demonise any particular police officer over this, because what will become plainly obvious to everybody very soon is that the police had the authority and power in the lead-up to that incident to seize Mark Bombara's firearms but multiple police officers did not do it. I do not want them sacked, fined or crucified; this was multiple human errors by multiple police officers. Section 24 of the Firearms Act 1973, "Powers of police", states:
(2) A member of the Police Force may seize and take possession of any firearm, major firearm part, prohibited firearm accessory or ammunition that is in the possession of a person, whether or not the person is licensed or otherwise authorised to possess it if, in the opinion of the member of the Police Force —
(a) possession of it by that person may result in harm being suffered by any person; or
(b) that person is not at the time a fit and proper person to be in possession of it.
In the 1973 act, the police had the power to seize Mark Bombara's firearms and they messed up, which was an absolute tragedy, but the police have not released the details of how they got that wrong and the government has not released the details on how they got that wrong. The government goes out and lies every time it says that the report has been released, and the media keeps printing the lie, because most of the media would like to put a left-wing bent on the situation. However, the simple truth is that the power was there but unfortunately it was not used. How is that different from the act that was passed last year? Section 346 of the new act states:
(1) A police officer may seize a firearm or related thing that is in the possession of a person in any of the following circumstances (each a circumstance that justifies seizure) —
(a) if the police officer is satisfied that the person is a disqualified person;
(b) if the police officer reasonably suspects that the firearm or related thing is in the person’s possession or is being used in contravention of a condition of a firearm authority;
(c) if the police officer reasonably suspects that possession of the firearm or related thing by the person may result in harm being suffered by any person or may result in a threat to public safety;
(d) if the police officer is of the opinion that the person is not at the time a fit and proper person to be in possession of the firearm or related thing.
It did not change. The power of the police to take firearms off people they think are a threat to someone else or themselves was in the 1973 act and it is in the 2024 act. For all the hand-wringing around this disallowance motion before the house today, we are not disallowing the 2024 act. That act will remain in place. The police will retain the power, after the disallowance, to seize firearms under the 2024 act. We are talking in this disallowance motion about the regulations. If the regulations were disallowed, that power would still exist. Would the police use it appropriately? I suspect it is much more likely, given the incidents and mistakes that were made. As I say, I do not want to crucify any particular police officers over that.
We are taking limited time today, so I will run through a couple of other key things to demonstrate the arrogance of this government on this issue. First of all, we were regularly assured that doctors would not be decision-makers on the health of firearm owners. It took a bunch of questions from me to find out how it operates. When someone goes to a general practitioner, the GP can get onto the firearms portal—if they can, because the firearms portal has been disastrous; maybe we can help with that and fix it, but we are stuck with it for the time being—and the doctor ticks one of three boxes: yes, no or yes with conditions. The doctor is a decision-maker. They are stuck with the decision and they will have to make a decision. Let me give members an example of a man called Alfred in Albany. Members opposite can ask the Premier's office about this because the correspondence went through that office. Alfred was so angry about this position that he wrote to the Prime Minister of Australia and asked whether the Western Australian government could do this to him. The Prime Minister passed it down to the federal Attorney-General. Alfred got back a strange reply, which was basically that it was not really the federal government's jurisdiction. Alfred sent the federal government a slightly ruder message and eventually that got passed down to the Premier of Western Australia. In his original letter, Alfred wrote that he had early stage Parkinson's disease. I know that because I sat down with Alfred and we have talked it through. The response of the state government of Western Australia was not to ask Alfred to get a doctor's certificate in the first instance, but the police turned up and took his firearms. They seized his firearms because he wrote to the Prime Minister, who passed it to the federal Attorney-General, who sent it to the Premier. The response to that, because he admitted that he has early stage Parkinson's, was for the police to steal his firearms. "Steal" is probably not the right word, but seize. His firearms were seized. If that is not a display of arrogance and disrespect, I am not sure what is. That was a disgrace. In the early stages of Parkinson's disease, generally people are more likely to have a stable hand when they are holding something. As it turns out, Alfred went to his GP and passed his firearms health check. I understand that his firearms have now been returned to him. That is an example of how arrogant this government's process is. The government could have asked him to clarify his health, but it did not. It seized his firearms first as an act of desperate revenge. It is a disgrace that it got to that stage.
There are a lot of things that we could talk about regarding the difficulty of the firearms portal. I am approached constantly by community resource centres in regional areas that are overrun with people trying to get through the process, particularly older Western Australians in rural areas who struggle with the portal. Even registering on the myID site with a phone is often difficult for people who are starting to get a bit older. I am a bit nervous about getting there myself these days! It has been immensely problematic. My office has been helping people, I have been helping people and people in the firearms community have been helping each other through this process. It is incredibly difficult, frustrating and problematic. The government could have made it better. The government could probably have delayed it for a little bit to make it better. It could have done what the National Party asked originally, which was to defer it for a year until the website was right. Nobody is saying that the government did not have to improve the firearms legislation in this state. One farmer selling thousands of property letters for thousands of dollars is obviously a nonsense, but the government could have fixed the things that were wrong without vilifying and demonising every honest, legitimate firearm owner out there. There are 90,000 firearm owners. Occasionally, one of them will do the wrong thing. Exactly like all the drivers in Western Australia, occasionally one of them will do the wrong thing, such as perhaps doing 150 kilometres up in the Pilbara. Perhaps they will occasionally do the wrong thing. We do not take everybody's cars off them. We do not do that. Nearly 90,000 honest people are being victimised, demonised and vilified by the government's actions today.
Hon Reece Whitby, the Minister for Police, was right to apologise. He should apologise, and he should apologise again. He has put out another press release today and of course he is playing cheap and nasty with the truth. In his press release today, he said, "Our firearm reforms keep guns out of the hands of violent offenders." They keep a number of legal firearm owners waiting for a very long time, but the previous legislation had exactly the same powers, so the government's new legislation and regulations did not change the power of the police to keep firearms out of the hands of people who should not have them. As Hon Dr Brian Walker said, it could have focused significantly further on illegal firearms that are rife in the community, but it has not managed to get that done.
Apart from the minister just trying to play sheer politics with this, he cannot even get right who was moving the motion. He obviously does not understand how the upper house works. I thought the media release was pathetic. Hon Reece Whitby, the Minister for Police, should continue his apology. He should apologise to the 90,000 honest, good, well-meaning and trustworthy members of the firearm-owning community whom he has vilified and demonised. He should continue to apologise for the standard of the process to transfer their licences. He should certainly apologise for his answer to my question yesterday in which I asked how that process was going and for deliberately hiding and obfuscating so that we would not have the numbers here today for this debate. There are a lot of things that the government should apologise for. If this disallowance motion is successful, the minister should get on his bike and table regulations that might actually work, and it would not take him all that long to do exactly that.
Hon Julie Freeman (2:32 pm): I am very enthusiastic to speak in strong support of the motion brought forward by Hon Dr Brian Walker to disallow the Firearms Regulations 2024, which, if left unchecked, will continue to erode the rights of law-abiding firearm owners and place unnecessary burdens on industries that are the backbone of our state. Firearm owners live in every corner of our state—from the western suburbs to the peri-urban fringes, our cities, our towns and our remote communities. They represent the full range of Western Australian people—farmers, traditional owners, professionals and tradies, elite sportspeople, families enjoying a recreation that everyone can participate in, hunters, young and old, and able bodied and disabled. Every member in this place represents firearm owners and should be listening to what their constituents are telling them.
Let me be clear from the outset. This debate is not about choosing between safety and rights; it is about ensuring both, because when laws become unworkable, and when they punish the innocent instead of targeting the guilty, we all lose. We must remember whom we are dealing with here. These are not criminals. These are law-abiding primary producers, sporting shooters and licensed collectors, many of whom have used firearms responsibly for decades. For our agricultural community, firearms are not a luxury; they are a necessary tool of the trade used daily to control pests, protect livestock and manage land effectively. Yet these new regulations treat farmers and rural landholders as though they are potential threats rather than trusted custodians of our land and our food supply. Cumbersome licensing requirements, excessive red tape and confusing categorisations have made it harder than ever for people in remote and regional areas to get access to the tools they need to do their jobs safely and efficiently. We are already hearing of delays in processing licences, reclassifications that make previously approved firearms now subject to tighter control, and requirements that simply do not make sense in a practical farming context. This is not how a government supports regional WA; this is how it chokes it.
At the centre of this failed rollout is the firearms portal—a system so deeply flawed that it is actively obstructing compliance. It was intended to streamline the licensing process but has done the opposite. From personal experience registering properties and assisting a firearm owner with their licence registration, it is clear to me that the portal was rushed and untested and is riddled with problems. Some examples include text boxes with character limits that prevent people from entering the full name of a business entity as they are limited to 200 characters; address boxes that do not recognise rural addresses; a box called "Description of property", which the applicant is supposed to magically know is the place that they enter the volume and folio numbers of adjoining lots—it does not say to do that; no ability to navigate backwards or forwards to make corrections or add additional information; and, if they make a mistake, the property is refused and they have to start the entire process all over again from the start. Even if people do manage to wade through this nightmare, problems at the back end result in very polite emails to inform them that their property has been registered but they cannot use the portal to issue written authorities yet, so they need to let the police know by return email whom they would like to be authorised for their property. This begs the question: What is the point of the portal in the first place?
In the estimates hearings in the other place, the Commissioner of Police revealed that only 2,800 out of 11,700 registered users in the new firearms portal have successfully transitioned to the new licensing requirements. Let us put that in context. There are over 90,000 firearm owners in Western Australia, which means that more than 87,200 people, or over 96%, still need to transition, and that must happen in less than nine months. To meet that deadline, the system would need to process approximately 484 applications per day, but currently it is processing just 46 per day. That is a massive shortfall. At the current rate, it would take around 1,895 working days, or nearly eight years, to process all the applications. That is not just inefficient; that is unworkable, and it confirms what so many of us have been saying all along: the current implementation is broken. The offices of the Nationals WA have received not only thousands of emails speaking to the failure of the firearms portal, but also correspondence from constituents who are not firearm owners—people who never have and never will seek to hold a firearm licence yet are so deeply concerned by the rushed and unjustified nature of these changes that they have taken the time to write personal emails. They see what is happening—the erosion of rights without consultation, the imposition of laws without transparency and the targeting of an entire community without a cause.
In 2014, when the Nationals were in government, we initiated a Law Reform Commission of Western Australia inquiry that culminated in a comprehensive report published in 2016. This 188-page document contains thoughtful and well-considered recommendations developed through extensive consultation. I want to place on record that it was the Nationals that began this reform process, and we were deeply committed to ensuring that this outdated legislation received the modernisation it so clearly needed. With your indulgence, President, I would like to quote from that report. The chair, Dr David Cox, offered a perspective that remains highly relevant to the reforms being discussed. The report states:
… the vast majority of firearms users in Western Australia are law-abiding and the Commission certainly has no intention of recommending legislative change that could make it more difficult for firearms users to abide by the law while having no practical purpose to meet the objects of the Firearms Act.
This was a balanced and rational approach to firearms legislation. Unfortunately, the Labor government has chosen to ignore much of this sound advice, instead advancing fear-driven policies that alienate responsible, law-abiding firearms owners. The very sensible reforms contained in the 188 pages of the Review of the Firearms Act 1973 (WA): Project 105 final report and the very sensible recommendations of the Law Reform Commission of WA have been tainted. This adulteration started with a marketing decision to create an imaginary problem that did not exist—something to heroically save the community from. Without COVID to keep the electorate fearful, this Labor government chose to demonise and marginalise 90,000 law-abiding firearms owners. It chose to publish a map of Western Australia, which ended up covered in bullet holes, to terrify the public and expose the locations of thousands of safely and securely stored licensed firearms.
When I visited the SSAA Nickol Bay gun club in Karratha last week, one of the committee members, a hardworking Western Australian with strong family values who volunteers his time for his club and his passion, expressed to me his frustration. The members of the club all knew and all agreed that firearms reforms were needed and that the licensing process needed to be modernised, but that what this government had done was a disaster for sporting and recreational shooters. In his words—I will modify his language slightly for this place—the government had the chance to make it great, but instead it messed it up. He did not use the word "messed".
Sensible reform was turned into a politically inspired campaign by a government with a history of political pointscoring. There are gun clubs in Western Australia that are over 100 years old. That is an incredibly long history of responsibility, discipline, camaraderie, community spirit, self-sufficiency and compliance. These are law-abiding people who are buckling under the pressure to comply with unworkable regulations, and a rushed and problem-riddled firearms portal.
The Nationals WA was the first to stand up for lawful firearm owners when these heavy-handed reforms started to emerge. We were the first to call for community consultation and we were the first to organise firearms forums across the state, giving everyday Western Australians the opportunity to have their voices heard—something this government has failed to do in any meaningful way. What did we hear at those forums? We heard from farmers who felt ignored; from shooters who felt demonised; and from families who now feel criminalised, simply for wanting to continue lawful, legitimate activities. These are real people, not political abstractions, and they deserve better.
The impact on our agricultural industry is real and it is growing. If members believe in protecting our unique biodiversity, in preventing the extinction of native flora and fauna, and in humane and ethical treatment of animals in pain and suffering, then they must support this disallowance motion. When we make it harder for farmers to control feral pests like wild dogs, pigs and foxes, we are not protecting the environment; we are threatening livelihoods and increasing food production costs. This is a sector that is already grappling with climate pressures, workforce shortages and volatile markets. Burdening it further with overreaching firearms regulations is not only irresponsible, but also short-sighted. It is not just the practical impacts; it is the message this government is sending to regional WA that its voice does not matter, its needs are not a priority, and its way of life is up for negotiation. That is unacceptable.
Hon Dr Brian Walker's motion gives us a chance to correct course and to say, yes, we support safe communities, but we also support sensible, balanced policy. We support consultation, not dictation. We support rural industries, not red tape. I say to members in this chamber, especially those who claim to represent regional WA: stand up for the people who sent you here. Stand up for common sense, support this motion, and disallow these regulations before more damage is done.
Hon Dr Brad Pettitt (2:44 pm): I rise to speak briefly on this motion. We have heard many legitimate concerns, and I acknowledge many of the concerns raised by Hon Julie Freeman about how the rollout of the firearms laws and regulations has worked. I acknowledge that, and certainly that is why we are keen to support this matter going to committee. There is clearly a range of issues that need to be resolved, and I really hope that the committee comes back with some robust suggestions on how we can make this legislation and the regulations better, because even the minister has admitted that there are problems.
As we have said, we strongly support things like feral pest control. We want to make sure that that can happen in a way that is done well and is effective. There are no winners if that cannot work, but we will not be supporting this disallowance because, frankly, as I said before, it is the nuclear option. I know that a whole bunch of advice has gone around. Hon Dr Steve Thomas talked about some of that. I think it is worth noting a letter we received from the minister's office this morning, which he assures me has been run past the State Solicitor's Office. All I can do is take the best evidence that is put in front of me.
I think it is worth quoting this letter. I will table this; I will take some advice on whether that is problematic, but I do not think it will be. I am happy to table this, and I will quote briefly from parts of it. It states, in part:
Disallowance of these Regulations would have profound consequences. It would severely compromise the enforceability of the Firearms Act 2024, disrupt the legal framework for both transitional and newly issued licences, and effectively halt firearms-related activities across Western Australia. Under Section 8(4) of the Act, the absence of regulatory categorisation would result in all firearms being classified as 'prohibited firearms'. This could necessitate their surrender to the Western Australian Police Force as the current licensing regime does not permit possession-even by government agencies. Furthermore, the sale and importation of firearms and ammunition would cease.
I raise this matter because this is clear advice. As a party, there has been a lot of discussion amongst my Greens colleagues about how to respond to this. I respect that Hon Dr Brian Walker has brought this matter up. There has been robust debate about how best respond to it, and that is why we sought this advice. I really do think that, fundamentally, this is blowing it up too much. I think we have to trust that the Legislation Committee can go and do its job and bring back some good, sensible recommendations that we can work with.
Hon Dr Brian Walker said we could go back to the 1974 legislation but, to be clear, that legislation needed updating and was not fit for purpose, and really had some fundamental problems with it. That would not be a satisfactory resolution to this problem. I think the better resolution is for the Legislation Committee to actually go on and do its work. The Greens position is that we respect firearms in our community when they are used for a specific purpose and when they are necessary but, on the whole, we want to see fewer firearms in our community. Ultimately, that is what the Firearms Act 2024 does, and we are keen to work across this Parliament to make sure that when it comes back, changes can be made to ensure that both the act and the regulations can be rolled out to work a whole lot better.
I seek leave to table this document from Hon Reece Whitby MLA, which was actually sent to Hon Stephen Dawson MLC.
Leave granted.
(See paper 438.)
Hon Matthew Swinbourn (Minister for the Environment) (2:49 pm): I rise as the representative for the Minister for Police in this house to respond to the disallowance motion on behalf of the government.
It will come as no surprise to anybody that the government does not support the disallowance, and that would include the other two disallowances that are on the notice paper in relation to this bill. The government is opposed to these motions and strongly encourages other members of the house to not support them regardless of their views on the broader merits of our firearms reforms.
Listening to some of the contributions here, I think we have essentially had people either prosecuting their opposition to that reform in this particular debate or rehashing some of the arguments that were previously run. We have moved in time past that particular point. People are entitled, of course, to have their views about those reforms, but we are now talking about the regulations, which are a consequence of the passing of that bill. To put it very simply, if these motions are successful, they will have the effect of wiping away a critical part of how we safely and effectively facilitate the ownership of firearms in this state. It will not result in the resurrection of the 1973 act and regulations, as has been claimed by some.
The clear reason for this, outlined by Hon Dr Brad Pettitt reading in and tabling that letter, is that that act has been repealed. It no longer has any legal force; it is a nullity. It is different from the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act, which had not been repealed at the time of the debate around that. There is a very different set of circumstances here to what existed at that particular time. It is a simple matter of law that the 1973 act is a nullity. We cannot go back there without bringing a new bill to Parliament to give effect to that old law, which almost everybody has recognised is deficient in some particular way. I want to make that very clear to members who are contemplating the prospect of supporting this motion. There is no backup on this particular one. The regulations that were given effect by the 1973 act are also a nullity. They simply cannot be resurrected. That is also the case. If this motion is successful, it effectively wipes the slate clean and there is no resurrection—zombie regulations do not come back to life. Therefore, the government does not support such an approach of bringing back a further bill and would be no part of any attempt to do so.
I really want members to understand the consequence of the successful passage of these disallowance motions and how they would potentially cause catastrophic safety issues for the responsible management of firearms in our state. To disallow the regulations would significantly undermine the operation of the act and create chaos and confusion, in effect rendering many parts of the legislation unenforceable. This would disrupt the legal authority of both transitional and newly issued licences, effectively halting firearms-related activities across the state.
Hon Julie Freeman made a point that she was supporting responsible firearm owners. If the member supports this disallowance, she will be fundamentally affecting their capacity to do all the things that she mentioned. That is the effect of what she will do if she supports this disallowance. It will not return them to some previous state. It removes the regulations that give effect to the laws, both positive and some of the prohibitive ones as well. Importantly, this disallowance of the regulations would remove any categorisation of firearms currently held in the state and, consequently, due to section 8(4) of the act, all firearms would be classified as prohibited firearms. This classification necessitates that in nearly all cases they must be surrendered to law enforcement authorities as the current licensing regime does not permit their possession, including by government agencies. Can I make that clear? That is the advice that we have.
If this disallowance proceeds today, it will result in lawful gun owners being in unlawful possession of their weapons and having to return them to the authorities. Is that what anybody supporting this wants to happen? Is that what they want? That is what the effect is. Setting that aside, without the supporting regulations, essential processes such as applications for new or replacement firearms permits and imports would become impractical, significantly affecting businesses dependent on firearms and licensed traders. The WA Police Force would face major operational challenges as the absence of regulatory detail would limit its ability to enforce compliance, assess licence eligibility and manage firearms-related offences. The Firearms Portal, the platform for managing applications, would also become partially inoperable, further compounding administrative delays and enforcement gaps, removing essential safeguards for storing, transporting and handling firearms. They would also be removed and would compromise public safety.
Permitted movement of firearms without enforceable security standards increases community risks. Further, eliminating fitness and suitability criteria, which are dealt with in the regulations, including mental and physical health assessments, would remove essential safeguards intended to prevent firearm access by individuals who may pose a risk to themselves or others. This action would undermine the fundamental public safety goals of the act. The ramifications would also extend to multiple government departments, reducing their capacity to deliver services, uphold public safety and maintain regulatory oversight. The firearms community, including responsible owners and industry stakeholders, would face uncertainty and disruption, while police and regulatory bodies would be left without the tools necessary to ensure safe and lawful firearms use. If the amendment regulations only were disallowed, which is also being proposed on a later disallowance motion, it would also significantly affect the operation of the legislation. By way of example, regulation 34A was introduced in the amendment regulations to allow various authorised persons, including pastoral leaseholders, native title holders and other land use agreement participants across the state to issue hunting permissions. This regulation does not require them to be freehold landowners. The removal of these amendment regulations would prevent the transition of licence holders to individual hunting licences, as only freehold landowners can issue the permission required for the commissioner to issue a hunting licence.
Hon Dr Brian Walker's motion seems to have failed to appreciate that existing owners of firearms would also suffer immensely and immediately if this disallowance motion were to pass here today. The Firearms Act would be virtually inoperable without its associated regulations. This would mean that the WA Police Force would be unable to issue or process new licences or renew existing ones, as the regulatory framework that enables these processes would no longer exist. Tens of thousands of law-abiding gun owners would sit in a holding pattern indefinitely, leaving those owners confused and without certainty. Many members have complained about the experiences they have had today. I can tell members: if they get what they want today, their experience is going to be even worse—not because of what the government has done but because of what members opposite have proposed to do here today. Those members can be responsible for their actions and we will be responsible for ours.
For the existing licence holders, their current licences would remain valid until expiry. However, without a renewal mechanism in place due to the absence of the regulations, these licences will become invalid upon expiry, effectively rendering the firearms unlicensed. Firearms, firearm parts and ammunition would be unable to be bought and sold. This would affect the livelihoods of primary producers, pastoralists and competitive shooters. The WA Police Force would then need to determine an appropriate course of action for managing this event and scenario. It would also create a very dangerous and volatile set of circumstances that could pose a threat to public safety.
As I have already indicated, we cannot go back to the 1973 act as this Firearms Act 2024 has repealed those laws. If the disallowance succeeds, there would be no firearms regulations at all. Let me explain to those opposite what this would mean. As I have said already, categories of firearms would be gone. The list of prohibited ammunition, firearms and accessories would also be gone. The security and storage arrangements would be gone. Conditions restricting obligations for the various licences would be gone. Minimum health standards—gone. Transitional provisions for replacement licence matters—gone. Permit types and circumstances to issue them would no longer be available. Commercial and private transport warehousing requirements for firearms—gone. Advice or guidance for holders of non-exclusive land rights would also be gone and some business types of licences would be gone. Means for a competition licence holder to exceed the numerical limit—gone. Additional disqualifying offences—gone. The automatic disqualifying periods for serious disqualifying offences—gone. These are the most serious consequences if this motion is successful because it would remove key provisions.
Firstly, orders that disqualify a person from becoming a firearm owner if they are a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang will no longer apply. Guns will potentially be put into the hands of members of the outlawed motorcycle gangs. Secondly, an example of consequences that will no longer apply when a family violence perpetrator receives a restraining order is that their firearms and licences are automatically removed and they are disqualified from holding a licence for the term of the order and for five years following the expiry of the order. Supporting this disallowance motion would create significant barriers and reduce the power and authority of the Western Australia Police Force to remove firearms from individuals who we know are capable of committing the most heinous acts of violence against women and children. The act renders individuals subject to a family violence restraining order or other disqualifying orders as disqualified while the FVRO order is in force. However, the important part is that the regulations extend this disqualification for a period of five years beyond the expiry of the family violence restraining order. For disqualifying offences, the regulations are essential. They define the disqualification period based on sentencing and offence severity. So that it is clear to members who are considering supporting these motions, under the firearms regulations, if a person commits a serious offence, they are automatically disqualified from holding a firearm. If the Parliament were to agree to this motion, under the Firearms Act 2024, without its regulations, the automatic disqualification of holding a firearm for those who commit a serious offence would no longer exist.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: But police could still seize it.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: It would no longer exist; the regulations give effect to that. What the member is trying to do is an act of vandalism. I appreciate that members opposite do not support the firearms reforms, but they should not do this. This is the wrong thing to do. I have tried to stick as best I can to this script that I have before me. I have tried not to get into an across-the-chamber debate about this. This is an act of vandalism and the member's side and those who support it should be ashamed for not considering the consequence of what they are proposing to do. It is not a simple thing. It is not like referring a bill that we do not pass. This is the disallowance of the enabling regulations that give effect to the Firearms Act. If we do not have them, then we do not have those provisions in the act.
The member might want to argue in the gaps about what is and is not, but those regulations are important. It is why the regulations come into force at the same time that the act comes into place. We do not do them apart from each other. It is why sometimes when we are waiting for the proclamation of an act, there is a delay. We have to prepare the regulations so that they come in together, which is what has happened here. If members opposite are indifferent to the consequences because of their position on firearms and the broader reform, let it be on their head. I do not think that is actually want they want. I think they are focused on the politics and not the substance of this.
Members opposite have had their day here. They have made their point and argument that they are not happy about these provisions. Now what do we have? We also have the Standing Committee on Legislation, which is looking at the Firearms Act. We did not oppose that referral when it was put up. There is a process underway for those who want to ventilate and advocate for their point of view. They are in a position to do that. This is somewhat different to what members opposite are proposing here. It would be an absolutely disastrous outcome for our community and for victims of serious crime across WA if members opposite were to be successful today. I ask members who are considering supporting this disallowance motion to reconsider what they want to do, to be responsible and to be mature in this approach. They should not support the disallowance motion. They should be on the right side of history and not support it.
Hon Nick Goiran (Leader of the Opposition) (3:03 pm): The opposition supports reforming our state's regulation of the use of firearms. However, that support from the opposition is conditional upon those reforms being done responsibly. The question then becomes: What does responsible reform look like? Earlier today, I spent a few moments trying to think of some criteria that might set out what responsible reform looks like. There are six elements that I would propose to members as they consider the motion that is before the house and in particular the response just provided by the government spokesperson. Those six things are as follows.
First of all is consultation. Second of all is listening. Third is scrutiny. Fourth is communication. Fifth is enforcement. Last is review. I appreciate that some members might want to quibble with the list that I have put together, but they are six elements that I think constitute what responsible reform looks like. Let us look at the first of those things—consultation. What happened in this particular instance? The truth of the matter is that the consultation in respect of these reforms was limited by the Cook Labor government. I would remind members, particularly those who were not here in the last Parliament, that there was a significant petition that was tabled. The purpose of that petition was simply one thing. It asked the former Minister for Police to extend the consultation period from one month to three months. That is all that it asked for. The government said no. It said one month is all they were going to get. That was the form of consultation that was provided. We understand that in the not too distant future, it may be the case that this chamber is going to be asked for an extension of time for the review. Keep in mind that the Standing Committee on Legislation has been asked to do its job within three months. Would it not be interesting if the Standing Committee on Legislation needed to extend the time? It is no criticism from us. The point is: Why did the government say one month is all they were going to get when the people of Western Australia asked for three months of consultation? That is the first criteria. Responsible reform includes consultation. What happened in this particular instance? Consultation was limited by the government, and when the people of Western Australia asked for brief extension of time, the government said no.
The second criteria is listening. The most charitable way that I can put it with respect to these reforms is that the Cook Labor government was more focused on political posturing than any sense of listening whatsoever. It was bad enough that the consultation process was expressly limited by the government. When it came to listening, it was too busy literally orchestrating the explosion of so-called seized or surrendered firearms. That was more important to it than anything else in some form of theatre than any type of listening.
The third criteria is scrutiny. Hon Dr Brian Walker already touched on that earlier today. For those members who were not here, scrutiny was outrageously guillotined by the government. To the extent that there was any scrutiny of the gigantic bill, it was limited to a mere few clauses. If I remember correctly, I think there were some 492 clauses or something to that effect, and there were about 11 clauses or something of that number that were scrutinised. That is not scrutiny. If the government wants to congratulate itself on the fact that the house of review had the opportunity to scrutinise approximately 11 clauses out of 492, then it stands condemned for that.
The fourth element in what any responsible reform looks like is communication. That means that once the government of the day has passed through the reform process and it has consulted, listened and drafted the legislation, the legislation has been presented to Parliament and there has been proper scrutiny, it needs to communicate this new law to the people of Western Australia. Imagine this for a moment: What kind of communication is going on when presently those responsible for the administration of this do not even pick up the phone? I cannot be the only member in this place who has had multiple constituents raise with them that they have been on this so-called helpline for an extended period of time and were not able to get through. They tried on multiple occasions and when somebody eventually picked up, the phone hung up. I surely cannot be the only member who has had that experience. Such has been the form of communication. I suspect very much that we will no doubt hear more about this in the fullness of time from the hardworking Standing Committee on Legislation when it has considered all of these matters. I have no doubt that resourcing was a major issue and that the helpline was probably inundated with calls for help and explanations.
Why would that be? It is because the communication from the Cook Labor government on these so-called reforms was so poor they could not even pick up the phone.
The fifth element is enforcement. The honourable minister, the sole spokesperson from the government on this matter, spent quite a bit of time lecturing members about what might happen today with respect to enforcement. Before I get to that, let no member here be under any illusion that it is on the public record that the WA Police Force prematurely enforced this law. They were reprimanded by the State Administrative Tribunal because they prematurely tried to enforce the law. Is that what responsible reform looks like? So far we have not had consultation. We had it in a limited fashion. There certainly was not any listening. The scrutiny was guillotined. The communication was so poor that they do not even now pick up the phone. Then we had WA police enforcing a law that did not yet exist. Does any of this, Deputy President, sound like responsible reform? Might that perhaps explain why approximately half the members of this chamber are so concerned about this and grateful that Hon Dr Brian Walker and Hon Dr Steve Thomas have brought this to our attention today?
Before I get to the sixth element, which is the notion of review, I want to go back to this issue of enforcement. The minister spent quite a bit of time lecturing members on this issue of enforcement. If I can paraphrase his contribution, it was that there were going to be serious consequences in the event that this motion was successful. Earlier, Hon Dr Brad Pettitt tabled, with the leave of the house, a letter that was in his possession. I thank the honourable member for doing so, albeit that we have a different point of view in how we are going to handle this motion this afternoon. The letter is instructive. It is signed by Hon Reece Whitby, who is the replacement Minister for Police. The letter is dated 13 August 2025—yesterday. The letter is addressed to Hon Stephen Dawson, so we have government ministers writing to each other here. Hon Reece Whitby, the replacement Minister for Police, is writing to Hon Stephen Dawson, the Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council, and the letter is dated 13 August 2025. I encourage members, at some later stage, to have a complete read of this one-and-a-bit-page letter.
This is the point, amongst other things. The letter says:
It has come to my attention—
Who is this? It is Hon Reece Whitby, the replacement Minister for Police—
that some Members of the Legislative Council believe that, should the Firearms Amendment Regulations 2025 be disallowed—
In other words, should Hon Dr Brian Walker's motion be successful, it goes on:
the Firearms Regulations 1974 would apply. This is false.
That is certainly not the view of the opposition. Let me make that perfectly clear so that everybody understands. There is no member of the opposition who is under any misapprehension here that should Hon Dr Brian Walker's motion be successful at some stage this afternoon that somehow the Firearms Regulations 1974 will apply. There is not a member of the opposition who holds that view. It goes on to say:
The … Act and … Firearms Regulations 2024 repealed the 1974 legislation in its entirety.
I agree; that is a statement of fact. It then goes on to say:
The previous framework is no longer valid and cannot be relied upon for any firearms licensing or related matters.
Indeed. I recall during the state election campaign that plenty of people were saying, "You should do this. You should do that. Why don’t you simply do this, that and the other?" I was at pains to explain to people it is not as simple as that. What Hon Reece Whitby has said here to Hon Stephen Dawson is indeed correct. He then goes on to end his letter by saying:
I have discussed this matter with the Commissioner of Police, Col Blanch APM. Should the Legislative Council proceed with disallowance, the Western Australia Police will be required to issue immediate directions to all firearms licence holders until new regulations can be developed.
That is the threat that has been provided here by the government in this letter. It is very important in what could otherwise be a very hot and emotional debate. I am particularly mindful of the thousands and thousands of firearm owners who are concerned about the progress of this debate. I think Hon Dr Brian Walker earlier this week tabled a petition of some 20,000 signatures; that is massive. I can recall only a couple of petitions getting anywhere near that number. There are literally thousands of people who are concerned about this, and my concern is that with all the allegations being thrown across the chamber, people watching this debate, or reading this debate at a later stage, will be under a misapprehension, in part, because of the intentional act by the government to not release information.
What the minister representing in this house said was not untrue. What is in this letter is not untrue, but at the very end of this letter, it says "until new regulations can be developed". That is the key here. One might say that, really, this entire exercise is somewhat of a charade because despite the fact that the government might say to members here that everything is going to be thrown into chaos in the event that a majority of members support this disallowance motion, I do not believe one word of that. No sooner than this happens, the government will go and make an appointment with the Governor. That is what is going to happen. Remember the important words at the end of Hon Reece Whitby's letter—"until new regulations can be developed". Is the government seriously suggesting that? It would be reckless and irresponsible government and I do not believe this is the case. I have a great deal of respect for the government spokesperson in this house on this matter and I suspect that the Premier, the Attorney General and the police minister himself have well and truly had a conversation because the truth of the matter is they need to wait and see what the outcome of the vote is going to be. They will have regulations ready to go and will bring them to the attention of the Governor. If they do not, who has been reckless here? The government has been completely reckless.
We can have this argument across the chamber, as started a little earlier. There was a discussion and interjections between Hon Matthew Swinbourn and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition on who started what. The sequence of events is pretty clear. It is not complicated. No-one needs to have a master's degree or anything like that to be able to understand that the government brought in a law, which is the law of the land at the moment. It is now up to the Legislative Council if it wants to disallow regulations. Why have the power to disallow regulations if it is always going to be the case that forever and a day the government's response to anyone who comes along is going to be, "It's total chaos". Obviously, the Legislative Council has the power to be doing what Hon Dr Brian Walker wants us to do.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: Will you take an interjection, member?
Hon Nick Goiran: Just let me finish, then I will take your interjection.
The sequence of events is that, first of all, we had the government bringing in its act. It then brought in the regulations, and it is up to the Parliament to be able to decide whether it wants to disallow it. It is also the power of the government of the day to go to the Governor and bring in another set of regulations. They might be different from the version that is currently there or they might be identical. Then we go through the whole charade all over again. That is the sequence of events. Why bother doing all of this in the first place then, members might ask. Why go through this whole charade and exercise this afternoon when we all know that there is no way that the Cook Labor government is going to allow the Governor to go to sleep this evening before midnight without having signed something in the event that this motion is passed? We all know that, so why go through this charade? A message needs to be sent to the Cook Labor government that people have had well and truly enough. It is this government that limited consultation on the legislation. People said, "Please give us three months" and it said, "No, you can have one month." The people asked the government to listen but it said no and instead wanted to orchestrate a big explosion of guns. People asked for scrutiny. Members of this place asked for there to be sufficient time. The government said no. It said, "You can have up to 11 clauses." It cannot then go and scrutinise the other 480 clauses. It then promised that the government was going to communicate things. It did not even pick up the phone. Its agency then enforced a law that did not yet exist. After all was said and done, and only when the composition of this chamber changed on 22 May, I might add, and not one moment beforehand, the government said that it did not oppose a review. It is rather disingenuous by the government, with all due respect, because it did everything other than oppose that particular review, so now the matter is with the Standing Committee on Legislation and we are waiting for it to do its work. I commend the five members of that committee to their task. I am not jealous of their situation. I accept that it would be an onerous task, but somebody needs to do it because this house was prevented from doing so because of the Cook Labor government.
Why are we going through this whole exercise when we know that the outcome is going to be exactly the same tonight? That is the point that I want to make during this contribution, because what concerns me is that thousands of firearms owners will be out there saying, "We thought something tremendous was going to happen as a result of the disallowance of these regulations." Sadly that is not the case because the truth of the matter is that the government can go off to the Governor this evening, and I suspect that is exactly what is going to happen.
A fair amount of umbrage will probably be taken towards the Greens party in particular after this. I think its members know that that is probably coming their way in terms of some constituents who will be annoyed with them, but I ask for cooler heads to prevail in respect of this debate. Regardless of a win or a loss in respect of this disallowance motion, the truth of the matter is that the law will remain the same this evening unless we are prepared to concede that the Cook Labor government is so reckless that it will have no plan B whatsoever and it is not able to organise for new regulations to be promulgated this evening. I am not prepared to say that. We have our differences with the government, but I am not prepared to say that it would be so reckless as to do that. If a member of the government wants to stand up this afternoon and say, "No, actually, we are that reckless. That is exactly what we intend to do", and if the Legislative Council decides that it is going to disallow these regulations, and if we are going to sit on our hands and do nothing and we are going to allow everything to be chaotic, then please, I invite the government to stand up and do that. No-one is going to do that. Members of this chamber have too much professional pride to do that and yet thousands and thousands of gun owners in Western Australia will be under the misapprehension that something spectacular was going to happen here.
I will conclude on this point. This is why the opposition has consistently said that the only way forward, regrettable as it is, is through a review. This review is so important because it is the only mechanism by which something can be done, absent, of course, of the government desisting from its approach that it has been taking time and again—being dismissive of concern, denying that there are problems and all those things that we have seen, whether it is about the health portfolio or these matters. It would require a radical change of attitude from the government, then something could happen very, very quickly. It could get new reforms passed through both houses of Parliament quick smart. But it is clearly not of a mind to do that. Its members have decided that they want to stick with the approach that they have taken and we are going to have to wait for the standing committee to finish its work.
Before any further ridiculous media release is pushed out by the government suggesting that somehow the opposition just wants chaos, I trust that this contribution this afternoon has put paid to that. The opposition is supporting the disallowance motion this afternoon because despite all the concerns and all the problems and despite this Parliament ordering a review, the simple truth is this: the Cook Labor government is still not listening. All it has done is deflect, dismiss and deny, and we have seen more of that this afternoon. I encourage members to support the motion.
Hon Rod Caddies (3:25 pm): I rise today along with my One Nation colleague, Hon Philip Scott, to unequivocally support the Firearms Regulations 2024 disallowance motion moved by Hon Dr Brian Walker. This is our chance to uphold democracy. This motion is a critical opportunity to correct an injustice. Anyone who values true democracy should back this disallowance motion as it seeks to rectify the flawed process that rushed the Firearms Bill 2024 through Parliament last year, bypassing the thorough scrutiny it demanded. We all know that it was a rushed and flawed process. The Firearms Bill was rammed through. Hon Nick Goiran talked about the astonishing haste at which it was passed with 11 of the 486 clauses being debated in the Legislative Council as the Labor government declared it urgent, undermining its promise of full upper house scrutiny. This was a deliberate sidestepping of the democratic accountability that we should have seen in this place. Worse still was the fact that parliamentary oversight was stifled. Labor government members blocked the motion to refer the bill to the Standing Committee on Legislation in 2024. By shutting down proper scrutiny, they dismissed legitimate concerns from both parliamentarians and the public, which has eroded trust in our legislative process. The honourable member on the other side said it would be reckless and irresponsible, but it was irresponsible of the government when it voted to not let the legislation be referred to the committee in 2024 because it had the numbers. The member said, "We'll let it go through to the committee this time" but the government did not let it go through. It was aware that we had the numbers and it was going to go through, so why did it not let it go through in the last term? It was because it did not have to.
Let us talk about the unprecedented public outcry that was ignored. The community's response, as we have heard from members, was resounding. An e-petition with over 32,000 signatures, the largest in Western Australia's history, demanded a review of this act. Yet, the Labor government, as we just said, under the Minister for Police, Hon Paul Papalia, ignored this historic public outcry, forging ahead with reckless disregard. What has been left is a legacy of arrogance. This arrogance forced a parliamentary review in 2025. Like I said, even if the government wanted the legislation referred to a committee, with the numbers it had in the last term, I do not think it would have got to a committee.
The previous Labor government that refused to engage with the opposition or take on board community input has left a legacy of frustration and distrust. Its actions were not only undemocratic, but also dismissive of the very people we serve. The case for the disallowance is clear. The passage of the Firearms Act was a masterclass in poor governance. It was rushed, unscrutinised and dismissive of public will. I urge all members to vote in favour of this motion. Let us restore fairness and accountability for Western Australians. I have heard from countless law-abiding firearms owners, farmers, conservationists and regional families who are struggling under the act's chaotic implementation. This disallowance motion is our chance to stand up for democracy and fairness and for our constituents. I call on every member to support it and to send a clear message. Western Australians deserve better. One Nation will vote to disallow this flawed act and I hope other members will join us. Thank you.
Hon Rob Horstman (3:29 pm): I thought a lot about what could be said about this disallowance motion this afternoon, which I strongly support. I thank Hon Dr Brian Walker for putting it forward. I thought a lot of the experience that my family has had on the farm this year with the most ever amount of lambs being lost to feral animals, partly due to the fact that we do not have people who can come and shoot on the farm as much as they used to. I thought a lot about mental health, which is a big interest of mine, and how 90,000 licensed firearms owners are supposed to be reviewed from a mental health perspective. I thought that I would focus on a regulation because a lot has been said about that. This is not about the act; it is about the regulations. I thought that would be a good way to go in the debate, and I will also talk about the inclusivity that all different types of sports shooting bring to society.
It is really important to acknowledge that sports shooting, whether it is small-bore calibre or whatever it may be, brings people together. It gives them a serotonin kick and provides the community with mental health support for many, many people in Western Australia. As we all know from the experiences of many gun clubs around WA, that is under threat, if not already actioned. Sports shooting is one of the very few sports that is accessible to everyone. It is an inclusive sport. We obviously have incredibly successful Paralympians. Many disciplines and clubs in Western Australia create opportunities for inclusivity for people to get involved. A good example is the West Australian Smallbore Rifle Association in Whiteman Park, which brings people together to experience community benefits while doing sports shooting. That is under threat and will struggle to continue, based on some of the incredibly tight laws that have been brought in.
I think Hon Rod Caddies said there were 486 regulations. One of them that is of interest to me and would probably be of interest to Hon Dr Brian Walker—Hon Dr Steve Thomas also brought this up—is regulation 222, "Matters to have regard to in determining whether firearm authority health standards are met". It has a very friendly acronym, FAHS, which to me sounds quite welcoming and friendly. However, it is anything but. It is an 18-page guideline that GPs will need to navigate to effectively assess whether someone is able to be a firearm holder. I am greatly concerned about the pressure that puts on GPs. I think it is an enormous pressure. It has been said that GPs will not be the final decision-maker or will not have the final say, but from everything I have read, from the 18 pages in the regulations and the form that I went through and looked at, I do not see how it could be anything other than the fact that GPs will have the final say and will be put in a decision to say whether someone is able to use a firearm. As Hon Dr Steve Thomas said, the options are: meets the requirements without condition, meets the requirements with conditions or does not meet the conditions at all. Effectively, if a person does not meet the conditions, they will not get a licence.
The requirements are somewhat onerous. They very much put in doubt the ability of anyone with a disability to have a firearms licence and be involved in this inclusive sport that brings people together and engages and increases people's mental health in our state. Going through the guidelines, I thought that there might have been exemptions for people with physical disabilities. However, that is not the case. Everything comes down to the consideration of the GP. It basically means that if someone is unable to show they have the muscle power to hold a gun and carry out functions such as cleaning, loading and discharging—even if they have a condition that can be treated—they will be unable to have a firearm licence. That implies that only physical conditions that can be effectively managed through medication or other therapies and controls would allow someone to get a licence. That will all be at the discretion of the GP, putting all that pressure on an already stressed out health system. Mental health appointments in regional WA are incredibly hard to find at the best of times. I think that putting this burden on GPs when doing their job speaks to the regulations not being fit for purpose in any way in our community. I am very concerned about that. Simply put, there are not enough provisions to safeguard people with disabilities. If we want to talk about inclusivity and disabilities—the government and honourable members on the other side talk a lot about inclusivity—this regulation in particular is of great concern to me.
I am conscious that other people wish to speak, so I will quickly touch on the firearms portal failure. To say that it is a failure is quite generous.
Hon Nick Goiran: Fiasco.
Hon Rob Horstman: Thank you, Hon Nick Goiran. That is a good word. "Mess" is not enough, is it? "Fiasco" is very good. The portal is riddled with glitches and wastes the time of users. There was actually a positive glitch that I came across the other day that I am really excited to share. Maybe other people will latch on to it.
Obviously there has been a blowout. It is more than $10 million over budget. The calls to take it offline if it is not functional is quite reasonable. I do not think there is anything too bad about that. One example I had—I will be very brief—is about a chap who contacted the member for Geraldton. He admitted to not being tech savvy. He paid for his licence but the police could not answer whether that meant his licence had been renewed. I am talking about the people working on the licensing and the police who had to deal with this fiasco. It certainly was not their fault; they were just doing the best they could. The chap paid for it and he got confirmation that said it had been approved. However, he went back and it said it had not gone through the portal. He was really confused. He said he had got approval from the landholder, as he did 20 years ago, but that the only thing that had changed was the portal. He wants to know whether he will have any issues, whether his firearms will be seized and whether his licence will be renewed. He provided the member for Geraldton's office with evidence that his licence had been paid through his correspondence with the police.
The positive glitch I came across the other day was when I got a call from a friend who said they had renewed their licence and that the licence was done, simply by paying by PayPal. That is how they did it. Whether that is a positive or a negative, whichever way one wants to look at it, it is a glitch. It shows that the system is not working and needs to be reviewed. It really needs to be put on hold for at least 12 months.
Surely the government must know, see and understand that the only reasonable thing left to do is to stop the use of the portal. I have heard stories of farmers going down to the licensing office in Cannington with all their papers and saying, "I'm not leaving until this is done, because of the hours and hours that have already been wasted." Anecdotally or otherwise, the body of evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that mental health practitioners, GPs and people's own mental health when dealing with the portal will be under incredible stress due to these regulations. I am not talking about the act; I am talking about the regulations.
I will finish with this. I received a text from a gentleman I met on the campaign at the Dalwallinu Show. He was a lovely 75-year-old chap. He and his wife are leaving our state. They are leaving our great state not because of being unable to find accommodation or because they want to visit and stay with family, but because they are going to have their firearms taken away. That is so stressful and abhorrent to them that they are leaving our state. We are losing people, to a certain degree, to other states simply because of these regulations in the Firearms Act. I commend Hon Dr Brian Walker's motion and thank members for their time.
Hon Phil Twiss (3:39 pm): I rise today to support this motion. I will take a bit of a different tack from most people. We have heard a lot of stories about issues with the portal, licensing and other areas. I have a way of looking at things, and that is that when someone comes up with a system and a process, we can judge that system by what we see in evidence once a bit of time has passed. I will move back and forth with this report of the Standing Committee on Uniform Legislation and Statutes Review, which is very interesting reading. It mentions a number of things. It says:
The Bill’s overriding objective is to ensure the use of firearms is subject to the paramount need to protect public safety.
I have been all over the state and spoken to hundreds and hundreds—probably thousands—of people and I have not come across any firearm owner who differs from that view. The executive summary refers to the bill's reforms. I will focus on three, and they are to improve the system for written authorities from landowners for the use of firearms on their land, clearer firearms licence types and clearer licensing processes. I will park that for the moment while I talk about the other side of the bill—that is, the powers that have been given to the executive through the Commissioner of Police. We have all heard about Henry VIII clauses. Six have been identified in this document, plus a number of other clauses. This document says:
The Bill impacts upon Parliamentary sovereignty and law-making powers of the Western Australian Parliament in the following ways:
…
The Bill contains 6 Henry VIII clauses.
Clauses proposing wide, open-ended regulation-making powers leave substantial details to be prescribed by regulation.
That is something we have seen, and it is part of the problem we are having now. That is part of the reason we are debating this motion to disallow the regulations.
A number of clauses in the bill are really interesting. This document describes them as broad, open-ended regulation-making powers. Section 5 of the act defines a disqualifying offence as an offence under the act that is prescribed by the regulations as a disqualifying offence. The regulations can just make something a disqualifying offence, and it is as open ended as it needs to be. Section 5 defines a disqualifying order as the same sort of thing—an order that is prescribed by the regulations as a disqualifying order. Section 9 defines a disqualified person as a person prescribed by the regulations as a disqualified person, essentially. It also refers to prescribed health standards, and my learned friend Hon Rob Horstman has just explained some of the issues with the prescribed health standards. I believe there are 18 pages about the health standards for someone to use a firearm. I have spoken about this in the past. I cannot think of a medical condition that makes someone more less safe with a firearm, and I will just leave that there.
I want to talk a little bit about the vast open-ended powers for the regulator. It struck me when Hon Matthew Swinbourn spoke about how terrible things would be and was essentially scaremongering—
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: It's not scaremongering, member; it's the reality.
The President: Order!
Hon Phil Twiss: It is interesting when we say that nothing can be done and that the regulations will all fall apart and be wiped away. In the last few months that the act has been in operation, interim measures have been put in place all the way along as issues have been found with the act. There have been licensing issues. The police have not known what to do with a particular class of firearm and they have not known what to do in a particular situation, so they have just dropped in an interim power. There is nothing stopping interim powers from being put in place as a stopgap. It is not quite as dramatic as the honourable member says, and there are measures that we can use to counteract that.
There are findings in the committee report on the firearms legislation. We are talking about the firearms legislation and saying that if the regulations are disallowed, the act itself will pretty much collapse. One of the things that was looked at in the review was whether the firearms legislation was skeleton legislation. The committee found that it was not and says in its report:
The Firearms Bill 2024 contains the most important aspects of the Government’s intended reforms and is not merely skeletal legislation.
In fact, it contains a lot of regulations—113 specific ones and one general one.
I want to talk about some of the powers and the response from the then Minister for Police, Hon Paul Papalia. The report states:
Justifications for regulation-making powers on which the Committee requested the Minister’s feedback appear in Appendix 1. The Committee thanks the Minister for his response, which allayed some of its concerns.
It continues:
However, the Minister informed the Committee [Hon Paul Papalia CSC, MLA, letter, 15 April 2024] that:
Please note that the answers provided in the Appendix may be subject to change as consultations toward the drafting of regulations under the Bill are ongoing.
As the bill was about to be enacted, the government was still going through the process of drafting the regulations. The report continues:
The Committee noted from the Minister’s feedback the significant matters remaining under consideration. These include some matters the Committee would ordinarily expect to be included in the Bill, such as prescribed offences and exemptions from the Bill.
It also says:
Ideally, consultation on these matters should be completed before the introduction of a bill. This enables the Committee and the Parliament to consider them before agreeing to pass the legislation.
Finally, it says:
Further, the Committee relies on complete information to perform its scrutiny role. When significant matters remain subject to consultation, the uncertainty or incompleteness of responses to Committee questions are unhelpful.
I do not think I need to repeat what Hon Nick Goiran said earlier about the ability and opportunities to review the legislation. At that point, even before it was seen in the Legislative Council, there were significant issues and not enough information to understand fully what the bill was about.
I want to quickly go over the three reforms I mentioned earlier, which are improving the system for written authorities, clearer licence types and clearer licensing processes. I point out that it was mentioned earlier that these issues and problems are in the past. The reality is that these problems are not in the past; they are ongoing. I get emails and calls and people talk to me almost every day about a new issue that has popped up. They are not in the past; they are actually part of an ongoing, slow-moving train wreck.
It has already been mentioned that some of the written authorities for access to land for hunting are also for access to land by landowners, station owners and the like. We are hearing more and more stories about the looming ecological and biosecurity disasters that are facing us as foxes, pigs, deer and a number of other feral pests start to get out of control. We all know that they are getting out of control, and our little bilbies and quendas are going to suffer as a result. I lost two beautiful chickens as a result of a fox attack not that long ago. We have probably all seen the recent ABC article that acknowledged that we have a serious problem with animal control agents. They no longer feel confident to go out when they get a call because they have to access land to humanely euthanise an animal or they do not know whether they can access roadside areas or places to safely euthanise an animal. If they break the law, they will lose their firearm. Most of them do not do it just as a hobby; they do it as part of a business and other aspects of their life.
Other things I have seen are things like the arbitrary and changing safety conditions around rifle ranges. They seem to change every time there is requirement for an inspection, to the point at which some gun and rifle ranges are actually shutting down voluntarily until they can try to understand what is going on, so that they do not get shut down by the police and go through the very, very difficult process of coming back. There is a lot of confusion around firearms licence types and a lot of arbitrary decisions being made. To their credit, many police are trying to work their way through that by putting interim measures and rulings on things that may or may not have any legal standing at all.
Primary producers is an interesting one. They are restricted to certain calibres of handguns to between, say, .38 and .45 calibre handguns to humanely euthanise animals, when it would be much safer to use a .22 calibre handgun to do the job better, safer and actually more humanely for the animals that they are dealing with, but they do not have access to that because this was an arbitrary thing put into the regulations. I do not know that I need to go into the area of clearer licensing processes; the system is so dysfunctional.
I will just mention someone. There is a wonderful lady from Southern Cross called Deb Taylor who, of her own volition—she is not being paid—has decided to help firearms owners. She has created a Facebook page and made herself available to help people through the portal. Furthermore, she actually created paper templates for people to use. They were being submitted to the police and the police found issues with some of them, so she called the police and spoke to, I think, a superintendent and got an agreement on those forms. There are people outside the system who are finding it necessary to try to help make the system work; it is that bad.
Before I conclude, I will just go over a bit more of what the Standing Committee on Uniform Legislation and Statutes Review report says about the powers we are talking about. It states:
6.14 These powers lack focus in their operation. They leave substantial details for the Executive to prescribe without any or adequate criteria or guidance about exactly what will be prescribed. This erodes parliamentary sovereignty by delegating, to the Executive, Parliament's legislative power to deal with these matters.
6.15 Their open-ended nature can often negate any effective scrutiny and parliamentary oversight by the Joint Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation. This is because they are so widely drafted as to authorise regulations that will rarely, if ever, be capable of being characterised as 'beyond power'.
Essentially, the 41st Parliament gave the executive regulations power that is almost beyond power and beyond scrutiny.
To conclude, we know the issues with the legislation. We have seen the problems that arise when excessive powers are vested in the hands of technocrats—some of whom, as we have seen, are clearly using the system to exasperate law-abiding Western Australians. The Parliament gave them that power. Given what we have seen, the Parliament should exercise its power and send a clear message that the days of unconstrained and uncontrolled government power are over. I know that some of my honourable colleagues are a little nervous that a disallowance may seem like a nuclear option. They have even been told by members on the government bench that chaos will ensue, but they can rest assured that it will not. Guns will not spill onto the streets. We know that there are other options around that. Guns are not going to just fall out of safes and we are not going have problems like that. As we saw with the disastrous Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2021, the government was able to very quickly roll back that legislation. The wheels of Western Australia did not fall off, but the people of Western Australia were spared an egregious attempt by the government to wrest away their private property rights through draconian regulations.
I want to finally conclude with the then minister's response to the issues raised by the Standing Committee on Uniform Legislation and Statutes Review about the regulation-making powers of the Firearms Bill 2024. Hon Paul Papalia stated, as part of his response:
Nothing in the Bill limits the powers of the Western Australia Parliament to put forward a motion to disallow regulations, as per Standing Order 67 of the Legislative Council.
I believe it is incumbent on this house now to exercise those powers. I commend the motion to the house.
Hon Neil Thomson (3:54 pm): I was debating whether I should make a contribution, but I think it is important, given the comments by Hon Nick Goiran, to just make sure every member in this place is clear: this is not a nuclear option, as has been expressed by those opposite.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: It absolutely is.
Hon Neil Thomson: Deputy President, I have listened in silence to every contribution in this place. I hope that will be the case.
The fact is, as expressed by Hon Nick Goiran, that the minister could get in his government car and head down to Government House tonight, taking the exact same regulations, and get them signed off by the Governor in order to proceed. I think that is an important point.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn: Are you encouraging us to do that?
Hon Neil Thomson: It is an important point—
Several members interjected.
The Deputy President: Members! Thank you. Through the Chair, please, Hon Neil Thomson.
Hon Neil Thomson: I think that is a very important point to make. I know why the government is so sensitive about this issue. It is because it has had a very bad week. We have seen issues with health on the front page and we have seen the government being put under a lot of pressure because of its complete, dismal failure in relation to the health system in Western Australia. In the vernacular, we could say the wheels are coming off this government because of its constant performative approach to good governance, instead of dealing with things in proper detail.
I want to appeal to members, particularly members of the Greens. I know it has stated its position and I know that the leader of the Greens, Hon Dr Brad Pettitt, said that this was a nuclear option. What has actually been revealed in this discussion is that it is not a nuclear option. There was an interjection earlier from the minister on this issue, asking whether we wanted the government to go down to Government House to sign this off. Of course I do not want there to be no regulations, but I think this is a real opportunity for this chamber. The government is sensitive about the message this sends to the people of Western Australia about its failure to do proper consultation and due diligence, and to work systematically with people in a collaborative way rather than demonising them and basically rushing things through, purely for performative purposes. If the house were to support this disallowance motion, it would lay that whole issue bare.
As I said, my main message is to appeal to members in this place who have listened to the debate and are maybe undecided. It is fantastic that this chamber is now a genuine chamber of debate. We walk in here and do not necessarily know what our position will be, but then we make up our minds by listening to the arguments put forward. I have spoken a few times on firearms legislation and I have a very strong interest in its impact on Aboriginal people in this state. It has been a major factor. Some members may have read articles in the media in relation to this. During the Committee of the Whole discussion, when I raised this issue, there were almost blank stares in terms of: what about this issue? Then, of course, there were a couple of articles on 29 August 2024 around the impact on Aboriginal people.
This has not come out of the blue. I have had a number of Aboriginal people ring me and my office to ask me what is going on, particularly with the property letters. In the initial stages it appeared that there was going to be a situation and to a large, practical effect, it is still the case that if someone was in a remote community, it was going to be very difficult to get access to the property letters to be able to undertake their hunting activity. As it turned out, in response that, Minister Papalia at the time did say that the Firearms Bill did not impact on section 211 of the Native Title Act, which recognises hunting as a genuine reason for legal ownership of a firearm. I dispute that, because I think that was a very cute line that was put out there—"unless there was a method of authorisation under the legislation regulations." In fact, that is a falsehood because it did impact on their rights. That is where I am appealing to members of the Greens party, in particular, because I know that it has a long history of putting pre-eminence to the rights and sovereignty of the First Nations people of this great nation to be able to do their traditional activities, and that is something I commend.
In the process of the debate, I have made some further calls even today because I have not heard of the consultation. It turned out recently at a Kimberley Land Council meeting that there was a visitation by the police and some work was going on in order to give the prescribed bodies corporate the capacity to provide this hunting licence. It is a so-called new thing that was not even talked about during the time of the debate and was not mentioned in the bill. It suddenly came up, I think, because—I am sure the government may dispute this—of the questions I raised in this place about that, and representation from Indigenous people across our state about this legal limbo that they are going to be put in by having to surrender their firearms and not being able to undertake their traditional hunting activity. That is my point today and further on, because although this is not my portfolio, it is something that impacts my constituency. The feedback is that there has not been sufficient consultation and, worse still, the prescribed bodies corporate are not really in a position yet to undertake that activity. Yet again, more responsibility is being placed on prescribed bodies corporate to undertake the authorisation of our native title holders in order to undertake their traditional activity. It clearly highlights yet another farcical situation in which the government is scrambling because in its performative legislation in this place, it did not think of the detail or the long-term impacts. It did not consult with people at the right level or do the hard work. It cobbled something together because it thought that it could make a point about the Liberal Party or some other members of this place, and just ignored our First Nations people in Western Australia. As I said, the government is now trying to fix it but it is still not ready.
All I am asking the members of the Greens party is: are they satisfied? Are they satisfied that there has been adequate consultation, and free, fair and informed consent in this matter? Are they satisfied that all these issues are now being dealt with in the regulations? Up until May, the government has been an absolute steamroller through this place. We have seen the absolute contempt that this government has applied to this institution—the Parliament of Western Australia—by cutting short the debate on these things. Are those members satisfied? Have they had those consultations on the adequacy of these new regulations in this very important matter? If they are, by all means stand with the government. But if they are not, I would suggest, at the very least, that they should not stand with the government and abstain themselves from the debate. That would be one option. Let those here who are prepared to stand up for the people who we feel have been disadvantaged, including Indigenous people in this state, disallow these regulations. The only impediment would be that the minister would have to get in his government-funded car, get down the road and get another signature on a piece of paper. That is all. He would have to get a government-driven car, get down there and get a signature on it. That is the difference and is all that is required, but we know that what is really hurting the government is not that the minister would have to go down there. The world is not going to cave in.
I think Hon Nick Goiran made a very good point. There were many people out on those front steps today who probably thought that this was going to bring about a major change. I am sorry to have to tell those who are watching that, no, unfortunately it will not. We have been landed with this performative Labor Party that has trampled over everybody's rights by not thinking about the detail, not doing the basic activity of Parliament and not doing the consultation. It has trampled over it. Unfortunately, that is what we are left with. I am sure the minister can find the time in his day to get a new set of regulations—even an identical one—signed off, and then it will come back to this place. That would give the government time to then maybe come up with some alternative regulations, or maybe even allow the Legislation Committee to do its piece, and we can actually get some legislative change back in this place, maybe after some considered discussion.
I am saying this to the members of the WA Greens party in particular, because I think that might be where the difference lies between the success or failure of this disallowance motion. Firstly, if they think it is a nuclear option, I am sorry to disappoint the leader of the Greens, Hon Dr Brad Pettitt, it is not, but it is a very symbolic option. If they are confident that First Nations people are being treated respectfully and fairly, then they should stand with the government on this matter. If they are not, then they should either remove themselves from the debate and the vote or stand with the opposition, the cross bench and those people who are now calling for a disallowance, even if it will only send a message to the government and only slightly change the Outlook Calendar of the honourable minister, who will have to get in his government-driven car and go down to Government House in order to get the regulation signed and put back into action. That is the only thing that would be done, but it would be a very powerful message indeed.
This may be one last appeal to those who might be undecided, because I also know that many in the environmental sector have raised serious concerns, and I do not believe that those concerns have been addressed. I know that a particular issue—I probably also speak to the Animal Justice Party representative here, President, through you—is the fact that I know that many of the small animal welfare groups out in my region and the regions in the north have gone through enormous pain because in this place we have had to ask the question about the appropriate licence in order to undertake very humane euthanasia in a situation in which a seriously injured animal lies on the side of the road. Someone is now required to hold effectively a professional shooter's licence to be able to euthanise that animal. That may be the wrong term, but it is a commercial professional shooter's licence. That was a response that came back into this place. I know that there have been delays in relation to that and a cost will be placed on it. There was also the issue of uncertainty around the use of the so-called defence piece in relation to shooting a seriously wounded animal on the side of the road. Unfortunately, many of our animals and native animals are affected by the interface of traffic.
That is an appeal to those who might be concerned about that. I do not think the regulations have addressed that or made it any easier for our animal welfare organisations. I think that, in view of that, there is another opportunity to send a message. My main message today through you, President, to the members of the Greens is if they are undecided or unsure, this is an opportunity to send a message.
The worst that can happen is that the minister is going to have to go away from that lovely place in which we get fed our dinner and maybe pop down to Government House to get a signature on a regulation. That is the worst that can happen, yet it would send a very clear message to this government that it needs to go back to the drawing board on these regulations.
Hon Steve Martin (4:10 pm): I intend to make a very brief contribution to the motion moved by Hon Dr Brian Walker. I fully support the motion, but there are just a couple of things. I think there are a couple of licensed firearm owners in the chamber, and I am certainly one of them. I have engaged with the process to an extent, but I am not here to talk about my experience. We have heard from the government about the rollout and how its regulations are apparently working. That is not what I have heard or am hearing. I just want to read into Hansard an email from a person whom I know well and who has been a regular correspondent over the last three or four months. The most recent one of these came through a couple of days ago. I quote:
We are unable to access the firearms portal register and allocate hunter permissions. We would like to manually submit our property registration and hunter permission allocations.
This was an email sent to the licensing department. It continues:
Attached to this email is what we believe is all the necessary paperwork for the property registration. We formally request that our updated licence be sent along with the renewal invoice by mail. The consistent issues with its systems are now having a real effect on our business operations and enough is simply enough. We have continued to make more than reasonable attempts to comply with this new system which simply does not work.
Previous emails to licencing on this matter to seek clarification about our next steps have gone unanswered now for four weeks so this will be our final attempt until our next licence renewal in 2026. If any further communication on this matter is necessary we request that all communication be directed digitally to our registered email address, and a hard copy be sent to our postal address. We believe this is a reasonable and necessary request due to our poor and intermittent digital services.
I think that sums up the experience of the vast number of firearm owners, particularly in regional Western Australia.
Honourable members have raised all the obvious issues about the rollout of this piece of legislation and the regulations that have accompanied it. I want to close by mentioning the approach of the government. Sadly, all too often during this debate, whether it was on the proposed bill or when the bill was in front of us in this place or subsequently, whenever the government has been confronted it has used fear to get its way. We saw the police minister at the time go to Pearce air base with a very large calibre rifle and say, "We're gonna take these off our streets." Obviously, we know all about that process—they had to buy the firearm, get it up to Pearce air base against the best advice of the Air Force and shut down the airspace, but that was okay because the government could scare a few punters into believing that it would be taking 50-calibre rifles off our streets. I use that term "off our streets" advisedly. How many times did we hear that this was all about taking firearms off our streets in Western Australia, where we all live? My firearms are not on the streets. None of my neighbours' firearms are on the streets. I find that offensive. Sadly, President, we have again heard from the minister that chaos will reign if this motion is successful today. The streets will somehow be awash with firearms between now and whenever the new regulations are put in place by the government, which, as we heard quite sensibly and calmly put by Hon Nick Goiran, could be this evening. We know that chaos will not reign. I have had it up to about here with this fearmongering. Make your case, win or lose. Honestly, some of the fearmongering that has gone on has been reprehensible.
Our streets are not awash with firearms and the Labor government knows that.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn interjected.
The President: Order, member!
Hon Steve Martin: From we have heard from the various parties today it appears this disallowance will fail and we will go about our business in this place tomorrow. The person who sent me that email and thousands of others like him will go on desperately trying to make the system work—the government's system that is now in place and is not working. It is completely not working.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn interjected.
The President: Order!
Hon Steve Martin: I will confine my remarks to that and leave some time for the others who want to speak and the mover of the motion to reply.
Division
Question put and a division taken with the following result:
Ayes (17)| Boylan, Hon Michelle | Groenewald, Hon Maryka | Spagnolo, Hon Anthony |
| Caddies, Hon Rod | Hofmann, Hon Michelle | Thomas, Hon Dr Steve |
| Dorn, Hon Amanda | Horstman, Hon Rob | Twiss, Hon Phil |
| Ehrenfeld, Hon Simon | Martin, Hon Steve | Walker, Hon Dr Brian |
| Freeman, Hon Julie | Scott, Hon Philip | Thomson, Hon Neil (Teller) |
| Goiran, Hon Nick | Sibma, Hon Tjorn |
| Andric, Hon Klara | Hirst, Hon Klasey | Pettitt, Hon Dr Brad |
| Beckerling, Hon Jess | Jarvis, Hon Jackie | Rowe, Hon Samantha |
| Caddy, Hon Dan | Kaur, Hon Dr Parwinder | Stratton, Hon Dr Katrina |
| Carr, Hon Sandra | Makur Chuot, Hon Ayor | Swinbourn, Hon Matthew |
| Clifford, Hon Tim | McNeill, Hon Sophie | Yang, Hon Pierre |
| Dawson, Hon Stephen | O'Donnell, Hon Andrew | Cayoun, Hon Lauren (Teller) |
| Doust, Hon Kate |
Question thus negatived.
