Firearms Act 2024—Standing Committee on Legislation recommendations
Motion
Hon Rob Horstman (10:12 am) without notice: I move:
That this house:
(a) notes that the Standing Committee on Legislation tabled its report into the operation and implementation of the Firearms Act 2024;
(b) notes the deeper structural flaws in the government's rushed firearms reforms and missed opportunity to pursue genuine, evidence-based reform;
(c) calls on the Cook Labor government to implement in full all the committee's recommendations, including measures to improve transparency, consultation and the fair treatment of law-abiding firearm owners; and
(d) calls on the government to provide quarterly reports to Parliament on its progress in implementing those recommendations.
Although disagreement tends to run a little bit rife on a Thursday morning, I think everyone in this place could agree that two is a very low number and 2.2% is a low percentage. Now, 2.2% is incredibly relevant in this debate, as it represents the percentage of clauses of the Firearms Act 2024 that received scrutiny in this place. That is right; of the 486 clauses, only 11 received scrutiny. Polite commentary describes this as an expedited passage procedure, although what this really amounts to was the government of the day ramming through legislation, knowing full well that it would not have the majority in this place after the 8 March 2025 election.
From this baseline or starting point, it was always going to be a hard task for the incredibly hardworking Standing Committee on Legislation to have to essentially complete the Committee of the Whole process as well as consider over 2,500 submissions. This report is a missed opportunity to have assessed the impacts of the disastrous Firearms Act and its subsequent regulations, and also disregards some submissions from the public, reputable bodies and government commissioners, and labels opposition to this bill as speculation. Put simply, the government's implementation of the Firearms Act 2024 and subsequent regulations has been a shambles, though this government should not be so surprised.
The report touches on many alarming findings in the establishing bill, including failing to protect WA's parliamentary sovereignty and lawmaking powers, risking restricting traditional hunting rights and practices and giving sufficient regard to the Aboriginal tradition and island custom, as outlined in appendix 1, "Fundamental legislative principle" 10. The report claims this was satisfied and has been met; however, submissions from Aboriginal legal services and reputable bodies say the opposite.
Notwithstanding the overall shambolic implementation of the Firearms Act and regulations, I wish to focus my contribution today on the findings into the government's poorly executed firearms authority health assessments (FAHA) and their impact on general practitioners and law-abiding firearm owners all over Western Australia. I will let the list of all-star speakers on this side cover off the other elements of the debate as we go through.
Make no mistake, this act and the regulations have the potential to start a mental health epidemic in our regions, although some would say there already is a mental health epidemic in our regions. Mental health service availability is two to five times lower per capita in remote and very remote areas than in metropolitan areas, and suicide rates are 60% higher in non-metropolitan regions than metropolitan areas, although this is another story altogether. I mentioned earlier that 2.2% of the clauses were scrutinised. Many in the regions would feel that, based on the hard access to services they experience, 2.2% of the mental health budget is spent outside the metro area. Coincidentally, .22 is a very popular calibre of rifle—the calibre of rifle that my father-in-law taught my son how to properly handle firearms and shoot with.
I turn to a mental health narrative from the regions. Quite often a farmer, a law-biding firearm owner, has taught their children how to handle firearms properly and how to engage with them properly. They are a member of the local gun club and they socialise and get social interaction there. They are part of the community. However, this chap in question has had a tough couple of years, a bad crop and some weather issues, and is dealing with the live export trade, which of course has probably increased stress on all farmers. One of his children has become sick and they have had problems accessing mental health and other health services in the region. He is getting down and his wife notices he is getting down. He works through the stigma of having a mental health condition and decides that it is time, with his wife, to approach a GP to go to talk about his mental health issues. He then realises the implications this could have on his firearms licence if he does. The reality is that by seeking mental health assistance for the condition that this chap is struggling with, he will in fact put his firearms licence at risk when he goes to have his FAHA. That is the true reality of the situation.
This report is jam-packed with genuine submissions from the public and reputable bodies representing health practitioners. To a certain degree, the report disregards these and many others, claiming a lack of evidence. The claim of a lack of evidence is repeated in relation to the fact that unless firearm owners are willing to self-incriminate themselves by confessing or lying about their mental health on the FAHA, the submission would be dismissed, rather than trusting the views of reputable associations like the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. I use the term self-incrimination pointedly, knowing that some of the very principles of this report, principle 6 for that matter, is all about protecting Western Australians from self-incrimination. Paragraph 7.37 on page 130 of the report states:
Amidst all of this speculation, no evidence was given to the Committee that substantiated any claims that a licence holder, or potential licence holder, was practically affected.
I will read what the Mental Health Commissioner had to say. This is one page earlier in the report:
Where a person who has a strong interest in obtaining a firearms licence or having a firearms licence renewed, it is logical that disclosing matters such as alcohol and other drugs use, past or present treatment for a mental health issue or recent suicidal ideation or self-harm is less likely to occur.
They are not going to admit that. The report warrants such comments from the Mental Health Commissioner that this is speculation. The committee then quite rightly sought advice from other medical professions, most notably the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. It was no surprise that the RACGP supported the comments made by the Mental Health Commissioner that this report was deemed speculation. The RACGP's advice was quite detailed and raised additional concerns that were not addressed by some other submissions. The report states:
Risk assessments are inherently uncertain and clinically unreliable: GPs are expected to determine whether a person's health poses a risk to themselves or others, if granted access to a firearm. However, risk assessments of this nature are inherently uncertain and clinically unreliable in predicting future risk. Mental health symptoms often fluctuate, and risk assessments are therefore limited to a point in time, which may limit the practicality and value of the assessment.
A big issue that was talked about was the risk of undermining the therapeutic relationship. There were concerns that firearms authority health assessments might lead to GPs and patients not having a strictly honest and forthright conversation, as there were concerns that people could lose their firearms licence if they were honest about their mental health condition or issues they were experiencing.
Medico-legal concerns were covered off in quite a lot of detail. One of the elements that I thought was really important to focus on is workforce pressures. The report states that with over 80,000 licensed firearms holders in WA, FAHAs add a very significant workload to the rural GP workforce. Only 20% of WA GPs live in regional WA. I will touch on that shortly in terms of what that looks like from a numbers perspective.
The applicant's cost burden was something else the RACGP brought up. FAHAs are not covered by Medicare, so there is also a cost burden there. On the matter of referral delays, GPs might decide that someone needs to be referred to possibly a psychiatrist, a psychologist or even a geriatrician or other allied health provider. The long wait times in the regions are even more exacerbated than they are in metropolitan areas. I tried to gather more information on this in one of my questions without notice earlier in the week. I thought my question asked for a relatively small amount of data compared with what I have seen asked for at other times but I was effectively told that due to it being a significant amount of information, I was not able to get that information on that day. As someone quipped to me, it would not be a significant amount of data unless there are heaps of vacancies. That is just supposition, although I will be interested to hear how many clinical FTEs are vacant in the regions.
The RACGP's last concern was the absence of clear standards and guidance. The report states:
The current FAHA process requires GPs to determine whether a person 'meets the relevant medical criteria' for holding a firearm licence, but no clear, evidence-based standards have been provided to guide these decisions.
The medico-legal concerns for GPs in general were a big part of this debate. They were cited as a key reason that GPs did not want to do FAHAs. They were concerned about the medico-legal concerns, especially the GPs in regional WA.
I mentioned the workforce pressures and how hard it is to get a GP appointment in general, particularly in the regions. I did some research and found that GP density in WA is approximately 100 GPs per 100,000 people. There are approximately three million people in WA and 3,000 GPs, 20% of which are in the regional areas, so that works out to be approximately 600 GPs in the regional areas. There are 40,000 licensed firearms owners requiring a FAHA. I will be liberal and conservative estimating how long that might take. I would think 20 minutes would be a conservative estimate. If we go with that, we are looking at 40,000 20-minute appointments that will be needed in addition to the number of appointments rural and regional GPs do. If 1,500 were done a month, which is a big ask, it would take 26 months—more than two years—to complete all the FAHAs for the existing licence firearms owners in regional WA. The Northampton Doctors Surgery near where I live is not open full time. We are very fortunate to have a surgery. It operates three times a day. What would the FAHA requirement do to the backlog of patient appointments for regional GPs? Who might miss out? Some people cannot afford to travel to Geraldton. These are all concerns. There is a mental health epidemic in the regions. It is not scaremongering to talk about these figures; it is really not. These are the figures we are dealing with. During the committee's hearings the Deputy Chair of the RACGP, Dr Mariam Bahemia, provided results from a poll of 1,300 doctors and said:
Last year, the RACGP had a poll and out of 1,300 doctors who were polled at that time, 80% of them said they were unlikely to participate in the process.
Further questioning went along the lines of asking who these were and which services they were. Dr Bahemia stood her ground, refusing to provide the details of GPs who had completed the survey or name individuals who were unlikely to participate. The government claims that GPs do not have the final say in this, but we know they do. The FAHA is a critical element of that. GPs are required to provide their Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency registration details, numbers and make a determination that a patient either meets the requirements without conditions, meets the requirements with conditions or does not meet the requirements. Of course, we know that failing to meet the requirements will result in a failure to have a person's licence renewed or even to gain it in the first place. We on this side of the house have often and regularly raised concerns about GPs and the liability that comes with the FAHA. The government has clearly done nothing to provide confidence to the GPs based on the results of that survey.
That brings me to recommendation 6. That recommendation is extremely welcomed. No doubt that sentiment will be echoed by every worried GP, overworked medical community member and regional medical community. The reconvening of the health assessment working group is an excellent recommendation and one that will be critical to restoring the somewhat battered confidence in the medical community when working through this act and the regulations.
This list of concerns raised by the RACGP further enforces the issues that we have been raising about the medical impost the bill and the regulations put on the medical fraternity. I am deeply concerned about people avoiding seeking help and seeing their doctor or psychologist based on the fact and the fear that they may lose their firearms. Those who want to do the right thing will not be able to access services due to the mismanagement of the act by this government.
That brings me to the last part of the motion that the government is to provide quarterly reports to Parliament on its progress in implementing these recommendations; that is, the provision of regular reports on where we are at with these recommendations. In particular, I would be really interested to see the development and impetus we are able to get around recommendation 6 because it speaks very much to the mental health and health requirements that are needed. If the government is as transparent as it says it is and is concerned about the mental health of licensed firearms owners all over regional Western Australia, the government will welcome with open arms accepting the opportunity to report regularly on the committee's recommendations and providing the swift action that will be taken to address the problems outlined in the report.
Hon Julie Freeman (10:29 am): I begin by acknowledging the thousands of Western Australians who have taken the time to make a submission or taken time out of their jobs, businesses or lives to appear before the committee. I thank these people for making their voices heard throughout the process—the sporting shooters, primary producers, firearm retailers, conservation volunteers, veterinarians and regional communities who depend on fair and workable firearm laws. Their message has been consistent and clear from the introduction of this legislation through to the delivery of this report—the government has failed them.
The Cook Labor government's handling of the firearm reform has been a masterclass in poor communication, chaotic implementation and disregard for the people most affected. The committee's report offered the Parliament an opportunity to pause, reflect and correct course. Sadly, that opportunity has been missed. Although the report produced 47 findings and 11 recommendations, it failed to confront the deeper structural issues of the Firearms Act—the rushed drafting, the absence of proper consultation and the widespread confusion that followed its passage. Over 2,600 written submissions and two weeks of public hearings revealed an overwhelming sense of frustration, yet the majority of the committee, dominated by Labor and the Greens, chose to downplay or ignore those concerns.
Despite assurances of consultation, stakeholders consistently reported that their input was either ignored or sought only after key decisions had already been made. From the outset, the government's approach to this reform was to steamroll ahead and expect the firearms community to play catch-up with no guidance. The government created an information vacuum in an age of social media. Has it not yet learnt that when it keeps people in the dark and drops change on them without bringing them along for the journey and supporting them along the way, it creates space for uncertainty? When people do not have all the information, they will try to fill the gaps with their best guess or they will rely on others to tell them. The commentary about misinformation and supposition, and the painting of firearm owners as somehow misinformed and hysterical, is a problem of this government's making. In an era of social media, I would have thought that this government would have been acutely aware of the need to be on the front foot. Instead, it created a soup of uncertainty, causing untold confusion and distress to good people, which is still going on.
The implementation of the firearms portal deserves special mention because it epitomises the government's incompetence. This was meant to be a modern, streamlined system, and instead it has caused chaos. Retailers have faced delays in processing transactions, clubs have been left without clarity about compliance requirements and individual licence holders have spent hours on hold or weeks waiting for a response to basic questions. Members can imagine my shock when a member of the committee made it clear in a media interview that the portal was never meant to be ready until 2026, so why was it unleashed on the firearms community before it was ready? What was so urgent that the government could not slow down, finish the development and testing of the portal, produce quality information and step-by-step instructions, trial the portal with focus groups of firearm owners to get good feedback and iron out the kinks, and then roll out the transition calmly and in stages? The firearms portal should have been the backbone of the new system and instead it was launched before it was ready, confusing, buggy and inaccessible to many in regional areas. Firearm owners described being locked out of their accounts, unable to renew licences, or receiving contradictory instructions from WA police. Property owners went round and round in circles to register their properties and then had them refused over the smallest discrepancies, only to have to start the process all over again.
I can personally verify that as a person of better than average IT skills, I had to make multiple phone calls for assistance with the portal. The lack of readiness was a disaster for firearm owners, property owners and the poor public servants left to pick up the pieces. Thank heavens for the firearms community! Do members know where I got the most assistance to navigate registering our properties? It was an article written by Paul Fitzgerald, president of the Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia WA, published in Farm Weekly. I tore the page out, put it on the desk next to me and checked off each part of the process while I completed it. That was not his job; that should have been the government's job. Do members know where else a large number of firearm owners went to get help in transitioning to the portal when they could not get the information they needed? It was the fabulous Deb Taylor and her Facebook page Portal Access and LFAO Renewal Help. When people were panicking because they did not know what to do, she provided homemade fact sheets, checklists, how-to videos, step-by-step instructions and QR codes with links to resources. She did the government's job for it, and she calmed down thousands of distressed people who were trying to do their best but were completely lost. She walked them through the process step by step. This has been more than an inconvenience and it has caused much more than consternation; it has been a distressing bureaucratic nightmare for thousands of Western Australians. Education campaigns have been woefully inadequate. That is why the committee had to make five recommendations specifically calling for clear, accurate and accessible information. I am astounded that the very basic and obvious actions of recommendations 5, 8, 9, 10 and 11 were not the first things that were planned instead of being the last things to be thought of.
With the very short time I have left, I want to quickly mention the gun clubs. Gun clubs are the lifeblood of Western Australia's sporting community. They provide training, promote safe handling and foster a culture of responsibility. Our gun clubs provide a social outlet where people of all ages and abilities can find friendship, recreation and competition, yet under this legislation they are struggling to survive. The committee's report acknowledges this problem, recommending the creation of a dedicated funding stream to help clubs upgrade their facilities and meet new legislative requirements. That such a recommendation is even necessary shows how poorly the reforms were planned. These clubs, whose members are some of the most disciplined and responsible firearm users in our state, have been left with uncertainty and treated as if they were the problem while they fight for the existence of their sport and their community. Even now, after the committee's report, there is no guarantee that adequate resources will be provided to fix these problems.
Implementation matters. The Nationals have always supported sensible, practical firearm reform—reform that balances safety with fairness and responsibility with respect—but what we have seen from this government is none of those things. Instead, we have seen confusion, chaos and contempt for the community. This Parliament has a duty to fix that, and that is why this motion calls for the government to not only implement all the committee's recommendations, but also report quarterly to the Parliament on its progress.
This is my message to the government: this is a mess of your own making. As a government, you decided that cursory consultation would do. You decided not to provide good information to the firearms community with your arrogant and paternalistic "just do what you're told" attitude. You decided to push the legislation through without adequate time for proper scrutiny and the opportunity to make sensible amendments. You decided to launch a portal that was rushed, untested and full of flaws, leaving the firearms community to work it out for themselves. You decided not to provide adequate guidelines and resources to help firearm owners, who have used a paper-based licensing system for decades, to navigate a new online system. You decided to conflate public safety and firearm ownership to manufacture fear in the community and represent law-abiding firearm owners as dangerous and untrustworthy. You decided that the wellbeing and goodwill of Western Australia's firearms community could be sacrificed because these are people you do not care about. Well, I care about them. They are my family, my friends, my neighbours, our employees and my community—hardworking and law-abiding Western Australians who simply want to be treated with fairness and who deserve clarity, stability and respect.
Hon Jackie Jarvis (Minister for Agriculture and Food) (10:38 am): I rise to respond to this motion. We obviously started with Hon Rob Horstman reflecting on what happened in the last Parliament. He was not happy with the way that the legislation was passed in this place. I accept that he was not a member of the last Parliament and was concerned about the timelines. In response to those concerns, to quote from the 51st report of the Standing Committee on Legislation on the Firearms Act:
On 28 May 2025, the Legislative Council … made the following referral to the Standing Committee …
It was the Legislative Council, backed by the Nationals and the opposition, that dictated that it wanted an inquiry and a report. The Legislative Council set the timelines. I think the words the member used was that the hardworking committee did not have enough time to consider it all. By 4 July, 2,666 submissions had been received, and that hardworking committee did indeed come back and ask for an extension. It made a request on 19 August, and an extension of time was granted to 16 October. The limited timeframe the committee had on the referred act was dictated by those opposite. They say the committee did not have enough time, and I agree that perhaps the committee should have had longer. Remember that there was talk about it being a majority committee, with two Labor members of Parliament and a Greens MP. The opposition and crossbench were represented. Members had an opportunity to do a minority report. They had opportunities.
Hon Rob Horstman raised concerns about mental health. He gave a very detailed account of his concerns. My question to the Nationals WA is why its members did not attend the hearings. From what I have seen on the public hearings, they did not attend the health panel on 12 September with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the Consumers of Mental Health WA and the Mental Health Commission. Why did they not attend and ask questions?
Hon Rob Horstman: Because it wasn't allowed.
Hon Jackie Jarvis: The member is a member of this place. Of course, he was allowed. He is a member of the Legislative Council and he can turn up and ask questions, but he chose not to. Just like the opposition chose not to do a minority report.
Let me tell members what the whole committee, including opposition members, found. The following is from page 128 of chapter 7 and refers to health assessments:
7.31 The committee notes that a range of health stakeholders including the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners … were members of the Health Assessment Working Group—
That is the group that informed the creation of the legislation—
with a role in the creation of the health assessment form, during the development of the legislation.
On page 130, the whole committee, including opposition members, in regard to health, notes:
7.37 Amidst all of this speculation—
By that, it is talking about the speculation on the committee's discussions around health assessments and all the submissions and all the information—
no evidence was given to the Committee that substantiated any claims that a licence holder, or potential licence holder, was practically affected.
That is what all the committee members decided, including the opposition and crossbench members. I hear what the member is saying, but he cannot just pretend that he is not part of a coalition. I do not know what they call themselves—an alliance, a coalition—there were representatives on the committee from that side of the chamber.
I want to talk about health assessments. I refer to paragraph 7.49 on page 133 of the committee's report:
Taking a positive view on the requirement for health assessments as part of the licensing process, the Alannah and Madeline Foundation told the Committee:
The hyperbole about the Health Risk Assessment is disappointing. The same outrage by the firearm industry has not been heard in NSW where Health Risk Assessments (although not mandatory) have also been introduced.
While the GP workforce in all of Australia is under pressure, Western Australia still has 99 GP's per 100,000 people. NSW has 115. The RACGP have been on a working group established by Western Australia Police for over 2 years and we believe are well versed at conducting health assessments for all sorts of licenses including marine, aviation and vehicle licenses.
The roll out of Assessments will be staggered as licenses are renewed or new ones applied for. This mitigates the impact on the GP workforce. They have specifically been indemnified from any adverse outcome as a result of the Assessment. GP's will not be deciding upon the appropriateness or otherwise of a licence applicant but providing information for the Firearms Registry to consider.
As I said, this was a cross-party inquiry. The opposition put forward the motion to have the act referred to the Standing Committee on Legislation. It has been through all due process and, like every committee in this place, had a range of opposition, crossbench and government representatives.
My concern with part of this motion is that it seeks to almost dictate to this chamber how to respond to committee reports. As members are aware, the report on the Firearms Act is subject to standing order 191(1), which sets out the requirements for the government's response to committee recommendations. I am going to read that standing order for those members who are new to this place:
Where a report recommends action by, or seeks a response from, the Government, the responsible Minister or the Leader of the House shall provide its response to the Council within not more than 2 months or at the earliest opportunity after that time if the Council is adjourned or in recess.
The two-month period commences on the date the report is tabled. The government is now considering all the recommendations. Let us remember that this report was tabled a week ago and the government has indicated that it absolutely will consider all the recommendations. Standing order 191 confirms the government has a two-month period to consider all the recommendations and how it will implement them. It is not unreasonable that the government will actually spend that amount of time on that. The member does not get to circumvent the parliamentary process by moving this motion. The report was tabled. The Minister for Police made it clear that the government will consider any commonsense suggestions—
Hon Neil Thomson interjected.
Hon Jackie Jarvis: Right from the beginning of this process!
The President: Order! Just allow the minister on her feet to give her contribution, as others were allowed to be heard, in silence.
Hon Jackie Jarvis: I can let members know that the Minister for Police is already working with stakeholders on some of the committee's recommendations. We have been very public about that. Right from the beginning of this process, the minister noted the issues raised in the report and said he was prepared to consider commonsense, constructive, reasonable suggestions to make it easier for law-abiding firearms owners.
President, my husband is a firearm owner, and I think we have all acknowledged that the portal was difficult. That was recognised by the whole committee, as were all the other notions. The whole committee—
Hon Neil Thomson: Does the government recognise it?
The President: Order! Those kinds of interjections are not welcome at all.
Hon Jackie Jarvis: Thank you, President. We are proud of these strong firearms laws. The laws are about community safety. This is not about law-abiding gun owners who do the right thing.
Hon Julie Freeman talked about the paper-based system. The paper-based system had been in place since the 1970s. Everyone recognised that it had significant flaws. The committee recognised that it had flaws. With that, I will end my contribution.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas (10:46 am): I start by saying that all my opposition colleagues and I believe in having good firearms legislation in Western Australia that underpins the safe handling of firearms. I think we all do that.
It is highly appropriate on a Thursday morning to sit here and listen to the political spin and outright lies of the Labor Party. I think we could only do that on a Thursday morning.
Hon Jackie Jarvis: We only lie on Thursdays!
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: I am just warming up, minister.
Hon Julie Freeman raised the point of why the government did this on that timeframe. I will give Hon Julie Freeman the obvious answer: it was politics; there was an election coming up in March 2025 and this is one of the things the government wanted to beat the drum over.
I have to re-educate the Minister for Agriculture and Food and, from yesterday, Hon Dan Caddy on their absolute nonsense around the operations of the committee. The minister has probably got an excuse because she had barely served on a committee before she was zoomed up the ranks to minister. Hon Dan Caddy has served on a range of committees, so he should know better than most people the absolute rubbish that the government has come out with. Let me give them a few basic lessons in parliamentary process. When members join a committee that has been formed, they are covered by parliamentary privilege. If they discuss the contemplations of the committee with their political colleagues, with their party, prior to the release of the report, they are in breach of parliamentary privilege. For the member to stand up and say the opposition endorses this because it had a member on the committee and the crossbench endorses the report because it had a member is absolute rubbish.
Hon Dan Caddy: This is a vote of no confidence in your member.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: You know better!
The President: Order, members.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: You know better, Hon Dan Caddy. He understands this because he has experience on committees.
Hon Dan Caddy: Is this a vote of confidence in your member?
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: This committee report is not an endorsement.
The Acting President (Hon Andrew O'Donnell): I know it is Thursday morning and it is a highly emotive topic, but can we please, for the benefit of Hansard, keep the volume at an acceptable level.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Thank you for your strong protection, Acting President.
For those who understand the committee system, it does not get discussed and it is not a party political decision. Perhaps it is for the Labor Party, because the Labor Party seemed to indicate that is what is going on. Someone who accepts the argument of the minister and Hon Dan Caddy that the parliamentary committee system is a party political process could accept their arguments. Otherwise, they should accept the lies and nonsense for exactly what they are.
Let us address a couple of these things, because I do not have enough time to get through all the issues I need to get through. I thought that finding 1 was interesting. Members can find that on page 9. Part 1.52 of the report reads:
The Committee is satisfied that, through its Westminster style committee system, the Regulations were sufficiently subject to the scrutiny of the Parliament.
I am going to talk about the regulations. I heard some nonsense from the minister about the bill. Out of 486 clauses in the bill, 18 clauses were looked at in detail. The regulations contained 312 clauses and, yes, initially there was a debate around a disallowance motion. If we did not have a disallowance motion, Hon Dr Brian Walker, we would have had no debate on the regulations, but there was a debate on disallowance in both houses. In the lower house, they debated the disallowance for two hours and 20 minutes; in the upper house, they debated it for three hours. That is five hours in total to discuss and work out the benefits of 312 clauses. It is not much of a debate, is it? One has to remember that almost nobody read the regulations. The debate last year on the bill was the one in which we could debate the clauses that the government gave us time to debate, which was 11 in this house. But we table the regulations and, generally, nobody reads them. I do not know how many people read the regulations. I read them. Hon Dr Brian Walker read them. We have four members of the committee. I assume that all the committee members read all the regulations; is that a fair comment?
Hon Dan Caddy: I would have assumed so, too.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Did the members who were on the committee read all 312 of the regulations?
Several members interjected.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Stony silence.
Several members interjected.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: There is a good question. Did the committee—
Hon Dan Caddy interjected.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: I have already upbraided you once, Hon Dan Caddy. Do not make me do it again.
Out of all the committee members who recommended that the regulations were sufficiently subject to the scrutiny of Parliament—the reason the minister said that is because it went to the committee—I cannot get an answer about how many members of the committee read the regulations. Did they read them? I ask the Chair of the committee: Did they read them?
Hon Dr Katrina Stratton: I have done nothing but read for the last few months.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Have you read them all? That is what I am going to ask, because you think that it has had adequate scrutiny.
Hon Dr Katrina Stratton: Of course I read them. You have already questioned whether or not I breached parliamentary privilege. How dare you question me on this as well.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Has it had adequate scrutiny?
The Acting President (Hon Andrew O'Donnell): Order, members!
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: I am trying to find out. Was there adequate scrutiny? That was the first finding. Once I read that, I thought, okay, almost nobody has read the regulations. We did not debate them in the house. The members of the committee hopefully read them; I hope they did, because that would at least underpin their position. I disagree entirely. Even if all members of the committee read them, which I think would have been the right thing to do—they may well have done; I hope they did—that is five members out of 37 in this house. How many other members read them? Not many. Did those regulations get the scrutiny of the house? What a load of rubbish. The first finding of the report says that there was sufficient scrutiny of the regulations in this house. It is not true. Hon Dan Caddy got up and said that if there is not a minority report, the whole party suddenly agrees with the report. That is not true either. It is just not true. It is a fraud perpetrated on the house.
There are a couple of other issues that we should probably address. We should have a much longer debate on this but we are stuck with this. When we look at the misrepresentation that has gone on here, we should go back to why it was delivered the way it was delivered. The portal was a joke because the government had to rush it through to get everything prepared to get a political benefit in March 2025. We understand that. The government was targeting a group of people that it probably did not have a connection with. We understand that as well. It is natural for the left wing of politics to be more centralist. They believe in communal responsibility and communal acceptance of responsibility. The right wing does not; we believe in the individual. One would expect that difference and I understand that.
Why are we doing it? Let me tell members this. I have now put in a freedom-of-information request to the police for the report, because the government keeps mentioning the incident perpetrated by Mark Bombara, which was an awful thing. It was a disgrace, and nobody has anything but the utmost horror for that incident. I put in a freedom-of-information request because the police had the power under the previous act to seize his guns and they did not. The police not only did not seize his guns, but also had to acknowledge publicly that there were eight instances of them doing the wrong thing. What happened? The government and the police are using and weaponising this as an opportunity to attack and undermine honest law-abiding right-doing members of the community who happen to be firearms owners. The government is weaponising this.
If the government believes that this is something it should reference in the debate, it should put the report on the table. It can take the names out. I do not want to crucify any police officers. Take the names out, redact the names of any police officers, but tell the community how it went wrong. The government did not. The members of the committee got up there and said, "Here is a set of recommendations; we have tabled the report." No, they have not. I sought an FOI request. It was rejected. I appealed the FOI request internally to the police. It was rejected. I am appealing it to the Information Commissioner. I imagine that will be rejected as well, because we cannot actually get the truth out that the police failed eight times, here is the way they failed, they could have used the previous legislation and they did not. It was a horrendous incident, but the way the government is weaponising it to attack honest people is not much better. I would ask the government to please stop. I know it is politically expedient, I know that the government would like to jump up and down on that, but it just does not work.
I will finish with this. I have finally got an answer back to a question I have asked a couple of times. We are used to the government refusing to answer questions. On Tuesday, I asked how the portal process has been going, and I also asked, funnily enough, how many complaints have been received about the portal. On Tuesday, the responding minister on behalf of the Minister for Police said that they would provide the answer the next day. Yesterday, it came out. How many complaints have they had? Here is the answer. The minister said that the transition of a Firearms Act licence to the new 2024 firearms authority occurs outside of the firearms portal. Interestingly, how often can one get a new licence without using the portal? But the actual answer that we received basically said that the number of complaints is so high that the minister cannot give us an answer. There are so many complaints that the government cannot even answer the simplest of questions.
Of course, at the other end of this, I asked how many licences have been processed. There have been 60,000 applications—at about seven a month, that is probably about right—of which, 32,600 have been determined and 26,600 have failed to be determined, so 55% have been determined and 45% have failed to be determined. The government is months behind. Of those applications, 80% got through, 20% gave up because the process was too difficult, and the government managed to find 13 licences that were referred—that is amazing.
Hon Dan Caddy (Parliamentary Secretary) (10:57 am): I note that this is the opposition's motion, so I will try not to take the full 10 minutes, but some things need to be responded to.
We have established two things in listening to the last member speak. We have established that he has absolutely zero confidence in his colleague who was on the committee. That is plain and simple. Within the committee system, everybody knows what their job is, regardless. There is no indication that anyone is talking to anyone else, member. He knows what it is.
When I was on the homelessness committee, I was the only Labor person on that committee. I did not even have a colleague I could talk to about it, but I knew inherently that I disagreed with things, I knew that my party would disagree with things, so I took the time, thought about it and put together a minority report. It is rich of the member to come in here and disassociate himself as a member of the Liberal Party when one of his colleagues was on this committee and has endorsed this report. It is absolutely disingenuous, although not as much as the Nationals WA, because they lack all credibility on this, as the minister has pointed out. I will get to that as well.
Hon Julie Freeman chose to attack the two Labor members who were on the committee. She chose to say that they railroaded the report. There are two of them. They do not have a majority. They cannot railroad anything. Maybe it would have been better to lament the laziness of the two conservative members of this committee for not putting forward a minority report.
Several members interjected.
The Acting President: Order, members!
Hon Dan Caddy: That was a decision they took and that clearly says—
Several members interjected.
The Acting President: Order, members!
Hon Dan Caddy: That clearly says that they were happy with the bulk of the report. I am not going to go through the Hansard of my contribution yesterday, but I very quietly made that point yesterday and nobody was up in arms about it then. No-one said a word; I do not recall a single interjection yesterday. Now, all of a sudden, everyone opposite is—
Several members interjected.
The Acting President: Order, members! Members, it is Thursday morning; we know that, but quite honestly, I think Hansard will be struggling right now, so for the benefit of Hansard, let us keep the chatter to a minimum.
Hon Dan Caddy: I said at the outset that two things were established from listening to the previous speakers. The second thing that was established is that the Nationals WA have absolutely no idea how the committee system works. It is really rich for members to come in here and have another shot at this—
Hon Dr Steve Thomas interjected.
Hon Dan Caddy: Just a minute, member. We sent this—not as a bill, but as an act—to the committee to be looked at. Members opposite are not happy with what came out of the committee, even though there were members of the alliance, or whatever it is they call themselves these days, on that committee, so they want to come in here and prosecute that argument, again and again and again. I do not doubt that the feelings of both the Nationals members are genuine, but I am not sure how many committee meetings the member attended during this inquiry. I am not sure whether the member tried to have a National Party member substituted into the committee, as happens from time to time when there are inquiries like this. If the member is that concerned about what has come out—this is a lesson—he should do the work, get himself put on the committee, and go to the hearings. He can participate in the hearings. He cannot participate in the deliberations, but he can absolutely ask questions and get—
Several members interjected.
Hon Dan Caddy: He absolutely can.
Several members interjected.
Hon Dan Caddy: If he is not there, he cannot. That is what I am saying. The member should do the work; put himself in the room.
Several members interjected.
The Acting President: Members!
Hon Dan Caddy: This is emblematic of the National Party, though—not doing the work and then coming out later. We saw this happen in the other place just yesterday when their colleague, the member for Central Wheatbelt, was having an absolute crack at the government about the cost of tickets for the Royal Show, but at the same time never actually directly engaging with the Royal Ag Society and never once realising that it was a conservative government—in fact, it was the Liberal–National coalition—that for the very first time absolutely killed free entry, back in the Barnett years. He was not prepared to concede that. The member's colleague and my friend the member for Central Wheatbelt is not a student of history, but he is happy to go off half-cocked, having a shot at the government, without doing any work, any of the background checks or any research into what he is saying. This whole thing is coming through again, whereby Nationals members want to stand up and re-prosecute an argument and have a shot at the government because of this, this, this and this. We sent this to the committee and the committee came back with a very substantial report that, as I said yesterday, was put together by representatives from the four major parties across this state and did not have a minority report attached to it. As I pointed out, recommendation 3 was the one recommendation on which there was a dissenting voice, but that was not actually about any specific element of what should or should not be in the act; it was about whether it could be changed through legislation or regulation. From what I have read in the report—obviously I was not in the room—there was no talk that it should have been taken out. As I said, quite simply, there was no minority report attached to it.
The member has come in and tried to re-prosecute an old argument. It is done, member. It is done. We have had the report. There was an opportunity for people—maybe not the member's party, but certainly from the alliance—to come out and put forward a strong defence of what they believe would be the right outcome for this, but once again that did not happen. It just looks to me like an avoidance on that side of doing the hard work to put their case forward. In fact, the most work that has been done on this matter was done by someone who was not on the committee, and that is the member, by bringing forward this motion to the house. From what I can see and what I have read, this is the most work that has been done by anyone on that side, at all.
Hon Phil Twiss (11:04 am): Hon Dr Steve Thomas brought up the Bombara case again. That is one issue that I want to focus on because it keeps coming up time and again, either in the press or from the other side of the house, as a reason for this legislation having to be pushed through the Parliament in the time that it was. My view is that either that case was cynically used by the government to ram through a piece of political legislation in time for the election, or that the government really did not want the opposition to review the legislation in the necessary detail because of some of the clauses that were raised in this report—for example, sections 150 and 152, and a few others.
We all know the history of this. Essentially, just before debate on this legislation, there was the terrible issue of the Bombara murders and suicide. The tragedy of it is that powers already existed for the police at that time, and I will go into that, but that case was used to declare the bill an urgent bill and push it through with only 11 of the 496 clauses having been reviewed. I will have a look at that incident itself and the findings in the Corruption and Crime Commission report into the internal affairs investigation. Before I do that, I will just explain how that came about from the report.
The declaration of urgency was explained to the house by Minister Dawson on 11 June 2024. Just weeks earlier, on 24 May 2024, Mark James Bombara had murdered Jennifer Petelczyc and her daughter Gretl in Floreat, Perth, before taking his own life, all with licensed firearms. Following this, Minister Dawson advised:
… it is the government's view that this is important legislation and it needs to be passed through the Parliament as quickly as possible.
I do not disagree that it is important legislation and I did not disagree that it should have been passed through the Parliament as quickly as possible, but I do not think it should have been sent through the Parliament so quickly that it was not reviewed and did not go through the proper processes. The urgency was not there. The urgency in this situation was used as a political method to ram through what Hon Paul Papalia wanted to have as his, I guess, signature firearms reform legislation in Western Australia. Every appeal to come back and review this properly was rejected.
Let us have a look at what the police actually found out about the Bombara incident. There was an investigation by the CCC into the Western Australia Police Force internal affairs unit investigation into the Bombara shooting. We are relatively familiar with this, but we need to understand that the powers that needed to be there were already there. The report states:
IAU considered police conduct in relation to six interactions with Bombara and/or members of the Bombara family. It concluded that WA Police were warned on multiple occasions about the risk posed by Bombara and that the warnings were 'legitimate'.
This is all under the old 1973 firearms legislation. They were warned; they knew about it. The report states:
Additional risk factors were apparent from police interaction with Bombara and members of the Bombara family when they attended the Bombara family home on 1 April 2024.
They were well aware of what was going on, from family members and from others.
Internal affairs made three key findings:
(a) Officers did not correctly assess the risk posed by Bombara and consequently, powers available to the police under the Restraining Orders Act and the Firearms Act 1973 were not appropriately exercised.
The police officers had the powers but did not exercise them. The report continues:
On a 'correct' assessment of the risk, a Police Order ought to have been issued and Bombara's firearms seized.
The police had the power to seize the firearms, yet the report says that new additional powers were added to the bill to seize firearms without a warrant following a domestic violence report. The police did not need that because the police officers already had those powers available to them, yet they failed to use them. The report continues:
(b) Insufficient action was taken to consider whether Bombara was a fit and proper person to hold a firearms licence …
The fit and proper persons test was already there, yet the police failed to use it. Why? The report further states:
… or to continue to possess firearms despite members of the Bombara family informing police about Bombara's deteriorating medical condition and mental state.
Again the police officers had the tools they needed to use. I wholeheartedly agree that we need to find an effective way to deal with mental health issues and firearms. We know from the Margaret River shooting that there were issues around that relating to depression and the drugs the gentleman was on. I think a whole lot of work could be done on mandatory reporting and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors for people who are going through those sorts of things. The scattergun approach of making everyone go through the system and the risks that presents have already been mentioned. A lot of work could be done that has not been done in that area. The next finding is:
(c) Insufficient action was taken to identify and investigate possible firearms offences by Bombara, including a report that he possessed an unsecured firearm.
Again, we talk about the security of firearms and safes and all the rest of it, yet in this case that was not done. In all, internal affairs made 18 recommendations that have been accepted by WA Police. The report states:
Eight officers were found to have breached the WA Police Code of Conduct and those officers have been internally disciplined. Two officers were exonerated and the allegation of breach of the Code was not sustained against five officers.
There are interesting things about Mark Bombara and his firearms. Mark Bombara possessed two firearms under a collectors licence. To own firearms under a collectors licence, the owner needs to be a member of a registered collectors organisation, essentially. He was not a member of one of those organisations. One of the firearms was a Glock. Anyone who knows anything about firearms knows that a Glock is the Ozito of firearms. A Glock is not a collectable or a precious artefact of firearms technology and craftsmanship; it is half plastic and half metal and is used by the police. It is a utilitarian piece of kit. It is like saying that my Bunnings wheelbarrow is a collectable item. It is that sort of a thing. Somehow he managed to get that firearm onto his collectors licence. That is the firearm he used to commit the crime. As I said before, he was not a member of an accredited collectors society, and the police did not check. Another finding that was added into the legislation is the strict requirement for collectors licences to further limit access to handguns. I have spoken to a lot of people who have owned beautiful collectable firearms. Some of those firearms are worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of them have historical significance and have been in families for generations. One firearm I was told about was a lever action Winchester that was used in the United States back in the 1800s. That firearm had to be destroyed. I used to be an antiques dealer. I collect antique tools that are worth a lot of money and I felt that very keenly. If someone came along, grabbed one of my tools and welded it to destroy it so that no-one could not cut themselves on the blade, for example, it would break my heart. The pain of having a firearm destroyed can be felt when having conversations with people who have gone through that. People have been deeply affected by that requirement when there was no need for it to be put in place because they were never really a risk.
In conclusion, to keep bringing up the Bombara case as a justification for ramming through the legislation and pushing it through as quickly as it was without proper scrutiny is dishonest and it is a pretty heinous thing to do. No firearms owner I have spoken to has an issue with the police doing their job or having the necessary powers, including those around mental health and the protection of the community. Everyone knows that. Law-abiding firearms owners in this case have been unfairly scapegoated. That is terribly unfair. They have been made to suffer, particularly with the portal that was rushed through. Hon Julie Freeman referred to the pain people experienced using the portal. Thousands of people have had to go through that. I think this was a political stunt that the government used to push through political legislation.
Hon Dr Brian Walker (11:15 am): I am delighted to speak to this motion. I also take on board the words of my colleague Hon Dan Caddy, who said we are not going to re-prosecute this legislation because it is an act that is now in force. I would like to look at the consequences, and maybe even the unintended consequences, of what has happened. As my colleague Hon Dr Steve Thomas said, we can all agree on the urgent and manifest need for sensible firearms legislation and regulation because we want to maintain safety in the community and for firearms to be used properly.
The tragedy in Floreat was mentioned. How many such events occur? Yesterday I heard members talk about the threats of firearms and also bricks, knives, hobby swords and that kind of thing. People said that fists and steel-tipped boots would not be enough. There are a lot of threats going on. I looked at the number and there was a total of five tragic events that did not involve criminals or people with a mental disturbance. Compare that with the annual 130 road traffic deaths or something else that members might not be aware of, which is the 1,000 projected deaths annually in WA; it is not actually a statistic that people are collecting. If we assume that WA doctors are every bit as good as American doctors, we would have about 1,000 deaths every year in WA alone due to properly prescribed medication that has been properly administered. Yet we have an act to stop a very small number of tragedies when nothing is said about the 1,000 of us who curl up our toes because of what happens on a daily basis. Where is the appropriate response to that and can we address it?
I listened with fascination to the discussion about how well our committees are functioning, and indeed they are. In the cut and thrust of a Thursday morning we can perhaps criticise each other for that, but we should not because the committees are staffed with excellent people. The staffing is beyond reproach. However, there are governmental pathways and procedures that seem to be particularly adept at making it difficult for the truth to shine through. It requires some digging, as my colleague Hon Dan Caddy said. That digging all too often is not amenable to the structures of our committees when they are given guidance on what they can talk about—that and no more. It is possible that we could dig deeper, but we choose not to because it is not suitable in our committees at the moment.
That reminds me very much of my time in the Soviet Union when I was acting as an interpreter between Soviet doctors and visiting Canadian gynaecologists who went to a hospital to discuss the differences or similarities between the Soviet and Canadian health services. As an interpreter, I could not say what was really said; I had to translate what was said. If someone told a barefaced lie, I was not allowed to say it was a barefaced lie; I simply translated the words. I could not say that the person was lying through their back teeth and, by the way, this is what he said. No. I had to say what the person actually said. The hospital had bare concrete steps and there was a live electrical wire coming down the stairs. The hospital was unpainted. It was a place where someone had to be bribed to get penicillin for an infection. It was not a western standard hospital. Afterwards, when the Canadians had left and I was sitting with my Soviet colleagues drinking tea out of a saucer with some jam—the Soviet way—we had a good laugh because they had succeeded in conveying the impression to their Canadian colleagues that the two health systems were very similar. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
I now turn to the committees we have here and how they function. We have to deal with the report and the Henry VIII clauses that we are going to skip over. By all means; we will leave that be. I think that is totally inadequate, but that is just my opinion as a non-member of the committee. I do not know the grounds for that, and neither should I know the grounds for that. However, let us look at the consequences. We are not going to re-prosecute the legislation, which I think anyone would agree is faulty. It is different for someone on the government side than for someone on the non-government side or, indeed, the crossbench, where we can scrutinise things without the benefit of having to kowtow to our leaders.
First of all, I note that I am actually personally involved, because I have done medical assessments for firearm licences. I do not think anyone else in this chamber has done that, so I can speak with some authority. I really disliked the form. I disliked the information that the police wanted about me. Someone said earlier in the debate that it is not the doctors who make the final decision; that is up to the licensing authorities. That is complete and utter Soviet-style misinformation, because there are three boxes that I can tick. One is "No contraindications", one is "With restrictions" and one is "Not suitable". If a doctor ticks the "Not suitable" box, is any licensing authority going to look at that and say, "He is suitable, actually." Is that going to happen? It is not. What about when I say yes, but with extra support or requirements? Is any licensing authority going to say, "Yes, that is fine; grand" or are they going to withhold their approval and say, "Until you meet this, perhaps we are not going to give you the licence." I do not know. I have not come across that yet, but the possibility is certainly there. The top one—when I say yes without conditions—still has to go to the authorities and they can say, "Yes, but we are not going to give you a licence because we don't like you." Still, I am fundamentally involved in the licensing or non-licensing of someone for a firearm, much like for a car licence; I can have a person's licence taken off them with the tick of a box once they are 81 years old.
I have an email in front of me that I will read:
I had six police officers at my house on 1st October 2025. My rifle was confiscated and my license has been cancelled. I have one month time to response. Below are the reasons for it:
The first part is actually the police decision. It states:
The reason for the cancellation is that I have formed the opinion that you are not a fit and proper person to hold a Firearm Authority pursuant to section 192(1)(b) of the Act.
In particular, I have formed this opinion having regard to:
Your conduct, behaviour, views, opinions and attitudes, which have demonstrated a disregard for the law pursuant to Section 150(a) and (c) of the Act in regards to your Sovereign Citizen ideologies including the sending of correspondence to Government officials which clearly demonstrate Sovereign Citizen ideologies.
I spoke about that yesterday and we can have another discussion. However, in the next paragraph, the person involved went on to state:
I do not consider myself a Sovereign Citizen and have no idea what their ideologies are. It appears to me that the WA government is now trying to reduce the number of firearms amongst the population. They use the flimsy legislations and label anyone at their will just to be able to cancel the Licenses.
I have heard this story quite a few times from people who have been corresponding with me. Whatever opinions we might have of different sections of society, should we give police the unrestricted ability to form a view without evidence, or maybe in the face of evidence, and then to take action? In this case it was removing firearms, but it could be any action. We have now given permission to the police, using Henry VIII amendments. If we continue down this path, in theory, in an iteration in the future, the police could descend on a person's house and say that they have one car too many: "I have formed the opinion that you don't need that second car. I will take that. This is the law. We are following the law." We have seen this time and again in other nations where the law has been created. The law does not have to be right. In fact, we have an example of a law being a lie in Western Australia, when it says that if THC is detected when someone is driving, they are, by definition, impaired, even when they are not. That lie has been enshrined in the law and we accept that. Okay, it is a minor law that does not affect that many people, but here we have the ability for the police to state, "I believe you are a sovereign citizen and therefore we can take your firearms off you." It actually states in our legislation, when looking at the allowances for regulations, that they should not have any regard to someone's political beliefs or ideologies. That is specifically stated in the regulations, yet here we are seeing it in written form: "I have formed a view because we are accusing you of this without evidence. Therefore, we are taking your firearms. Therefore, it is legal, because this is what the law says." We must be very careful, because I believe there may be unintended consequences, or maybe they are not unintended consequences.
Hon Rod Caddies (11:25 am): I was not going to comment on this motion today—I was going to save my comments until next week—so I do not have any notes or anything here. I note that Hon Dan Caddy is out of the chamber on urgent parliamentary business, but I felt that his comments were not accurate. I do not think a claim he made at the end of his contribution was appropriate, when he said that other members and I did not work hard enough on the committee and pointed out that we may not have done enough work as there was no minority report. I will take that on the chin; yes, we perhaps should have done a minority report. I will take that. I wish I had done a minority report, but there are reasons for that, as I will state now. One reason is that I am a member of Parliament who has been here nearly six months and yet I still do not have an office. I am still working out of my home or my car, or in the office here. I am working on all the other bills that are important to our Western Australian community, but I am a member of Parliament who still does not have a set office after nearly six months. When he pointed out that committee members did not do enough work, maybe they did do a lot of work but he does not know that. Maybe he has an office and his staff are all fine and they are not working from home. It is pretty bad. We have talked about staffing but I will not harp on about that. I am glad that other members on the committee have extra staffing. They are dealing with things and they probably could have done a minority report, but they were on the majority side. Other members still only have a couple of staff, but they are in a big party. I am on the crossbench. Our party has just two members, so we do the best we can.
I would like to apologise to the firearms community for not doing a minority report. I am a new member of Parliament. I was also a new member of a committee. As I went along in that committee, I learnt. I am on a committee now and I will be changing a lot of the ways that I do things. One thing that I was not aware of was in completely understanding the whole way that a minority report works, how we should do that and when it is meant to be done. Something we should always do in life is admit when we have not done the best that we could have done. Every piece of energy I had, I put into that committee to bring about a good committee report. However, I learnt things as I went along and had more experience. One of those things is that when you realise that the committee is going in a different direction in the report and things are going to go a different way from what you think they should go, you should start working on a minority report early. You should not wait to the end, when the staff have created a report and you go through it line by line and work out what is good and what is bad, because you will then be squeezed into a little timeline to create a minority report. For someone who had never done one before or who had never even been in a committee or been a member of Parliament before, it came as a shock to me that it does come to that. I should have been aware. I should have made myself aware. I should have actually looked into more of how minority reports come about. I thought the minority report was within the report, but what it came to was that there were minority findings and minority comments.
We did make minority comments and minority findings. We did not agree with the legislation. Hon Dan Caddy said that we did not disagree with the act, but we actually did disagree with things, like the onus of proof and recreational licences. There are numerous things in there. There was probably more that I would have liked to put in the report had I been more experienced. I have that experience now. Again, I wanted to stand today. I will make more comments, with notes, next week on the committee report, but I wanted to address the motion today and say that it is incorrect to say that the people who did not put in a minority report did not work hard enough.
I worked very hard. I committed a lot of time to the committee. I read every submission that came in. That was over 2,500 submissions. That was a lot of work. Reading those submissions was a lot of work. That is not being lazy and maybe not working as hard as other committee members because the majority report is put together and it is already there. To create a minority report, I would have to do the whole thing myself. As someone who has not done it before, it would have been a lot of work, something that I would not have been able to talk to my staff about. I would not have had access to anyone apart from me and the staff on the committee, and it is a very short time. Again, I apologise to the firearms community. I could have done a better job if I had had more resources and more experience, but I did not. I will do my best moving forward.
Hon Dan Caddy interjected.
Hon Rod Caddies: I will take the resources out of it.
Hon Dan Caddy interjected.
Hon Rod Caddies: Okay. As I stated, I have not had an office for 154 days. Can I use that as a reason? Does Hon Dan Caddy have an office? I will use that as a reason, not as an excuse—that I am not working out of an office. I think it is fair to say that that would inhibit the ability to do my job properly. I will take it back on the resources then. That is all I wanted to say.
Several members interjected.
Hon Rod Caddies: I will finish there anyway.
Hon Nick Goiran (Leader of the Opposition) (11:31 am): Something needs to be corrected here, and I apologise to Hon Michelle Boylan, because I know she has something to say in respect of this, but this debate has got out of hand. There is a misunderstanding with regard to minority reports. Hon Rod Caddies has done nothing wrong. The custom and practice—
Hon Sandra Carr interjected.
Hon Nick Goiran: The custom and practice in this place, fairly new member, is that if a member has something to say in respect of this matter in this house and these committees, they can make minority findings, minority comments and minority recommendations in the body of the report, as Hon Rod Caddies and Hon Simon Ehrenfeld did. It is not the custom and practice in this place that members attach to Legislative Council reports minority reports. Can members do it? Yes, they can; standing order 187 allows them to do it. It is exceptionally rare. There is a misunderstanding because there is a different custom and practice in the other place. If a member is on a committee in the other place, as I was on the joint select committee into the whole issue of euthanasia and the like, they do not have that option as we do in here. Members will have been thoroughly encouraged, no doubt, by committee staff—I was not on there—but the custom and practice is that they will have been thoroughly encouraged to do exactly what they did. They did not do anything wrong. Please do not listen to any of the nonsense from members opposite who often do not know the procedures in this place. What the members have done is actually correct.
Hon Matthew Swinbourn interjected.
The Acting President: Order, members! We are nearly there.
Hon Nick Goiran: The minister knows that what I have just said is thoroughly accurate. If the minister does not agree with that, I encourage him to suspend standing orders and let us have a debate in respect of this matter. The honourable members have done nothing wrong whatsoever. Yes, they could have done a minority report; that is true. It is exceptionally, exceptionally rare on Legislative Council reports.
Motion lapsed, pursuant to standing orders.
