The Police Minister, Rene Hidding, still has not ruled out seeking to reduce the age limit for hunting with supervision from 16 years to 12 years, despite pointing out that the Premier has previously stated he does not support lowering the age, Greens Leader Kim Booth MP said today.
“In response to the Greens’ question in parliament, Mr Hidding only referred to the Premier’s previous statement without actually ruling out any move to lower the current supervised hunting age limit,” Mr Booth said.
“Tasmanians deserve a clear and unequivocal statement from the responsible Minister ruling out lowering the current age from 16 year to 12 years, once and for all, instead of having to rely upon inference.”
“We also learned that the Minister will not be delivering on his promise to table this year the amendments to the Firearms Act and, instead we will now have to wait until March next year.”
“These amendments need to be focused on tightening up our gun laws by strengthening firearm storage requirements, and they must also tackle the issue of hand gun ownership.”
“Any lifting of current age restrictions is clearly a regressive and backwards step, out of touch with broader community sentiments, and Mr Hidding needs to clearly and unequivocally rule out any such change.”
“The Tasmanian community will not stand for any weasel words, or obfuscation over something as important as our young people having access to dangerous firearms,” Mr Booth said.