Rosalie Woodruff MP | Greens’ Police spokesperson
The Liberals continue to pander to the powerful gun lobby, moving today to set up a Parliamentary inquiry into gun laws after walking away from their secretive pre-election policy last week and the Legislative Council scrapping its flawed inquiry as a result.
We supported a substantially amended motion, moved by the Liberals under pressure from us and Labor, to establish a House of Assembly Firearms Law Inquiry.
The Greens sought and secured amended Terms of Reference that focus the Inquiry into investigating the current compliance of Tasmanian laws with the National Firearms Agreement, instead of reporting on the Liberals’ pre-election policy commitments.
The Greens remain staunch defenders of the National Firearms Agreement, and were deeply disturbed by the Liberals’ pre-election policy commitments, several of which have now been shown to unambiguously breach that Agreement.
The Greens also pushed to remove the Inquiry’s focus on the role of the proposed Tasmanian Firearms Owners Council. We reject the establishment of a TFOC, which is effectively a gun owners’ lobby group in the ear of the Police Minister.
Instead, we support a discussion about the need for a broad-based group with stakeholders from gun control advocates, family violence survivors’, and medical groups.
We will participate in the Firearms Inquiry to ensure the committee focuses firmly on the legislative changes needed to bring Tasmania into compliance with the National Firearms Agreement, reforms to minimise domestic abuse involving firearms, and banning semi-automatic handguns.