Rosalie Woodruff MP | Greens Police spokesperson
The Greens will debate an amendment to the Firearms Act in Parliament this week that aims to improve community safety.
A new shotgun on the market, the Adler 110, can fire off 6 shots in about 6 seconds and can be legally owned by anyone with a gun licence in Tasmania. At least 7,000 have been purchased in Australia, and several hundred of these are estimated to be in Tasmania.
This is a case of technology being ahead of legislation. The Adler is a lever action shotgun that didn't exist in 1996, but if it did it would have been categorised along with pump action shotguns and restricted to licence holders with a demonstrated need. There's no reason for ordinary gun owners to have this rapid fire weapon.
We can't forget the lessons that were so tragically learnt at Port Arthur. We spent hundreds of millions of dollars removing rapid action firearms from the community, and there hasn't been a mass public shooting since then.
The Prime Minister made a commitment at the 20th commemoration of Port Arthur last week to strengthen our National Firearms Agreement to protect the community. Is Police Minister Hidding going to back-in that commitment and support this Bill that will fix a legal loophole?
