Rosalie Woodruff MP | Greens Police and Emergency Management spokesperson
The Minister is refusing to take action to protect the community from the rapid fire 6-shot Adler shotgun, and is confusing the issue by only talking about the 8-shot Adler.
It’s a core responsibility of government to keep the community safe. The Minister is trying to hide behind “national discussions” to avoid making a decision, but the 6-shot Adler is here and we need to act now.
There are two Adler shotguns, one is a 6-shot and the other is an 8-shot. Both are rapid fire, and both are capable of doing immense harm in the wrong hands. The 8-shot Adler is not available in Australia until July, but the six-shot Adler can be purchased now by any Tasmanian with a gun licence.
A Queensland company, NIOA, imports 700 of these 6-shot Adlers every month, and another 30,000 are on order. People are buying these guns faster than they can make them.
Our Tasmanian legislation has a technical omission that means the Adler 6-shot is available to anyone with a firearms licence. The Greens Bill will fix this loophole and restore the intent of the original national firearms agreement. Like pump action shotguns, it will restrict ownership of the Adler to people who have a “demonstrated reason”, like primary producers.