Brendon Nelson & Howard’s Gun Laws

Brendon Nelson: (from The Sun-Herald, Sydney August 30^th, 2009.)

“After the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, the new prime minister John Howard fronted our Liberal Party meeting. More than a few were opposed to gun control. Howard said this: “What I am about to do is contrary to everything I’ve ever believed. We are going to have to pass laws to control the lives of people who have never done anything wrong and never will. Many are our supporters. The Commonwealth is going to tell the States what to do -legislatively if necessary. But never in my 23 years in public life have I been more convinced that this is the right thing to do.”

The legacy of the unpopular Howard gun laws is more than a billion dollars wasted on crushing the guns of “people who have never done anything wrong and never will”, while leaving the criminals with theirs.  A thriving black market in stolen guns. No change in violent crime.

A million Liberal votes were lost in the following Federal election (1998) and Howard almost became a one-term PM.

Every State and Territory in 1996 had a Liberal or (in Queensland) National Party government, except NSW (Labor). At each subsequent State election the Liberals (and Nationals in Qld) were voted out. (“Many are our supporters”).

In NSW the Labor government increased its majority.

Numerous Liberal party branches closed and in NSW (and several other States) the Liberal Party switched leaders so many times and became so factionalised that they may never again win the confidence of voters.

As an ex-Liberal party supporter I recommend all shooters maintain the rage and not elect a Liberal government unless they publicly denounce Howard’s monumental mistake.

Game Council – Command and Control

A bill to amend the Game and Feral Animal Act has been introduced in NSW parliament, proposed by Robert Brown, the Shooters Party MLC who took over the seat vacated by John Tingle. Brown negotiated the original Game Bill on Tingle’s behalf and was the Game Council’s inaugural Chairman.

Several of the changes in the bill are worthwhile including the potential to open National Parks to shooters, allow game parks, and facilitate the resumption of duck hunting. But these are already found in other States. What NSW also has, that the other States don’t, is an oppressive apparatus to enforce hunting legislation. Brown’s bill expands the scope of the Game Council and takes it further down the path of controlling all hunting within NSW.   Hunters, the core of Shooters Party support and no fans of regulation, will not be pleased.

Christian Democrats and preferences

In the 2007 federal election the Australian Shooters Party directed its preferences in NSW straight to the Christian Democrats.

The CDP shares with the Shooters Party a dislike of Greens extremism. The Shooters Party and CDP often work together in the NSW Legislative Council to oppose Green extremism. However, the CDP is fundamentally an anti-shooter, authoritarian party. Both the two CDP MPs, Fred Nile and Gordon Moyes, are on the record as such.

Big Brother Brownshirts

A couple of weeks ago the NSW Game Council issued a press release entitled  “Illegal Hunters Caught In Illawarra Blitz”, bragging that a coordinated operation by the Illawarra police and Game Council resulted in a man charged with hunting with a silenced firearm, four men charged with trespassing and a commercial guide charged with trespassing. The release said the Game Council’s chief executive officer Brian Boyle was involved in the “crackdown” and “commended the strong action taken by police.”

In May the Game Council issued a press release commending the police for prosecuting someone for hunting deer without a licence.

In an attempt to sell more game licences, the Game Council tries to appear shooter friendly. It takes stands at gun shows, advertises in shooting magazines and employs shooters as field officers. It would have you believe it is on the side of shooters.

Obviously only certain shooters.

The use of silencers is considered thoughtful in most parts of the world and trespass is the business of the property owner, not the police.  Deer are exotic to Australia and most people would consider it laughable to be prosecuted for shooting them.

Sneaking around with the police to catch people who don’t obey laws that harm nobody else is the other side of the Game Council.

What makes it worse is that the government subsidises the Game Council by about $4 million a year because only about 7,000 shooters have paid for a licence. The rest of the hunters of NSW (over 150,000 of them) are voting with their wallets.

What’s the bet a lot less than 7,000 renew their licences once it becomes known the money is being used to fund brownshirts?

MLC Performance Review

In May 2008 it was a year since Roy Smith took his seat in the upper house of NSW Parliament and two years since Robert Brown took over John Tingle’s seat. This post examines their performance over that period.

Politicians must be held to account. We pay their salaries and they spend our money. It is pointless merely being in parliament if it has no effect. We all know that politicians mostly just talk, but outcomes are what really matter; tangible changes that benefit those who voted for them, not just press releases, questions in parliament, speeches and newsletters.

MLC Watch

MLC Watch is up to date.  A review of the first 12 months with two Shooters Party members of Parliament will be posted soon.

Lost without a fight

According to comments by Shooters Party MPs, the government’s determination to close Malabar as a shooting range is a fait accompli.

In an email on 30 November 2007, Robert Brown said (in bold), “The State and Federal Governments have made it plain that the issue is non-negotiable.“

On 4 December Brown and Smith issued a press release demanding that the government allocate $20 million to a new range. They did not demand the decision be reversed.

In a newsletter on 18 December Robert Brown said, “We expressed The Shooters Party opposition to the move but the decision has been made – there is nothing further that can be done except get the best deal possible for those who use the range.”

The source of this supposed decision is a speech by the member for Maroubra, Michael Daley, on 30 November, just 5 days after the federal election at which Labor was elected.

Daley said, “The New South Wales Government’s position and now the Federal Government’s position is likely to be that the shooters be relocated and that the headland be handed over.”

Daley’s speech also included this sentence: “We have consulted the shooters involved and secured their agreement in the matter. “

Does “likely to be” indicate “the decision has been made” or a “fait accompli” to you? And which “shooters” were consulted and agreed to the closure of Anzac?

In my opinion Daley can only have been referring to Brown and Smith. In practical terms, nobody else could have been consulted in the 5 days since the election. Certainly not SSAA Sydney branch, NSWRA or any of the other large organisations that use the range.

What Daley seems to be indicating is that Brown and Smith consented to the closure of Malabar. And that’s why they are calling it a ‘fait accompli’.

Writing about the topic on the Shooters Party forum, John Tingle said: “Yes, of course we will want to fight it, but the fight’s been over for years.”

Tingle is plain wrong. In fact, the fight was almost won just prior to the federal election when the Liberals announced the NSWRA would be granted a long term lease. Brown admitted as much in his announcement. But Tingle has long had a defeatist attitude to Malabar, in part because the NSWRA has never been a keen supporter of the party. That mentality now seems to have infected Robert Brown and Roy Smith.

Just as there was when the Liberal government wanted to close Malabar for shooting, there is a great deal that can be done to reverse the decision. Anyone who knows anything about politics knows that few political decisions are ever non-negotiable.

In particular, Brown and Smith have a pivotal vote in the Legislative Council. Without them, the Greens and Coalition could combine to defeat government legislation. But in reality they only ever vote against Labor on procedural matters. On substantive issues both Brown and Smith are obedient Labor supporters. Indeed, so reliable are they that neither Labor nor the Coalition bother to lobby them in most cases. It’s simply unnecessary.

If Brown and Smith were to notify the Government that it could no longer rely on their votes, their leverage would be quite considerable. And with Labor in government in Canberra, the message would be passed on to their federal brothers very rapidly.

We were told that with a second Shooters Party member in Parliament, shooters would be able to hold the government to account. Looks like that’s been proved wrong at the first hurdle.

More Shooters Party Hate Mail

That special someone from the Shooters Party is back to his old tricks of sending nasty anonymous letters. His latest little psychotic item arrived in mid-December, following the federal election. Click here to see: Dec 07

Looks like he doesn’t like gays or drug law reform.  Probably gives his preferences to the Christian Democrats. Oh that’s right, he did.
You’re an absolute embarrassment to decent, intelligent shooters, sicko. Keep sending them, we’ll keep putting them up here.

Unforgiveably Naive

The Shooters Party’s latest newsletter to members (with the quite flexible date of Second Quarter 2007) refers to this blog in interesting terms. Written mostly by John Tingle, whose grammatical errors are a dead giveaway, it describes it as “sad” and “representing a Party which is unregistered”.

Perceptions of sadness are a matter of opinion. We’ll let others make up their own minds. But representing another party? That’s transparently fiction. There is nothing on this site, beyond a link to the LDP, Shooters Party and Fishing Party, to suggest a connection to any party. We are simply shooters who happen to think John Tingle and Robert Brown should be held to account, otherwise the next eight years will bring no greater progress than the last 12.

A Japanese Gun Culture

Prime Minister John Howard recently said he would do anything it took to prevent Australia from acquiring an American “gun culture”.

One wonders whether he thinks a Japanese gun culture is acceptable. Guns have been strictly controlled there for many years, with handguns virtually banned. Yet Japan is experiencing a burgeoning black market in handguns with some estimates suggesting the country has up to 50,000 illegal guns.

A report in the newspaper Asahi Shimbun claims the police are befuddled: