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.

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.

One of the bill’s provisions is to expand the list of game animals subject to the Act, including some native animals, and allow the list to be amended by Ministerial Order. Proposed additions to the list include just about every pest animal known including cane toads, starlings, pigeons, sparrows and Indian Mynahs.

This is significant because it is illegal to hunt game animals on private or public land without a game hunting licence. There are exceptions, including hunting pest animals on private land (currently pigs, dogs (other than dingos), cats, goats, rabbits, hares and foxes living in the wild), property owners and occupiers hunting deer and game birds on their own land, and employees of government authorities. But that still broadens the scope of the Act enormously. Shooting pests such as pigeons or Indian Mynahs, even with an air rifle, will be illegal on any public land unless the hunter is an employee of the public owner or has a R-category game hunting licence and the land is a gazetted hunting area.  Clearly, the aim is to drag councils and catchment authorities into the Game Council net so they can no longer use local hunters who do not have game hunting licences.

The powers of Game Council inspectors will be increased. The bill will give inspectors the right to require a vehicle to stop so that it can be searched without the inspector being accompanied by a police officer. The Game Council can appoint a wide range of people as inspectors including a member of staff of the Game Council, a statutory officer, public servant or person employed by a public or local authority, plus people prescribed by the regulations. Search powers include the right to break open containers in the vehicle.

This is a gross invasion of privacy and property rights. Confrontations between inspectors and innocent hunters are inevitable.

The bill extends the existing offence of obstructing, hindering or impeding an inspector to include assaulting, threatening or intimidating an inspector. Intimidation is a highly subjective term and not defined in the Act, which means an inspector who wishes to stitch up a hunter will simply be able to claim he was intimidated.

In an obvious attempt to go after the vehicles of hunters who offend the Game Council, courts will no longer be limited to $10,000 when ordering the forfeiture of hunting property.

In an appalling example of interference in legitimate commerce, taxidermists will be unable to preserve or prepare game animals such as deer or ducks unless the taxidermist is satisfied the animal has been legally hunted and keeps a record of names and dates, which must be made available to a Game Council inspector on request. This will extend the scope of the Act to yet another occupational group.

In command and control societies the government supervises the masses by throwing a web of regulation over individuals and organisations that is slowly but inexorably tightened. These changes to the Game and Feral Animal Control Act are a good example. While being promoted as advantageous to hunters and their critics derided as Green fanatics, there is another side to the story – NSW does not need the Game Council and its brown-shirted inspectors to regulate hunting.

This week the NSW government introduced, passed and gazetted legislation it claims is necessary to control the activities of “outlaw motorcycle gangs”.  It was prompted by the brawl at Sydney airport in which a motorcycle gang member was murdered, and broadly based on similar SA legislation.

The government had claimed the legislation was too complex to introduce before June. Then it introduced it at such short notice that most MPs  had just a few hours to review it before voting. Yet the only ones to vote against it were the socialist Greens.  The Liberals, Nationals, Christian Democrats and both Shooters Party MLCs voted in favour.

The legislation introduces a mechanism for declaring organisations  to be criminal so that restrictions can be placed on the activities of their members.

Organisations are declared by a Supreme Court judge on application from the police. The grounds may be secret “criminal intelligence” and evidence by “victims”, and can occur without notifying the organisation. There is no right of appeal or review.  The police then apply for control orders on designated members of the organisation and the cancellation of their licences (as bookies or bouncers, handling cash at casinos, driving tow trucks, and firearms). Again, this can occur without their knowledge.  The affected individuals are then served with notice of the control orders, advising them they may not associate with each other. There is  an opportunity to appear in court after the orders have been served, with limited grounds for appeal. However, the consequences of the control order have immediate effect.

Those consequences are horrendous. As the Police Minister said: Old friends will no longer be able to meet or even talk on the phone. Some people will have to quit their jobs in a time of increasing economic pressure. There is a presumption against the granting of bail and the penalty for breach of an order is two years jail in the first instance and five years subsequently.  The New South Wales Crime Commission can move to seize their assets.

Speaking in the Legislative Council, the Police Minister said: The legislation avoids “the need to include a list of the types of organisations that cannot be declared, such as political parties. After all, who wants to see a future government trying to declare an opposing party or a troublesome lobby group unlawful?”

He then added: “Members should examine what has happened in South Australia. The bikie gangs have formed a political party, ostensibly to oppose the repressive legislation. However, it is obvious that it is really a device to get around the law by using a political party exemption.”

The New South Wales Law Society said the bill is unnecessary as police already have wide powers to fight organised crime. There is no objective evidence to support the need for the proposed new offences. The proposed legislation will criminalise a person’s associations and interactions rather than their conduct. The Bill constitutes a denial of the fundamental right of freedom of association.

The Bar Association said that police resources would be better used fighting actual crime rather than people’s associations. The legislation will not achieve anything other than to drive these organisations underground and make it more difficult to detect their existence and any associated criminal activitie. It said it was concerning that control orders can be made based on confidential police “intelligence” rather than any publicly proven criminality. How could a person adequately challenge the making of such an order without access to the information on which it is based?

There is a tendency in NSW for a major event to send the superficial media into a frenzy and for the Government to hysterically overreact, beat the law and order drum and rush through a new law that either replicates an old law or has great potential for misuse.

The government regularly says the police need special powers to respond to special circumstances.  Yet bikie violence is not new. The 1984 Milperra bikie massacre occurred in broad daylight at a suburban tavern and led to the deaths of seven people including a 14-year-old bystander.  Despite all of these laws, criminal activities expand—drug importation and manufacture grow and police corruption spreads. These laws do not offer a path to a safer and more law-abiding society; they are a path to an oppressive state and an oppressed society.

Let’s imagine that a future Labor government survives with the Greens holding the balance of power. Let’s also suppose a couple of  vicious criminals join a well known hunting club and engage in some high profile violence involving guns. The media goes into a frenzy about gun nuts sneaking off in to the bush in groups and demands action.  Under pressure from both the media and Greens, the government tells the Police Commissioner to do something.  As a result, based on “criminal intelligence” (in reality simply a disgruntled member)  the club is declared a criminal organisation.  Relying on the same source, control orders are issued against many of the club’s committee plus Robert Brown MLC, who is an honorary member.  Speaking to each other is now a criminal office, their firearms licences have been cancelled and their firearms seized. Coincidentally (or not), all are members of the Shooters Party.

Those who would deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.

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.

On 19 June 2008, speaking about a bill to introduce some modest amendments to the Firearms Act and Regulations, Gordon Moyes said this:

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES [3.58 p.m.]: I wish to speak on behalf of many Christian people who do not approve of this bill. I would like to state personally that I do not approve of shooting as a sport, and I wonder why it is an Olympic Games event. I do not like the concept of the spread of firearms. I do not like the concept of children being trained to shoot. I do not advocate banning guns from the community, but I will not support an extension of their availability, or encourage shooting in any form except within the armed forces. I do support, and have always supported, John Howard’s limitations on firearms, and I will not do anything to roll back those limitations. And I will not support the Government’s amendment to the bill because I believe that in any form the bill is repugnant.

On 3 July 2003 Fred Nile spoke to the Firearms Amendment (Prohibited Pistols) Bill, which introduced new impositions on target pistol shooters including calibre and barrel length restrictions and limits on magazine capacity. He said:

Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE [2.33 p.m.]: The Christian Democratic party supports this bill, which, as honourable members know, is based on an agreement reached at the Council of Australian Governments on 2 December 2002. The bill fully implements the national agreement, which places a range of restrictions on handguns used by target shooters. They include restricting handguns that can be used for target shooting to a maximum of.38 calibre, restricting semiautomatic handguns with a barrel length of 120 millimetres or more, and restricting revolvers or single shot handguns with a barrel length of 100 millimetres or more. This is uniform legislation, so the amendments proposed by the Greens and the Australian Shooters Party—probably coming from two opposing points of view—cannot be accepted if we are to have uniform legislation based on the national agreement.

There has been some controversy about a new competition, which I have only just become aware of, called the International Practical Shooting competition, in which the competitors use.45 calibre handguns. It is a bit like what we see on television with the training of squads to combat terrorism. Apparently some people engage in this as a sport, using a handgun to shoot at moving targets while passing through a constructed range in the form of a building. I am not too sure whether that is a desirable sport; I have some reservations about it.

I understand that the police, the army, and particularly the SAS have to be expert in handling guns, but it seems dangerous to allow people, who may be unstable, to learn handgun skills that they could use in an antisocial way. Nevertheless, I understand that requests were made to the Premier and that the Premier wrote to the Prime Minister requesting that he consider including this activity as an accredited sport. There is even some talk that it may become a recognised sport at future Olympic Games. That would seem to be a strange development.

The national agreement includes a provision for a prohibited pistols buyback. This is one of the strangest parts of the legislation because there have been a lot of reports in the media that because the value of some pistols has increased—the Glock was mentioned—and because the Government pays the current price, some people will make a profit out of the buyback.

….

Pistol holders must ensure that their pistols are not stolen and used for criminal activity. The bill prescribes a 12-month probationary period for first-time handgun sport or target licence holders; that no handguns can be owned in the first six months of the probationary period, and that only two handguns of certain types may be owned in the second six months; and that handgun target shooters meet nationally agreed minimum participation rates in club competitions and events. It is also essential that people who own handguns must be mentally stable. In previous debates I have promoted the notion that all licensed pistol holders should be required to be a member of a recognised club that has strict membership requirements. Any member who displays strange or Rambo-like conduct will be kicked out of the club and lose his or her licence. That would be a sensible form of self-regulation.

The Christian Democratic Party supports the bill, or, rather, we do not oppose it, because some controls are necessary. However, we feel that the bill focuses on the wrong people: it should focus on criminals.

…

The scheme should be carefully monitored to ensure that no person makes a profit from it. We support the bill.

The people who run the Shooters Party aren’t geniuses, but they should have got it by now – shared opposition to the Greens is not the same as support for their own point of view.

In the 1999 NSW state election, Shooters Party preferences were responsible for the election of the anti-shooter Unity Party. If the anti-shooter CDP had won a Senate seat in the 2007 federal election, it would have been with the help of Shooters Party preferences.

It’s about time the Shooters Party learned something about politics.

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?

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.

Any assessment of performance is obviously dependent on expectations. For this we turn to what we were told prior to Smith’s election.

In March 2007 Robert Brown wrote on the party’s website: “We will negotiate the end of the ridiculous twenty-eight day so called “cooling off” period, at least for second and subsequent firearms. This has been dropped by most other jurisdictions, as being pointless and expensive.”

In the March 2007 SSAA NSW Newsletter, readers were told: “Look deep inside your crystal ball, what do you see in March 2008? … Together, the pair combined to remove much of the red-tape that had restricted sporting shooters.”

After the election Shooters Party members were told in a newsletter in the third quarter of 2007: “Our two votes will be crucial again and again, and the Government will be aware of that when our members are negotiating improvements in the firearm laws, and other matters affecting legitimate firearm owners.”

Roy Smith’s inaugural speech in parliament spelled out a list of objectives.

Smith and Brown regularly do hold the balance of power in the Legislative Council. Many votes are decided by a majority of one, two or three votes, meaning there would have been a different result if they had voted differently.

However, it is also a fact that they do not hold the balance of power exclusively. There are eight cross bench members, including the Greens with four and the Christian Democrats with two. If the Greens and Christian Democrats join with either the Government or Opposition, the two Shooters Party votes will not determine the result.

So, given that, have Brown and Smith met the expectations they raised? This is my opinion of their performance so far. If you have a different opinion, leave a comment below. For background go to the summary on MLC Watch or for more detail, Hansard is on line. As always, irrelevant and abusive comments will be deleted.

My rating of their performance (out of 10) is as follows:

Brown: 2 for effort    1 for results

Smith: 5 for effort (mostly due to the Firearms Amendment Bill)      0 for results

To understand why they have been given this rating, read on.

1. So far, neither Brown nor Smith has achieved anything like what was promised. In fact, in objective terms, benefits for shooters are virtually zero so far. (Arguably that has been the case since 1995, when John Tingle was first elected.)

2. Brown and Smith nearly always support the Government on substantive matters, only voting with the Opposition on procedural matters and some amendments. To date, the Government has given them little or nothing in return.

3. Brown failed with a private members bill to amend the Administrative Decisions Tribunal Act to increase transparency. The Government and Greens opposed it.

4. Brown succeeded with a private members bill to reduce the impact of good behaviour bonds on shooters. The bill was originally introduced by John Tingle along with a similar one relating to Apprehended Violence Orders. It is a pity the AVO bill failed as it would have been of benefit to a number of shooters. Very few shooters will benefit from this one.

5. Brown frequently speaks in parliament, offering comments on all sorts of things. Some of his comments have been bizarre, including a suggestion that the floor of parliament be lowered to enable the installation of a new coat of arms. Another equated “violent protests” to domestic terrorism.

While MPs are expected to vote on everything and legislation covers a broad range of subjects, it is difficult to see how Brown brings credit to shooters. His comments often lack intelligence and rarely have any impact.

6. Brown appears subject to John Tingle’s direction. In October 2006 he asked a question relating to prostate cancer, a disease suffered by John Tingle. He has also introduced a private members bill to reinstate Port Macquarie-Hastings Council to local government elections in late 2008. John Tingle lives in Port Macquarie.

There is nothing inherently wrong with Brown pursing these matters on Tingle’s behalf, but they should obviously be of much lower priority than achieving gains for shooters.

7. Brown regularly asks questions in parliament. A number have related either to the Game Council or fishing, but very few have been about shooting per se.

8. Smith has asked a few questions in parliament, all of them about shooting. However, he never participates in debates and has made only two speeches (including his inaugural speech). He has also been absent from votes at various times and invariably votes the same as Brown when present.

9. Notwithstanding their support for the liberty of shooters, Brown and Smith are inconsistent supporters of liberty generally.

a. In support of liberty:

i. Both voted in favour of a bill to allow stem cell research.

ii. Both voted in favour of a bill to give equal rights to the children of same sex relationships.

iii. Brown has consistently expressed reservations about government spending in response to global warming.

b. In opposition to liberty:

i. Both voted against a bill to extend the heroin injecting room trial in Kings Cross.

ii. Brown appears to be opposed to (or at best equivocal about) the privatisation of electricity generators in NSW.

iii. Brown is emphatically opposed to the privatisation of Snowy Hydro, despite its parlous financial state and the socialist implications.

iv. Brown suggested a complete ban on placing posters on power poles.

v. Brown voiced doubt about GM canola and effectively confirmed the government has a right to regulate what farmers grow on their own private property.

vi. Both voted against Opposition amendments to a bill that would reduce from 90 to 21 days the duration of a warrant for surveillance using listening devices.

vii. Brown opposed the sale of Government assets such as Callan Park.

viii. Brown spoke against extending daylight saving to correspond with Victoria and ACT.

ix. Brown and Smith supported the establishment of a new parliamentary position for Fred Nile (Assistant Deputy President).

x. Brown voted for a bill to remove exemptions for smoking in pubs and clubs, including outdoor areas. (The bill was proposed by the Democrats.)

xi. Brown expressed support for monitoring by GPS the speed of heavy vehicles.

10. The Firearms Amendment Bill, introduced by Roy Smith, is the first genuine attempt by the Shooters Party to lift the burden on shooters. I understand Smith’s parliamentary assistant, Pamela Reeves, is largely responsible for it.

Whether the Bill becomes law is a moot point. Private members bills cannot succeed without Government support, as they have to pass the lower house. Much will depend on whether Smith and Brown can effectively leverage their vote better than has been evident so far.

The Opposition regards them both as Labor Party lackeys, as they viewed John Tingle during his 11 years in parliament. Being a lackey is not a formula for negotiating the best outcomes.

The next performance review will be in six months. MLC Watch will be kept updated during that time.

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

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.

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.

About three weeks ago rifle clubs received written confirmation that the Federal Government had agreed to permit shooting groups to continue to use the range at Malabar. A new licence will be entered into and, it appears, tenure is secure.

Since then I have looked for reports in the media or shooting forums. Perhaps I’ve missed them, but I have seen nothing. Very curious.

The news is enormously significant. Thousands of shooters use Malabar, not least the NSW Rifle Association which conducts the Queens competition each year. Other rifle clubs and disciplines, shotgunners and pistol shooters rely on it as well. Security of tenure will allow them to refurbish facilities knowing they will not be forced to abandon them.

The saga leading to this outcome is long and tortuous. The NSW Rifle Association virtually bankrupted itself unsuccessfully trying to have the order to vacate the range overturned in the courts. Politicians at both the federal and state level, Liberal and Labor, were lobbied. Quite a few people, John Tingle among them, declared it a lost cause.

Yet the reason for the backdown was simple pragmatism.

Being a former rubbish dump, much of the range is unsuitable for the kind of tourist development the government originally envisaged. That made it a lot less attractive to sell.

Someone also convinced the government that to close Malabar without providing an alternative venue for the Queens would be like closing Bondi Beach. The Queens requires 800 metres, which meant there was nowhere suitable in the Sydney area.

For some time it looked like the site would be handed over to the State government. If the Liberals had won the NSW election, that’s possibly what would have happened. However, the Labor government had indicated it would use it for other types of recreation than target shooting. The Federal Government was not keen to give it any help with that.

Enter John Howard’s chief political boofhead, Bill Heffernan; the guy who told Howard after Port Arthur to follow the advice of the CWA on gun laws. He may not be the brightest star in the sky, but he has enough of a political nose to see a way of winning back a few shooters votes. Knowing the Liberals/Nationals lost a lot of shooters votes due to Howard’s gun laws, and are now facing probable electoral defeat, he decided it was time for another type of pragmatism.

This is probably the first time since 1996 that shooters have won something on the basis of their political significance, certainly at the federal level.

It also means the people who deserve praise for the outcome are not the timid and ineffectual leaders of most of the various shooting organisations, but the small number of individuals who convinced Heffernan and a few others there were plenty of shooters out there with a baseball bat in their pocket just itching for the chance to use it on Howard and his henchmen. (I’m one of them, as the LDP candidate for Bennelong.)

I don’t know who they are, so I can only congratulate them anonymously. I’m simply glad that, back in 2004, I got the chance to tell Heffernan myself about what shooters thought of Howard. It sure feels good now.