Firearms Amendment (Trafficking and Other Measures) Bill 2015

Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) — The Greens will be supporting the Firearms Amendment (Trafficking and Other Measures) Bill 2015. This bill will amend the Firearms Act 1996 and the Crimes Act 1958 to tighten the state's firearms laws in relation to the trafficking of illegal firearms, possession of illegal firearms, manufacture of homemade firearms and theft of firearms.

The Greens have long campaigned for the tightening of gun laws across Australia, and I have spoken on this issue many times in this Parliament. The Greens have always opposed any winding back of gun laws, particularly those based on the national firearms agreement in 1996. It is worth remembering what was contained in that agreement made back in 1996, which was the ban on specific types of firearms and establishment of a genuine reason for owning, possessing or using a firearm. In addition it introduced basic licence requirements, such as having proof of identity, undertaking adequate safety training, being aged over 18 years, and being a fit and proper person.

The national firearms agreement established a nationwide register of all firearms; required all first-time licence applicants to complete an accredited safety training course; implemented uniform standards for the security and storage of firearms; specified the grounds for licence refusal or cancellation of the seizure of firearms; ensured that permits are required for the acquisition of every firearm, with a waiting period attached; required firearm sales to be conducted through licensed dealers and that all sales be recorded and the quantity of ammunition limited; and controlled mail order sales, including the movement of firearms, advertisements and commercial transportation.

It is almost 20 years since the implementation of the national firearms agreement and laws that were passed subsequently in the states with regard to that agreement. I think it is fair to say that national uniformity has been whittled away in one way or another in certain states. Even here in Victoria in the last couple of years the requirements for how many sporting shooting events people with a sporting shooters licence need to participate in to demonstrate their bona fides as sporting shooters have been whittled away.

At the time those in favour of those amendments brought forward by the previous government put forward the idea that it was a rather onerous requirement for sporting shooters to demonstrate that they had participated in a certain number of events to enable them to keep their licences. My answer to that is that that is the point. The point is that a shooter needs to demonstrate their bona fides, otherwise we have the situation where people can too easily get hold of guns by joining gun clubs and not by participating in a genuine and bona fide way in sporting shooting. That is just one example of the whittling away of national uniformity, but many others have occurred in other states and territories. We need to be forever on guard that we do not lose the good gun laws that have been brought into Australia, and certainly we know there is a review going on at the national level at the moment, which I will return to later in my contribution.

The Greens support this bill because we do need to tighten the laws with regard to trafficking, to illegal manufacture, to theft and to possession of illegal firearms. There are many reasons for this. Firstly, Police Association Victoria and Victoria Police have raised many times recently the need for the government to address the loophole whereby criminals can sell up to nine unlicensed guns in seven days and not be charged with trafficking.

There have been numerous reports of an increase in the use of firearms and in criminal activity in Victoria. Just recently two police officers were shot at in Moonee Ponds when they intercepted a car. Recent reports also state that police are discovering guns in cars every two days in Melbourne's north-west. Police are very concerned about a growing culture of gun ownership in that region and its high crime rate.

Police working in that north west metro region have reported firearm-related incidents, such as drive-by shootings every six days; an increasing trend of children aged as young as 16 years carrying guns; regularly finding guns in cars, including sawn-off shotguns and an automatic machine gun during a routine car intercept; and guns stolen from rural homes being used in violent crime. The secretary of the police association, Ron Iddles, has said that it is a very concerning and hazardous time for police who are going about their ordinary business, particularly when they intercept cars and find firearms secreted in them.

Having just mentioned the north-west metropolitan area, I refer to figures that appear in the brief provided by the parliamentary library. As always, I thank staff in the parliamentary library for their work on preparing this brief. A table on page 4 of the brief shows that there has been a rise in the number of prohibited weapons found in the north west metro police region, jumping from, in the 2010–11 time period, 2500 guns — which I would have thought was scary and concerning enough — to the latest statistics, from April 2014 to March 2015, showing that that figure had doubled to 5000 guns being intercepted in that area of Melbourne. The vast majority of Victorians would be very concerned about that particular figure as part of the overall figure of the number of firearms that are in circulation.

In June Crime Statistics Agency Victoria released figures showing an almost threefold jump in firearm offences in the north west metro region over the past five years. The Australian Crime Commission conservatively estimates that in 2012 there were more than 250 000 longarms and 10 000 handguns in the illicit firearm market. The Australian Institute of Criminology's Firearm Theft in Australia 2008–09 estimates that around 1500 firearms are stolen every year, the majority of which are longarms, with relatively few being recovered. The Australian Crime Commission estimates that serious and organised crime costs Australia at least $15 billion every year, in addition to the loss of people's lives and the impact on the lives of people who are injured.

We need to not only stop illegal gun imports but also recognise that many illicit firearms are taken from legitimate sources or taken from what is called the grey market, including the gun that was used in the Sydney siege.

There is a growing trade in firearms stolen from farms across rural and regional areas by criminal elements, and it has been reported that so-called rookie gang members are sent on missions to visit farms and specifically target firearms.

The Australian Institute of Criminology has also reported that while some owners of guns are very responsible in terms of the secure storage of their firearms, others are less so. That is why we have so many stolen firearms in circulation. Stolen firearms are then used in armed robberies, home invasions and other crimes in the metropolitan area.

Tackling gun crime requires a multifaceted approach. Research by the Australian Crime Commission also shows that money and power are the key drivers for organised crime and that organised crime has evolved well beyond being a simple law and order problem. The social, economic, systemic, environmental, physical and psychological harms caused by serious and organised crime also have a huge impact on the community.

I return to the genesis of the national firearms agreement and pay tribute to my Greens predecessors Christine Milne and Bob Brown. Christine was a driver of gun law reform in Tasmania when she was a member of the Tasmanian Parliament. In 2013 she wrote in an article.

It would surprise many people to learn I was brought up around guns. My grandfather won prizes for clay pigeon shooting …

However, when she was elected to the Tasmanian Parliament in 1989 gun control was a key area of reform for the Greens, following the Hoddle Street massacre and other shootings overseas. The Greens moved several times to ban automatic and semiautomatic weapons over the following years, but were voted down each time by the other parties.

After the Port Arthur massacre occurred the government, the opposition and the Greens came together for an emergency meeting after visiting the site, which she described as one of the most shocking and gut-wrenching experiences of her life. But at that first meeting there was no appetite, she said, for banning weapons, but the presence of the world's media and the pressure that she was able to begin to bring, as the Greens had the balance of power, resulted in a tripartite committee charged with gun law reform as a dignified and appropriate response to the tragedy. During that process Prime Minister John Howard came to Tasmania and announced federal bans on semiautomatic and automatic long-barrelled weapons.

But then again, in spite of the visit of the fathers of the Dunblane children, who were massacred in their classroom by semiautomatic handguns, they were not banned. Since then Australia has imported over 100 000 handguns, most of them semiautomatic. Many that started out as legal have been stolen, as I said, with over 7000 guns stolen between 2005 and 2012. Most have not been recovered or have ended up in criminal hands. The federal and state governments are struggling to keep gun violence off the streets and to stop illegal firearm imports, yet the law says that a licensed gun owner may legally purchase a military style automatic pistol with unlimited ammunition. Christine Milne asks why this is so. Surely we need to ban semiautomatic handguns.

I have raised that issue many times. I hope the national review looks at it. I was preparing to propose an amendment to the bill to this effect, but I have not done so. However, it is still an issue that I think needs to be addressed. There is no need for semiautomatic handguns to be in circulation in Australia. The fact that there are so many is of concern. They are used in criminal activities, and firearms generally are used in family violence incidents. Other speakers have spoken about this issue, but we saw another incident only last week when a woman was shot by her ex-partner, who then killed himself. This is something that is playing out in Australia week by week.

I know we are taking this issue seriously, but we need to not take our eyes off it. Nearly 20 years on from the firearms reforms we need to take stock of where we are with our national firearms regulations and make sure that we restrict access to firearms in any way we can and not winding back those restrictions on the possession and use of firearms and even the lawful possession of firearms. In an article in the Guardian just last month Lenore Taylor talked about much of the winding back that has happened to certain parts of the national agreement across the country and made the point that while almost 1 million guns were handed in and destroyed in the post-Port Arthur massacre period, imports have now taken that national gun inventory back to 1996 levels. We really need to regroup on this issue, to keep an eye on what is happening and, as I said, keep access to firearms restricted.

Of course during the last Parliament the previous government allowed children as young as 12 to fire shotguns on the water in duck shooting season, which is completely in contravention of the spirit of the national agreement that persons should be 18 years or over to use a firearm.

Mr Young interjected.

Ms PENNICUIK — Through you, Acting President, I am sure Mr Young will have his chance to put his point of view soon.

Going through the provisions of the bill quickly, the bill will lower the number of unregistered firearms that is a trafficable quantity from 10 firearms to 3 firearms. Most people would be amazed that it was as high as 10 in the first place. As Mr Ramsay said, we might even find that three is too high a number, and that is something we need to keep an eye on. The bill will expand the time period for trafficking from 7 days to 12 months. Again, I wonder whether we need to limit it to 12 months, but certainly 7 days is far too short. The bill provides for higher penalties for persons who manufacture firearms without the appropriate licence and creates a new offence for the unlawful manufacture of firearms by separating it from the existing offence of carrying on a business of dealing in firearms without a licence. The penalties will be up to 600 penalty units or five years imprisonment for the unauthorised manufacture of category A or B longarms and paintball markers and up to 1200 penalty units or 10 years imprisonment for the unauthorised manufacture of category C, D or E longarms or handguns. These amendments will bring Victoria into line with other jurisdictions.

The bill clarifies the circumstances under which a person is taken to be in possession of a firearm found on land or in premises occupied by or in the care, control or management of that person, or found in a vehicle which that person has charge of. For the information of the house, the Greens queried the term 'vehicle', but the term does include vessels or aircraft. This is all in clause 7, which is aimed at dealing with organised crime more effectively. It reverses the evidential onus on the accused so that, as other speakers have said, people cannot falsely deny knowledge of the existence of, or their possession of, an illegal weapon.

Just briefly, we emailed quite a few questions to the minister's office with regard to some concerns about substituted section 145, to be inserted by clause 7, as to whether innocent parties, such as people involved in family violence situations, would inadvertently be caught up by this particular provision. After several emails to and fro, we have been assured that that is not the case. We also consulted with our colleagues in New South Wales, who have a similar provision, and that has not been an issue there.

The amendments to the Crimes Act 1958 will create a new offence of stealing a firearm that carries a higher penalty than that applying to the general offence of theft. So that just recognises that stealing a firearm is more serious than stealing other things under the act.

I want to make a couple of other points with regard to firearms. Earlier this year the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee report, Ability of Australian Law Enforcement Authorities to Eliminate Gun-related Violence in the Community, made a number of recommendations. This committee was chaired by former Senator Penny Wright of the Greens. I assume there will be other conversations about this particular report because there was a minority report as well. It made some recommendations, which I think are worthy of talking about here. Given the number of guns that are now in the community, which I referred to earlier, one of the recommendations was that we need another Australia-wide gun amnesty, without limiting the needs of police to pursue investigative leads for serious firearm-related crimes.

The former head of international counterterrorism at New Scotland Yard, Charles Sturt University associate professor Nick O'Brien, also supported this recommendation, stating that not only should there be tougher penalties for illegal possession of guns but that it was now time for another amnesty and that Australia risks losing its reputation for the world's best practice in gun control if it does not do more to control guns now.

Another recommendation is about continued monitoring of the risks posed by 3D-printed weapons and for all jurisdictions to consider further regulatory measures with regard to this issue. This is an area of concern. In a recent article in the Herald Sun, and in other publications that I have seen, it appears that it is not hard for anyone with a backyard engineering workshop to make weapons, especially using 3D printers and the computer works a lathe to make the gun's parts.

Another recommendation of the report was funding for the Australian Institute of Criminology to conduct a review of current data collection and reporting arrangements. As Penny Wright stated when she tabled the report, the Greens believe better data and getting all levels of government speaking the same language and sharing of information will help to tackle the illicit firearms trade and keep firearms off the streets.

The national Firearms and Weapons Policy Working Group is looking at the classification of firearms more generally under the 1996 National Firearms Agreement. This includes looking at the Adler A110 shotgun, which the Greens agree should be banned. I know the police have raised concerns about finding those types of guns when they intercept cars or go on other operations and have spoken about the danger those weapons pose to them. The national firearms working group is chaired by the commonwealth Attorney-General's Department and consists of all state and territory police and a number of justice agencies, including the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Institute of Criminology and CrimTrac.

Wade Noonan, the Minister for Police, said the group would make recommendations to state, territory and federal police ministers on the classification of firearms. He said he will argue that firearms such as the Adler should have a category C registration, which is the same as automatic weapons. That would be the very least of the outcomes we would want to see. The national firearms working group will report to the Council of Australian Governments through the Law, Crime and Community Safety Council and the technical elements of the National Firearms Agreement would be put to the ministers at the second meeting in 2015 for consideration by COAG in 2016.

I note that the National Firearms Agreement review has set up an industry reference group, which includes the National Firearms Dealers Association, the Sporting Shooters Association, Field & Game Australia, the Shooting Industry Foundation Australia, Firearms Safety Foundation (Victoria) and an independent technical expert. That is an industry reference group, but I do hope during this review that it is balanced by the working group consulting with people who are not representatives of gun manufacturers, gun salespeople or sporting shooters.

One would have to say that the majority of Australians support our very tough gun laws and do not want to see them watered down. They want to see them strengthened where necessary due to the growing number and types of firearms that have gone into circulation since 1996. The Greens will support the proposed legislation, but suffice it to say that we still do not think it goes far enough. However, we support the provisions in this bill.