GRIEVANCE DEBATE
Mr GEE (Calare) (12:37): I rise today to speak on an issue that has caused deep concern, frustration and real distress within communities and country communities right across our nation, particularly those communities in regional Australia. I speak of the recent state and federal gun law reforms and the way they have been introduced, rushed through and ultimately imposed upon law-abiding Australians.
Let me begin by stating clearly that every single one of us in this chamber condemns without hesitation the horrific acts of violence that occurred on 14 December 2025. These acts of terror were evil, they were shocking, and it shook our sense of safety as a nation. In the face of such tragedy and such terror, our responsibility as lawmakers is to respond carefully, transparently and based on evidence.
Above all, it's to ensure that we are seeking to prevent future harm and, in doing so, that we do not unfairly penalise those who have done nothing wrong. Unfortunately, what we've seen from the state and federal governments has fallen short of that standard. From the very beginning, many country Australians observed that the government's first instinct was not to call a full and transparent royal commission into the causes of this terrorist attack.
Instead, the first impulse was to immediately push for tighter gun laws, and that decision left many people asking, 'Why the reluctance to fully examine the circumstances that allowed such an act of terror to unfold?' There are serious questions that remain unanswered—questions like how individuals with known links to extremism, dating back years, were able to get access to licensed firearms in circumstances where at least one of them was on a watch list.
How was it that alarm bells weren't ringing when these people visited high-risk regions or extremist hot spots? Where were the gaps in our intelligence-sharing systems, and why were they not closed earlier? How did these terrorists slip through the net?
These are not abstract questions. In the aftermath of that, law-abiding gun owners in regional New South Wales and Australia have been shocked that the law turned to them rather than asking these key questions in the first instance. This is not good governance, and it's not respectful policy-making that engages and consults with regional Australians.
In the electorate of Calare, the impacts of these reforms are far reaching. They are hitting our small-business people and genuine, licensed firearm owners. Take, for example, the story shared with me by Glenn Floyd from Canobolas Hunting Club.
Glenn, like many others, has expressed deep concern about not just the substance of the laws but also the process. He spoke about the complete lack of transparency and the growing sense of uncertainty and of everything being up in the air with too many unanswered questions. These sentiments are widely shared.
He says: In regional communities, firearms are part of everyday life. They are used responsibly in farming, pest control, and sporting activities. They are tools of trade and tradition, managed under strict licensing and regulation.
Yet he feels that, under these new laws, these same law-abiding individuals are being unfairly affected and unfairly treated. He adds: Small businesses, like his, are bearing the brunt of these changes. I know of a local gun shop owner that usually sold between 15 and 20 firearms per month, he is now lucky to make a single sale every three or four months.
Ray Hawkins and Matt Shirm from Bullets & Bits in Orange shared Glenn's view and said the new gun laws are having a hugely adverse impact. Matt said: In the last six months we've sold 15 firearms, when before we sold between 3—5 firearms per week. When you're not selling firearms, you're not selling the accessories like scopes sand mounts— that should be 'scopes and mounts'— the only real turnover is ammunition.
Ray and Matt have also had to pull stock off the shelves and remove clothes racks out of the store, because they can't afford to restock them. Ray said: Before the gun laws were passed, we ordered a lot of stock for 2027 and now we simply can't sell it. It's had a significant impact on my staff with hours being reduced and cut back.
They said the ability for people to purchase a firearm permit is up from 28 days to 120 days, averaging around 90 days. All of this combined has had a big flow-on effect to wages and employment. Ray said: You have to make significant cuts to keep things going.
We were already locked into rent and other bill payments when reforms were introduced, so there is no way out. For now, Ray and Matt struggle with no direction. He added: It's frustrating, you just have to try and keep people in jobs and pay your bills.
These are small businesses that are going out of business because of these gun laws, both state and federal. Shane from Mudgee Firearms has had to take up other work to keep his staff employed and his shop open. Shane said: Since the laws were passed trade is down … 80%, he said speaking with some other local businesses trade is down to 85%.
Like Glenn from Bullets & Bits, Shane said: We have to now heavily rely on the sale of ammunition to keep things afloat. The biggest requirement that has slowed sales is the permit process. I am taking more people through the Firearm Safety Training course, but everything stalls after they complete the course because of the permit process.
The biggest thing for people is the uncertainty of it all, what do we do? It's very stressful. He then adds: Being in Mudgee and having to deal with the closure of the Great Western Highway has also compounded these issues because people simply stop … coming out to the Central West.
Firearm retailers across the country are reporting dramatic downturns in sales, some by as much as 75 per cent. These businesses are being destroyed. These business owners have put their lives into these businesses and made massive financial investments, and these businesses are literally being destroyed.
One of the other things that law-abiding gun owners are asking is: who exactly should these laws be targeting? They're not targeting criminals at the moment. Criminals and terrorists do not obtain firearms, generally, through legal channels, they do not comply with licensing regimes, and they are not going to be the ones to hand in illegal weapons as part of a buyback scheme.
It's going to be the law-abiding gun owners that hand in their guns, and the simple truth is that these laws do not address the core issue of illegal firearms and the networks that supply them. Instead, they penalise those who are already doing the right things. The crooks and the terrorists are not going to be handing in their guns.
You've got political parties using these laws to deflect from the failings of government, which, quite frankly, could and should have prevented these attacks, and our streets are awash with illegal firearms. I recently spoke to a police officer and had this conversation with him. What we need to be doing is getting those illegal firearms off the street, not penalising law-abiding firearm owners, who are doing the right thing and continue to do the right thing, and also the small-business owners who are going broke because of these laws.
What we want is for the government to get to the bottom of what went on that day. But the interim royal commission report which was released was very concerning. That report said on page 8: No Commonwealth or state intelligence or law enforcement agency has suggested that it was prevented from taking prohibitive actions before or on 14 December 2025 by the then current legislative and authorising framework.
In these respects, no issue requiring urgent or immediate action has been identified. That's what we're worried about: that law-abiding gun owners are going to bear the brunt of these laws for political reasons, and we're not actually going to get to the bottom of what happened and we're not going to be dealing with the genuine issues out there that this country needs to address.