How gun laws in New South Wales could be watered down by Shooters Fishers and Farmers party

Gun laws in Australia’s biggest state could be watered down as Premier Gladys Berejiklian is forced to deal with the Shooters party and a pro-guns former senator.

The Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party, who want gun licensing laws relaxed, won three lower house seats, covering more than half of New South Wales, at the March  election.

They control the western half of the state and could also have another three MPs in the upper house, giving them six seats in the state Parliament.

The Shooters are planning to run candidates at the upcoming federal election in May in areas where they have savaged the Nationals at the NSW election.

The re-elected Coalition government in NSW won’t have a majority in the Legislative Council, which means it will be forced to rely on minor parties to get its legislation passed.  

The Shooters Fishers and Farmers party won three lower house seats, covering the entire western half of the state, at the NSW elections in March 

Former Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm also stands a strong chance of being elected to the upper house, where he could soon share the balance of power with the Shooters.

The libertarian would-be state lawmaker wants NSW to withdraw from former Prime Minister John Howard’s 1996 National Firearms Agreement, which banned semi-automatic and automatic assault rifles. 

‘It’s not law. It’s just an informal agreement between the states, any state or territory could walk away from it at any time they choose,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.

‘There’s no legal obligation to stay with the National Firearms Agreement.

‘There’s no constitutional, no statutory authority whatsoever.’

Mr Leyonhjelm, who was a crossbench senator in federal parliament for five years, said that if elected to the NSW upper house, he would seek concessions from individual ministers to wind back gun laws. 

Gun laws in Australia's biggest state could be watered down as Premier Gladys Berejiklian is forced to deal with the Shooters party and a pro-guns former senator (pictured is Roy Butler, who won the seat of Barwon for the Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party)

 Gun laws in Australia’s biggest state could be watered down as Premier Gladys Berejiklian is forced to deal with the Shooters party and a pro-guns former senator (pictured is Roy Butler, who won the seat of Barwon for the Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party)

‘I’ve got five years’ of experience on the crossbench and I know how it will work,’ he said.

‘You do horse trade with the government, there’s no question about that.

‘The government does care, they want your vote and so you say, “Okay, in exchange for my vote here’s my list”.

‘It’s always a minister of course and the best thing to do is look at something on your list.’

During the state election campaign, Ms Berejiklian criticised Labor for doing a preference deal with the Shooters Fishers and Farmers party, and vowed not to change gun laws. 

‘I do not want to see the policies the Shooters want to see in New South Wales become mainstream policies,’ Ms Berejiklian told reporters in Lismore on March 13.

Former Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm (pictured) also stands a strong chance of being elected to the upper house, where he could soon share the balance of power with the Shooters

Former Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm (pictured) also stands a strong chance of being elected to the upper house, where he could soon share the balance of power with the Shooters

A former Liberal premier, Nick Greiner, in 1989 undid bans on self-loading rifles, which his Labor predecessor Barrie Unsworth had introduced in 1987, following a spate of massacres in Sydney and Melbourne.

Following the repeal of bans on automatic and semi-automatic weapons, NSW was home to four gun massacres, including the shooting death of seven people in August 1991 at the Strathfield Plaza in Sydney’s inner-west. 

Mr Unsworth in December 1987, less than a week before Christmas, prophetically predicted there would be a gun massacre in Tasmania before there were national gun laws.

He delivered those words on the steps of Old Parliament House in Canberra, where then Prime Minister Bob Hawke had convened a gun summit with every state.

In frustration at Tasmanian’s Liberal attorney-general John Bennett’s refusal to agree to a national census on gun laws, Mr Unsworth uttered a sentence he will regret for the rest of his life. 

‘It will take a massacre in Tasmania before we get gun law reform in Australia,’ he told reporters.

Following the 1989 repeal of bans on automatic and semi-automatic weapons, NSW was home to four gun massacres, including the shooting death of seven people in August 1991 at the Strathfield Plaza in Sydney's inner-west

Following the 1989 repeal of bans on automatic and semi-automatic weapons, NSW was home to four gun massacres, including the shooting death of seven people in August 1991 at the Strathfield Plaza in Sydney’s inner-west

Eight years and four months later, in April 1996, Martin Bryant gunned down 35 people at Port Arthur, a former penal colony turned popular tourist attraction in southern Tasmania on a Sunday afternoon.

Mr Unsworth, who turns 85 next month, told Daily Mail Australia in a rare media interview he regretted saying it.

‘I said that. I regret having said it and certainly some years later, of course, we had Port Arthur,’ he said last week.

He is particularly incensed at the American National Rifle Association for using his prophetic 1987 quotes in propaganda material to suggest the Port Arthur massacre was a conspiracy.

‘If you look at the National Rifle Association’s website, they quote me, they name me, and it’s the NRA that said it was a conspiracy, Port Arthur, “You’ve only got to look at what was said in 1987”,’ he said. ‘They’re evil.’

The 1996 Port Arthur massacre (Broad Arrow Cafe pictured), which saw 35 people killed, led to Mr Howard's National Firearms Agreement, which led to all the states and territories agreeing to ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons

The 1996 Port Arthur massacre (Broad Arrow Cafe pictured), which saw 35 people killed, led to Mr Howard’s National Firearms Agreement, which led to all the states and territories agreeing to ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons

The Port Arthur killings of 1996 led to Mr Howard’s National Firearms Agreement, which saw all the states and territories agree to pass laws banning automatic and semi-automatic weapons. 

Until 2018, Australia did not suffer a gun massacre, defined as the death of four or more people.

An ABC analysis of the NSW election results showed the Shooters party with one or two more seats in the upper house, alongside incumbent Robert Borsak.

Mr Leyonhjelm has a chance at winning a final spot in the Legislative Council.

The Liberal and National parties would be likely to have only 16 seats in the 42-member upper house, the ABC analysis showed. 

The NSW Electoral Commission is formally declaring the Legislative Council results on April 12. 

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