{"id":188945,"date":"2025-12-17T07:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T07:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/188945\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T07:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T07:40:12","slug":"until-recently-chris-minns-courted-the-shooters-party-now-he-wants-tougher-gun-laws-gun-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/188945\/","title":{"rendered":"Until recently, Chris Minns courted the Shooters party. Now he wants tougher gun laws | Gun control"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New South Wales<\/a> premier, Chris Minns, will recall parliament next week to consider tougher gun laws in the wake of the Bondi beach terrorist attack, including limits on the number of guns each licence holder can own.<\/p>\n

Minns said his government is urgently drafting legislation that will include the limits as well as other changes to allow police to block the issuing of gun licences to particular individuals.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I think a lot of Australians are asking the same question: \u2018How can this person have six guns?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter Port Arthur, with bipartisan support, there was the enacting of very stringent gun laws. But it\u2019s quite clear that we need to do more. The prime minister put that on the agenda quickly at the national cabinet. We can do more to keep Australians safe, and we will,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Minns noted Western Australia had a limit of five.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think that\u2019s too many,\u201d he said. Sources said a limit of three was being considered.<\/p>\n

Minns also said the government would reclassify straight shotguns and was looking into prohibiting belt-fed magazines in those shotguns.<\/p>\n

He will also propose changes to strengthen the powers of police to reject a firearms licence, where there is intelligence that a person may pose a security risk or is an associate of a person considered a security risk.<\/p>\n

The current law says the commissioner can reject an application based on \u201ccriminal intelligence\u201d if he believes the person poses a risk to public safety.<\/p>\n

Minns said the bill would remove the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal as an appeal mechanism once a designation has been made about removing a licence.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment, New South Wales police routinely yank licences from gun holders and licence holders they suspect or fear are a threat to the community, those appeals are heard in NCAT, and often police\u2019s objections are overturned and the guns remain with that individual,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

He also foreshadowed that the NSW government was looking at the question of whether recreational hunting should remain a legitimate reason for gun ownership.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to review that. But the best mechanism to handle it, we haven\u2019t worked out yet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the measures that we think we can announce today \u2026 but it\u2019s not the end of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said he was in the middle of discussions with stakeholder groups, particularly gun control groups.<\/p>\n

The premier drew support from the Greens who have campaigned on greater gun control.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe premier has identified reforms to enable greater consideration of intelligence by police when licensing firearms,\u201d the state Greens MP Sue Higginson said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe organisations working to curb gun violence have put forward an evidence-based plan to ensure some of the world\u2019s tightest gun laws in the wake of this horror, and it\u2019s time for us as lawmakers to unify around these reforms.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow is the time to heed the advice of experts, advocates and survivors and rule out recreational hunting as a genuine reason to own a firearm.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Minns\u2019 stance on guns has not always been so firm.<\/p>\n

Throughout most of 2025, the momentum was in the other direction when it came to gun law reform as the NSW parliament considered a private member\u2019s bill put forward by Shooters Fishers and Farmers party MLC Robert Borsak in the upper house.<\/p>\n

It included a legislative right to hunt, which could have had impacts for other laws that restricted gun ownership; a right to shoot on public lands with a permit; a new body called the Conservation Hunting Authority, composed of hunting representatives; and a relaxation on the use of silencers and night vision goggles.<\/p>\n

Up until September, when gun control advocates waged a major campaign, Labor was broadly supporting the bill<\/a>, meaning that unlike most private members\u2019 legislation, it stood a real prospect of becoming law.<\/p>\n

Since then, Labor has progressively walked back its support for elements of the bill \u2013 notably a legislative right to hunt and the more permissive use of silencers \u2013 but still Labor remained supportive of hunting on public lands, even after a parliamentary inquiry during which gun control experts warned of the dangers the bill posed.<\/p>\n

The NSW agriculture minister, Tara Moriarty, whose department would administer the bill, supported the bill initially including a proposal for a right to hunt.<\/p>\n

\u201cHunting is an important cultural tradition for many people across NSW,\u201d she told parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some, it is about food, connection to country or time spent outdoors with family. The bill seeks a sensible middle ground that reflects the valuable role hunting already plays, while firmly maintaining the critical safeguards that the community expects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minns then floated the idea of a bounty scheme<\/a> to pay shooters to kill feral animals, despite opposition from his own departments and scientists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about time we start thinking about novel ways of reducing the feral goat, the feral pig, the feral cat population, which has really taken over a lot of parks,\u201d the premier said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be open to bounties and other things, because we\u2019ve got a lot of recreational shooters out there that are actually getting rid of a lot of the pests roaming across our native vegetation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SussanSussan Ley says stricter gun laws \u2018must be on the table\u2019 after Bondi beach terror attack \u2013 video<\/p>\n

In June, the 2025-26 NSW budget revealed<\/a> funds had been allocated to the Conservation Hunting Authority \u2013 later confirmed as $7.9m \u2013 which was another of the Shooters\u2019 key demands.<\/p>\n

That prompted a strong rearguard action from the gun control lobby, who were concerned that the body would be a lobby group for gun owners and the right to hunt would undermine laws aimed at gun control.<\/p>\n

After representations and a meeting in September with Walter Mikac, whose children Alannah and Madeline were killed at Port Arthur in 1996, Minns started getting cold feet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re allowed to hunt in NSW, but whether you have a right to hunt, akin to a right to freedom of speech or a right to vote, I think they\u2019re vastly different things,\u201d Minns told parliament in September.<\/p>\n

He said he was concerned that the right could evoke the idea of a right to bear arms, as exists in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can never go down that road,\u201d the premier said<\/p>\n

A fortnight ago, Labor was still backing a watered-down bill, although how much of the original bill would have been left after the government-led amendments was unclear.<\/p>\n

The events of Sunday, when 15 people attending a Jewish festival were gunned down at Bondi beach, now doom Borsak\u2019s bill to the dustbin.<\/p>\n

Concerns have also been raised in the wake of the Bondi massacre about the fact that NSW police were armed only with handguns<\/p>\n

The NSW police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, said he would listen to officers\u2019 concerns about needing greater firepower as part of the review of the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistorically, NSW police operational officers have only used hand guns because our traditional form of contact that we\u2019ve had where we\u2019ve had to use our firearms has been in close quarters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened on Sunday has changed that dynamic. And it\u2019s important as an organisation we consider everything to keep our officers and the community safe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, will recall parliament next week to consider tougher gun laws in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-188945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}