Member for the South West, Louise Kingston has condemned the WA Labor Government for guillotining debate on the Firearms Bill 2024 in an effort to muzzle more than 90,000 law-abiding firearm owners.
Mrs Kingston who had 22 amendments on the Supplementary Notice Paper said this type of behaviour by a Government could only be likened to autocracy.
“This Government has used their overwhelming majority to guillotine debate and muzzle more than 90,000 law-abiding firearm owners,” Mrs Kingston said.
“I stand with law-abiding firearms owners, and I’m greatly disappointed that we were not allowed to debate many of my amendments, intended to improve public safety and recognise the concerns of firearms owners.”
Mrs Kingston pointed out that guillotining debate and vague regulation-making powers is a mirror image of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2021.
“The Bill is very large and complicated with 492 clauses and 113 general regulation-making powers. Regulations that the Parliament has not seen,” Mrs Kingston said.
“Just as the Government did in 2021, the debate has been guillotined and many impacts of the Bill are hidden in secret Regulations. This is a sequel to the Aboriginal Cultural Act, and we all know how that ended.”
“I commend the valiant efforts by Opposition MPs to scrutinise the Bill before they were cut off, the Government’s responses raised more questions than answers about the practicality of the Bill and concerningly the introduction and implementation of the new health assessment process.”
Mrs Kingston said she was committed to public safety and had proposed 22 amendments to improve the Bill.
“The Bill treats law-abiding firearm owners like criminals in a cover-up for Labor’s failure to address crime in our communities,” Mrs Kingston said.
“Amendments such as recognising overseas offences as a finding of guilt, therefore preventing overseas offenders from obtaining a firearm were rejected by the WA Labor Government.”
“If the Government was serious about public safety, they would have let the Bill follow the full process in the Parliament and considered our amendments.”