Papalia's Inflamatory claim
ON 26 MARCH 2022, The West Australian newspaper published a story titled “Gun letter scam exposes dodgy loophole to obtain a firearm”.
In this article we expose why the Minister’s claim is a fiction in yet another chapter in his ongoing War on WA shooters.
Unlike most other States, WA does not allow public land hunting.
This means that shooters going hunting in WA need to obtain a permission letter from a property owner.
Also unique to WA is the requirement for every individual firearm to be licensed and where a licence holder has obtained a property permission letter.
This means every firearm purchased or acquired for hunting is assessed by WAPol against the property letters size. Some of the factors considered before WAPol decides to licence a firearm, include the location and types of animals on the property.
For many years multiple property owners in WA have been able to assist WA shooters by providing property letters and allowing access to their properties for selected shooters.
Many have done this for reasonable fee and the earnings from the letters have been put back into development of facilities and maintenance on theses properties. The practice has, until recently, worked well for all parties involved.
What Papalia now thinks about his own restrictions
In the article in The West Australian, Police Minister Papalia said the sale of the property letters undermined the intent of the WA Firearms Act and highlighted the need for a complete rewrite of the state’s gun laws to enable a more stringent vetting process for anyone applying to own a firearm.
He quoted monetary figures that suggested property owners were making huge profits from the sale of the property letters.
Papalia doesn’t like the model he now has. Perhaps he should allow public land hunting as is the case in other states.
Then the problem goes away.
Instead, Papalia is just looking for another reason to change the state’s gun laws.
Property owner seeks answers from registry
One of the WA Property owners has contacted the NSC for help.
Evan Rutherford owns Kalbarri Shooting Adventures which is a farm 38 kms south of Kalbarri. He’s a member of both the SSAA and WAFTA (the WA Firearm Traders Association) and is one of 5 WA property holders targeted by WAPol and the minister over property letters they issued.
Evan confirmed he was not contacted by WAPol directly at any point about this matter, or in the run up to Papalia’s announcement, or story in The West Australian.
He first learnt what was going on when he received a phone call from a WA firearms dealer that had been supporting Kalbarri. The dealer advised he had been contacted by WAPol and ordered to immediately stop promoting the Kalbarri letter program.
In other words, the registry’s response was purely political.
Over the course of the next week, Evan made several calls to WAPol’s registry and even the Chief Commissioner’s office to attempt to get reasons for the “crackdown”, and to find out how the situation could be resolved.
Eventually he was told it was due to “safety reasons“ and to provide information on what safety measures he had in place.
Setting the record straight with the registry
On 11 April, Evan sent an email to the registry with the following information:
I can confirm in writing the following WAPOL concerns are addressed.
- All letters sold are documented on a spreadsheet, kept internally. This information has name, phone number, calibre, etc.
- FAQ sheet attached, available for all people purchasing letters.
- All visitors to the farm is documented with dates on a spreadsheet, kept internally.
- When someone books the farm, have exclusive rights to that farm. No other people can visit while that person has booked the farm (illegal trespassers). Minimum two people must be booked for safety reasons.
- Kalbarri SA is one of the only places that allows the property letter purchases to book the farm for safe use of firearms.
- The farm is bookable 24/7, 357 days a year.
- We do not permit hunting dogs, unsafe shooting, unlicensed shooters & shooting of native non-feral animals.
- All people booking the farm must be SSAA members.
On the 14th April he received the following email from WAPol:
Good morning Evan
Sergeant Vandersluys forwarded me your email and it was progressed to my Divisional Office.
On review of the additional information provided I am encouraged you have put in place a number of risk strategies to reduce the risk to people you allow to shoot on your property, however the responsibility of Licensing Services is to the community, and with around 3000 persons listed on our systems as authorised to shoot on your property, we do not believe it is in the public interest to allow for persons to use your property as the basis for their genuine reason and need to shoot for hunting and recreation.
The strategies you have put in place are not regulated or enforceable and we cannot guarantee the safely of persons using your property. As such, we are asking new applicants to provide additional information in relation to their genuine reason and need for a firearm in the form of an additional property letters granting them permission to shoot on another property that is not also oversubscribed by shooters. These will be assessed on a case by case basis.
This is not preventing you from providing letters or maintaining your current business on the property. It is only impacting new applicants as they will require additional evidence to support their genuine reason and need, during the application process. We are not preventing any person with an existing licensed firearm from shooting on your property, nor are we preventing the issuing of further letters. We are not preventing any person with an existing licensed firearm from shooting on your property.
We have made a decision in the interests of public safety that we will be seeking other evidence to support a new applicant’s genuine reason and need for a firearm. The WA Police as the regulator has the discretion provided by the Firearms Act 1973 to request further information in relation to a person’s licensing application, where the current information provided does not satisfy the interests of public safety or the requirements of the licensing officer.
Unfortunately I can not offer any further advice on this matter.
Kind regards
Jason Banks | Senior Sergeant 9427
Officer in Charge
Licensing Services | Western Australia Police Force
303 Seven Oaks Street, Cannington WA 6107
E: jason.banks@police.wa.gov.au
Police distance themselves from the police minister
The WAPol email suggests the policy is not concerned with existing hunting properties, which backpedals from the picture being painted by Minister Papalia.
It exposes the minister’s statements as another cheap political stunt to get newspaper coverage in his ongoing War on WA shooters.
Evan and other affected property owners rely on the income from the property letters to survive. Yet Papalia has been willing push his own agenda even if it means destroying WA small businesses.
This is the same minister who falsely claimed gel blasters could be made into real working firearms and recently stated the National Firearms Agreement was John Howard’s “gift to the nation”.
SSAA / WAFTA approached for help, NSC assists
As noted earlier Evan is an SSAA/ WAFTA member and was only allowing SSAA members to book his farm for shooting facilities.
He approached the SSAA and WAFTA with his situation for help and is waiting for their response. Hopefully they will assist.
Evan has also joined the NSC and we have committed to provide him with all the assistance we can, including a potential legal challenge in the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT).
In the meantime, Papalia has described the NSC as “Australia’s NRA” and said our actions are “disturbing”.
However we’re simply committed to fighting bad politicians and have made it clear we just want a good policy platform. This starts with stopping Papalia’s War on WA Shooters.
Labor needs to bring Papalia into line
Shooters in WA need to make sure Labor gets the message by voting against Labor at next month’s federal election, so they can send a message to their state counterpart to pipe down.
Either that, or they need to get McGowan to sack him.
Police Minister Papalia should reflect on his behaviour in a context other than that of WA (remote and isolated). His emotive appeals through the press to an uninformed public appear jaded and cynical. 40 years ago in Perth, police didn’t even carry firearms. Why the need now for paramilitary police in all black with masked faces? This isn’t Columbia…
See a pattern with Victoria ? Over-armed, over dressed, unnecessary scare squads emerging, all the while continually trying to disarm the population, sold out to and instructed by, NWO/CCP parasites.
Another example of politics without out reasonable justification, pretty poor really
I have always been something of a swinging voter. I swore I’d never vote Liberal again after Howard’s attack on law-abiding shooters. But that was a long time ago now. Papalia’s comments are knee-jerk and not a reflection of the true state of private, law-abiding gun ownership in WA, which has for many years been fraught with government over-reaction, and Papalia is the new master of firearm bilgewater. So, after voting Labor for a few years now, I’ve decided that will not happen this time around. I don’t like Scomo all that much, but right now his mob looks a whole lot better than Albanese and Papalia and their left-wing ‘gun’-hating crowd. And it’s not just about firearms! Shaky on defense, border security and fiscal management, now doesn’t seem a good time to vote Labor.
Why would you vote for either of the major two parties? They are two sides of the same coin. Minor parties and independents are needed to break the Duopoly and force different issues into the limelight.
Depends on whether there are any suitable alternatives in my area. I’ll be checking that out. Not every minor operator appeals to me. Palmer’s United won’t get a look-in from me.
Well said Marc! I have been trying to get people I know to vote independent for some 30 years now, for the exactly what you said. Plus the fact the deadly duo of Libs & Labour couldn’t give a rats about the “little” people of Australia and the only way we will be heard is to vote for independents who will need to listen to locals to keep their support.
Mick
If the public is “unarmed” why the the police need to be armed? Why also do they “shoot to kill” aggressors with knives, scissors & the like – should they not be trained to talk down the aggressor rather than engage in serious conflict – especially when that aggressor is a minor or mentally disturbed person.
We should have one lot of sensible gun laws across all of Australia, that support legal gun users and come down hard on criminals, knives are used far more the guns in crime now.
In saying that I have seen a knife expert training police if he got within 3m of the officer and they hadn’t drawn their side arm he had them not a kill wound first, behind the knee, the elbow, once disabled he could do what he wanted, so they are trained to shoot at body mass, for their own self protection.
The police are governed by laws and those laws are enacted by politicians, many of whom have no idea.
The fact that gun crime with registered firearms is rare seems to be lost on this labor minister.
I wonder how WAPOL define “new” applications/additions, as in new from this release or as any still processing. This is very concerning, as I put in an addition using a letter from Evan recently
Further to the very relevant statements about the Minister Papalia, I would like to report discriminations against the members of our community who are trying to enjoy a legal sport, many of these firearms holders have little or no other ways to socialize or get outdoors, especially with Covid circulating.
I am 62 years of age and cannot participate in other sporting activities, therefore I enjoy days at the local range where this level of activity suits me, however Firearm’s licencing costs are a strain on my fiancés .
Contrary to the apparent belief of licencing Authorities not all firearms holders are made of money, and it is unfair to charge the fees for licencing that they do, under the guise of cost recovery.
I have had rifles added to my firearm licence and are now back to levels that I had 10 years ago, during this process I have paid substantial application and licencing fees under the guise of cost recovery.
However some of this so- called cost recovery includes times spent on corrections of their incorrect records, in one case an individual record had to be corrected twice in three years before they got it right, one could be forgiven for wondering if that mis-recording a serial number could be a ploy to take firearms from people.
On occasions due to incorrect serial numbers etc. being recorded, I have had to have three licences issued in a single year, surely there was an avoidable cost associated with these corrections if they had done their job right.
I am not the only person who has had the wrong serial number recorded against a firearm, and it seems this is not an uncommon problem.
Problems don’t end there either, as there are several other ways that records are made incorrectly, through no fault of legitimate firearms owners, yet the general licence holders are expected to pay for these departmental stuff-ups, through higher and higher licencing and application fees.
They make plenty of noise about firearm holders very occasionally not doing the right thing, however they have wrong records every day of the year, and keep that quiet!
Mike.