How a cashed-up gun industry wants to change Australia’s firearms laws | Four Corners

if you're in the market for weapons of war it doesn't get much better than this [Music] the land forces Expo in Adelaide draws the top political and army brass in every major military hardware manufacturers are here to show off their wares there's a virtual anti-tank missile and then fire with a writer she'd be in it and body armor for the modern warrior because this is so intimidating you also have to be careful they don't walk into somewhere and in prime position is Australia's largest privately owned gun supplier a company called Naya it's owner Robert Naya is here doing business knives company holds australian defense contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars and sells guns and ammunition used by hunters shooters and the police Robert Myer is also a founding director of the gun lobby group the shooting industry foundation of Australia known as sefa his name is danaiah Sean Nichols is mine Robert nya is prominent in defense circles but today prefers to keep a lower profile what would you have a chat with us today I really know I mean I'm here trying to do defense work focusing on what we can do for this round creating technologies yeah but is is there any particular reason that you wouldn't talk about safer to us and you know it's something that you're quite open about is the director and there's nothing wrong with what you're doing we just want to ask you what the purpose is and why you're involved everything we're doing on their website public forum and I suspect that you've got a different agenda and you want to say strange things well he won't find out until I ask you the question and so if you've got five minutes so today I'm in the middle of the meat in front of you give a soldier something to help them out with the shooting industry foundation was launched in late 2014 by five of Australia's biggest firearms wholesalers including nya and the Australian subsidiaries of global gun makers Winchester and beretta these companies have funded c4 with more than 1.2 million dollars this represents the re-emergence of the very well bankrolled industrial gun lobby which is there not so much to go shooting but to make a profit and that's exactly the same as it is in other countries you've got an industry which is prepared to leap in and they've got a lot of money this is the this is the gun industry lobby redux they've come they're back and they're ready to spend there is a muscling up by those making money out of a trade of guns into this country and we need to watch that very closely lest it lead Australia and the state and territory Parliament's legislatures and at the federal level down the wrong path hi I'm Laura Patterson and welcome to safer news it is safer subjective to enter a new era of consultation with Australian states and territories to ensure the development of quality policy cephas public face is Victorian gun shop owner Laura Patterson why was she first set up there was no industry body no peak body that represented the interests of firearms businesses in this country and so the five directors got together and negotiated over a period of time to establish the shooting industry foundation of Australia so that they could work together to represent or to have a body that represented their interests given that sefa is backed and conceived by large firearms wholesalers doesn't it follow that cephas overwhelming objectives sell more guns no I don't think that is the case I think cephas overwhelming objective is to uphold the standards of Australian safety security and sovereignty our objectives are around advocacy they're about research they're about safety promotion and they're about education Seifer does more than just talk to politicians at the 2016 federal election it gave more than $60,000 to the Liberals liberal Nationals and shooters fishers and farmers that year it's sponsored a fundraiser for pro-gun National Senator Bridget McKenzie it also organizes political networking events we sponsored our successful politicians shoot with the National Press Club and the parliamentary friends of shooting in Canberra just prior to Christmas Bridget Mackenzie was there so was Agriculture Minister David little proud [Music] well here we are Hey very River station honey oh I see that yeah let me know if you see [Music] apart from being an avid hunter Seaford director Robert nya is also a generous political donor at last year's Queensland election a company he controls gave a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to catters Australian party Robert nya is the party leader Bob catters son-in-law your son-in-law is in the business of selling more firearms is your party happy to be helping him do that absolutely I want more varam so because I want more firearms you know I want more people involved in protecting our country Bob cadiz son Robbie is the party's leader in the Queensland Parliament does mr. nya have any policy input into your party's firearms policies oh no not really no we would really all know I'd say no to that because there's we've got all sorts of avenues to and and usually to avoid questions like this in the media we would deliberately go to and you know other groups out there that represent the industry but presumably you've discussed the firearms issue with mr. nya you know he's my brother in my wet clothes so you know clearly with but you know I don't turn I don't have video all the say on everything in the party I have I'm a voice in it but there's a lot of other people involved in May so what's your view broadly of Australia's camels they are restrictive to a point where you have a de facto ban I think it is very hard for anyone to meet the requirements of gun laws in Australia so you have what I would consider effectively a ban on the use of firearms in this country if not the most restrictive laws on earth outside of the totalitarian regimes I would say definitely the most restrictive laws on earth catters Australian party is fiercely pro-gun it wants to scrap limits on ammunition sales and to give farmers the right to use handguns I want my nation able to protect itself we're a tiny little country 25 million people and a lot of those people would our allegiance to other countries that may well be our enemies in any future confrontation so I mean not only you've got a threat from outside but increasingly you've got a threat from inside and I may not just be a threat I mean they may have a majority in this country within the next 25 years if you want to extrapolate the number of people coming in um so you've got a threat from within as well as a threat from it out it promises to be an election like no other we could be in for another cliffhanger cephas first big political heat out was at last year's Queensland election labour was just clinging on to government and one nation and catters Australian party had a real chance of seizing the balance of power sefa did its best to make that happen [Music] [Applause] what we were aiming for was a good quality crossbench and we were aiming for a government which couldn't be formed by majority so when you say you hope to achieve minority government and create an environment for better discussion about issues what were those issues well one of the issues for us was around the recategorize ation of firearms in Queensland one of the firearms Seifer wanted recategorize was the controversial adler lever-action shotgun to make it more freely available traditional lever-action shotgun robert nya imports this gun into Australia we're glad to have supportive and you know sporting shooters Rob nor anyone else's reports if you understand the perception that your brother-in-law wants to sell more firearms to make lots of money your party is an advocate for oh well there's Nina Farah what does that look like I can't separate the two issues he does what he does is a business and I'm a politician and and and whether he didn't exist as a business or not I'd still be pushing the same issues because I've got all those ships with sporting shooters and others and this is an issue I grew up with three weeks before polling day a major campaign was launched backing the minor parties the LMP and labour failed on powering our state flickin labor and the LNP are all problems and no solutions flickin L&P and labour don't care about regional communities this campaign came out of nowhere we'd had no warning that it was coming but candidates started seeing these ads appearing in face book fees we started billboards popping up in Queensland the ILP and LNP have sold off Queensland flickin focused on high electricity prices and the lack of services in the bush regional Queensland has been forgotten by the ALP and the LMP families are struggling as it is I just got a like $1,100 power bill flickin put the majors last it was presented as a grassroots movement angry at labour and the Liberal National Party welcomed I put the ILP and LNP last this election obviously the campaign was very much to tap into the electrodes especially voters in regional Queensland into the anti-politician sentiment that's been bubbling along in Queens and in other parts of Australia now for years in fact couple decades so obviously it was targeting the disgruntled the disenfranchised the disillusioned voter who might like be most likely to vote for one nation or catter or and a conservative independent and really the campaign was urging voters to stick one of the major parties it became clear that it was a protest campaign being put together by advocates for gun law reform here in Queensland and that was masked was it yeah like the campaign though running had nothing to do with guns like the the idea I think was to inspire people to move their vote to protest vote with minor parties in the hope that that hold the balance of power off the election and why would that be of benefit to them well I mean the choice of the election was you know premier polishe or a Conservative government beholden to minor parties and I think those minor parties in Queens then often have support for a liberalization of gun laws which would have seen the gun lobby put in a really powerful position here in Queensland Seifer ploughed 220,000 dollars into the half-million dollar campaign why wasn't there any branding any c4 branding on any aspect of the flickin campaign because the Flickerman campaign was a communications campaign based in Queensland based on the ideas and views of Queensland and it wasn't about sefa it was about getting a better representative government for the people of Queensland it looks like you were trying to hide your involvement we weren't trying to hide our involvement well I saw the big billboards and I saw the advertisements on television and I thought they are excellent I mean no one consulted me about them I just saw him update and I thought the direct sling I mean the major parties I mean you just walk the streets anyway and they had just hated [Music] for one high-profile politician the election campaign became intensely personal the state's small business Minister became a target after she complained about a gun shop billboard in her electorate this billboard had an image on it of a woman dressed in some Santa gear if you like and on the Billboard it said Santa knows what you really want for Christmas and it was a picture of this woman holding a gun my first reaction to it was one of horror this is really diminishing the value the importance of the responsibility of gun ownership LeAnn Enoch launched a Facebook petition to have the ad removed she said it didn't reflect her community's desire to be gun free the response was Savage I was receiving threats of sexual violence of physical violence I had threats to my life and that's built over into some of the that's built over towards some of the people that were actually making positive comments about bringing the Billboard down as well more than three thousand comments flooded in from Australia and overseas among them let someone break into your house and rape and kill you someone shoot this [ __ ] and remember that while being raped there were moments where I really thought am I in danger here these are people who were advocating the watering down of gun laws these were people that have access to guns sefa condemned the petition accusing her of wanting to ban all guns how did it feel to be targeted like that by a big powerful firearms lobby when it dawned on you that it just wasn't you know a bunch of maybe foul-mouthed responsible people on Facebook yeah I mean there is a bit of a difference between being the subject of a group of trolls if you like I think we all understand how that works to then being the subject of a campaign that has some pretty powerful wealthy individuals and wealthy associations attached to it does Seifer bear any responsibility for what happened to LeAnn Enoch it upsets me personally and I'm sure it is that behavior is absolutely something that the shooting industry Foundation of Australia would condemn we do not condone in any way any activity of that variety in any form [Applause] on Election Day the Liberal National Party vote dropped 7% and labour scraped home by just two seats cutters Australian party in one nation each picked up a new seat sefa had failed to get the minority government had wanted but boasted it caused the lowest major party vote in Queensland's history it did actually fall below 70 percent of the primary vote and that's a remarkable historical event for Queensland even for a state that's had one nation for more than 20 years but it's probably been rich fulfilling him to take sole responsibility but there's no doubt it would have contributed to that [Music] there are about 3 million firearms legally registered in Australia on this Saturday morning more than a hundred licensed shooters are gathered at Malabar in East Sydney the New South Wales Rifle Association's annual open competition attracts shooters from across the country this is the type of event the gun industry is proud to promote it's a different spot and you also like learn a new thing every day every week we come out here as well as the community around it you like meet new heaps of different and new people and yeah at the moment we've got families out here where they're both Australian representatives competing at international international levels fathers sons mothers and their sons mothers and the daughters shooting side by side out here competing against each other in in a friendly competition or maybe not so friendly sometimes legitimate firearm owners in Australia probably one of the last groups that are happily discriminated against by all levels of government and demonized by politicians when election times come around cattle farmer Graham Park is the national president of the shooter's Union of Australia a lobby group that claims 10,000 members in Queensland alone the gun control thing in Australia is a neverending story because the people on one side the omec keep wanting to make it stricter and stricter and stricter and the reality for anyone who owns firearms is they have seen the regulations and the policies change incrementally all over that time to make it far more difficult to own firearms especially for those use them occupationally the shooters union is a fee paying affiliate of one of the most powerful lobby groups in America the National Rifle Association I urge every law-abiding American to take measures to defend yourself arm yourself get the proper training demand your National right-to-carry and use it your safety is in your hands and thank God we had the Second Amendment by publicly acknowledging and celebrating your affiliation with the National Rifle Association aren't you aligning yourselves with an organization which is widely regarded as having very extreme views on firearm ownership their views on firearm ownership are related to the United States which is a radically different cultural situation to here and we don't advocate that for here and they don't advocate ours for there so whilst they are avid probably one of the world's most successful grassroots lobby groups whether you like them or dislike them we can maybe learn some things from them on that Grand Park believes shooters are changing Australian politics they are supportive of independence or minor parties who are more supportive of their interests and their needs I think it's partially why you're seeing some votes move away from them from the major parties and to some of the smaller parties like the Cata Party and Queensland is it probably a good example one nation in different parts of the country the shooters fishers and farmers party you know in in specially in New South Wales and other states Victoria having some success New South Wales is the power base of the shooters fishers and farmers party in Tumut in the state south party chief robert ball sacks keeping watch over his candidate in the wagga wagga by-election said McDonough's making his pitch at the final voters forum I know many of the frustrations which people are experiencing through the lack of services that smaller towns receive he never once mentions gun rights came across as likable certainly the not the most polished out of the lot but I think basically across all the issues that will put forward so there was absolutely no mention of firearms in any way shape or form what do you make of that look I make a make of that what what I make of that is that it's basically a city preoccupation it's something that the usual suspects get out and talk about and beat up to the point of being ridiculous it's it's less than a tenth rate issue in the board here in the bush The Shootist fishes and farmers party is broadening its appeal building up its political muscle for the New South Wales Parliament where it's been cutting deals for 20 years [Music] Superman's Robert ballsack is a key figure in the strategy to recast the party's image if we are going to be successful as a movement eventually we need to widen our base and we think that we've got a affinity as a party with the bush and we want to work on that we want to make a better deal out of that as far as the people for the people in the bush linking the shooters and the fishers and the farmers was a really clever idea and it got them a long way and it's kept them in power they've got the balance of power quite often which is scary when you think about what a tiny minority there in New South Wales ready access to guns has led to fatal consequences and moves to tighten firearms laws have been resisted well I never knew it was so easy to get a firearm license I thought that they brought in laws to make it more and more difficult and it was after finding out what happened in my matter it's it's quite surprising how easy it is for someone to get a firearm 10 years ago at Eastwood in Northwest Sydney a massacre was narrowly averted one lunchtime in March 2008 police responded to reports of a man acting strangely in the mall sergeant Peter stands and his partner followed him into this lane way well at this point here I I started I thought we've got to stop this guy and I started running and I sort of helped yield out to him and then he started running this way as I started running to him I saw him reach behind his back and he pulled out a gun I was just I had my gun out looking down the barrel of my gun slowly walking around here at this point here I've seen him with his gun drawn pointed at me at this point here everything went into slow motion I just just it's just bringing back shocking memories in there but he started shooting at me I've then returned fire five quick free bullets quickly pulled out of the way I've heard him continue to fire at me I've tripped over this here I think I've landed on the ground I've still got my firearm pointed in that direction and I've lost sight of him and Glenn was just over there on that corner there still with his firearm pulled I've got up Glenn's called out stop police or you know drop the gun I've heard another shot and then Glenn said he's shot himself in the head [Music] the 22 year old gunman had more than a hundred and twenty rounds of ammunition with him he was to cause death and harm or have a war on earth I don't know no one knows you can only speculate exactly what his intentions were the gunman was a member of st. Mary's pistol club in Sydney's West run by a lobby group the sporting shooters Association his firearms license had expired three months before the shooting but illegally he'd kept the weapon at home an inquest heard he was probably mentally ill [Music] the deputy coroner in the inquest made a key recommendation that anybody applying or reapplying for a firearms license in New South Wales should be subject to a mental health check what do you think about that idea yes yes if they you know if the government did something and you know maybe introduced a new law and that's this it wasn't anything unrealistic it's something that could have been easily put in place at night would have made things harder for some people but you know ultimately you know would have safe lives I don't think a GP is qualified to mentally assess me for example or you for a start the the AMA has always seemed to be anti-gun doesn't matter what you say or do they'll always mitigate against anything in relation to that so I don't I don't think that doctors and the art of so-called psychology or psychiatry is well enough to advance to be able to get around a fair assessment of anyone in relation to a firearms license the mental health check recommendation was never adopted the New South Wales police told four corners it was not feasible and four months after the Eastwood shootout firearms laws in New South Wales were weakened when the Labour government supported a change proposed by the shooters party before 2008 the firearms laws required people to be licensed before they could shoot a firearm in 2008 they amended the law to allow people to access a club and shoot even though they were unlicensed we wanted to look to get people who are interested in going shooting an opportunity to turn up at a range and have a shot and I think I think history has shown us that with a couple of exceptions in the last 10 years that that's largely worked properly and it's worked will the law change had devastating consequences for Michele Fernando's family well my father was shot and killed with a pistol from the Sydney pistol club and the person who shot him was one of my sisters she was very mentally ill at the time and she was accessing the club through the loophole in the law had she gone through a proper licensing process then it seems highly likely to me that a background check would have raised concerns about her mental health how long have you been lobbying politicians on this issue I've been lobbying governments from both sides for about eight years I've had mixed responses and the law remains as it is I certainly haven't been able to achieve the closing of that loophole why do you think that is I think because the gun lobby is incredibly powerful it wields a level of power that is disproportionate to the interests the minority interests that it represents as tragic as that particular example is we don't think that think that one or two or maybe three in the last ten years ten years of failures should actually that mitigate against the creation of maybe another 20 30 40 50 thousand licenses of perfectly ordinary people who just want to participate in the sport of shooting tonight two children shot dead and a third person injured in Northwest Sydney in July this year another member of the st. Mary's pistol Club retired financial adviser John Edwards shot dead two of his children before killing himself he used legally acquired handguns to murder 15 year old Jack and Jennifer who was 13 in their west pennant hills home how many people have to die for a small group of people to pursue a sport in such a casual way I'm not even asking that nobody be allowed to shoot for fun anymore that's not what I'm asking for I'm just asking that access to firearms not be so casual one of the most audacious attempts by the gun lobby to change firearms laws happened in the least expected place Tasmania it was here at Port Arthur in April 1996 where a gunman killed 35 people hobart GP fill pool injure was then 16 years old he's now president of the group medics for gun control it's one of those events i think particularly so for Tasmanians where where you were and what you were doing when you heard just absolutely sticks in your memory so i can remember being at home with mum and this story came through on the radio about someone had gone crazy at port arthur and a couple of people have been killed and then as the afternoon rolled on that number just kept going up and up and up the federal government's response was the National Firearms agreement it struck with the states and territories to amend their gun laws we as a parliament of the land in 1996 at that time together we made a difference but John Howard's reforms took the semi-automatics and the automatics out of the suburbs towns and yes it was a turning point and it made a difference [Applause] the states and territories agreed to ban wide access to semi-automatic rifles and shotguns which were bought back and destroyed it was a huge ask on law-abiding citizens but it was an ask worth obtaining and delivering on because it has made a huge difference since those laws were brought in there has been a collective sense that the issue was fixed that in Australia we didn't have to worry about mass shootings we didn't have to worry about seeing the sort of violence that we see every week in the United States that we'd fix the issue and we could get on with our lives last year a review found the states and territories are failing to uphold this agreement under 18 year-olds can still get gun licenses and some states have dumped a 28 day cooling-off period for second and subsequent firearms the reviews author was Professor Philip Alpers there are three pillars to gun control one is licensing the next is registration and then of course this that it's a conditional privilege not a right to own a firearm now all of those three are still intact in the National Firearms agreement what's happened is that there's been a lot of whittling away around the edges trying to water down the effect of the law to do anything possible to reduce the effect of the law for the convenience of shooters and the benefit of the arms industry and that's been going on for 20 years now and there's been some success [Music] earlier this year the Tasmanian government was facing a tight election it needed all the help it could get and turned to the gun lobby to help write its new firearms policy the government was trying to walk a line between giving into the gun lobby but not putting the community offside and the end result of that was that this policy was created in secrecy in consultation with the shooting groups one of those consulted was the lobby group sefa in my view a number of firearm lobby groups just wrote a wish list and said to the police minister this is what we want if you want our support this is what you're going to have to deliver to us in a letter to shooting groups the police minister proposed easier access to semi-automatic rifles and shotguns for sporting shooters to double the license period to ten years for some firearms and allow the use of silencers my first thought was that it was a forgery because the idea of Tasmanian Liberal government wanting to reintroduce semi-automatic rapid-fire guns into the hands of the community after they had been taken out of the hands of the community was astonishing stakeholders had been notified back in February 9th I think 9th of February of this year of some changes but the stakeholders did not include in my opinion probably the most important stakeholder in this whole thing that was the public that the public had no knowledge of what was going on news of this secret deal leaked on the eve of the election the government was accused of breaching the National Firearms agreement we will not compromise the National Firearms agreement we will not in any way do anything to endanger Tasmanians or to do anything but better support Tasmanian farmers and recreational shooters in terms of a national precedent if Tasmania the place where Port Arthur happened of all places if Tasmania started underwater unwinding the national laws and acting at odds with the national laws then the national laws would be in deep deep trouble the public outcry forced the government to dump the policy after the election the deals that are done behind the scenes with politicians are not in the community's interests they are solely in the interest of the gun importers and distributors in Australia and the gun debate is very much about money and influence and power groups like yours are accused by gun control groups of chipping away at firearms laws incrementally so that nobody's really noticing that gradually there are going to be significant changes to Australia's firearms laws shooting industry foundation of Australia has never advocated for the chipping down or otherwise dilution of the National Firearms agreement the firearms agreement needs critical review in order that it continues to uphold Australian standards of safety security and sovereignty [Music] sefa is now lying off elections in Victoria next month New South Wales in March and the upcoming federal poll the divisive question of gun laws is again confronting Australia we're looking to enter a new era of engagement we want it to be open we want people to understand who we are and why we're doing what we're doing we want governments to be held accountable for the decisions they make it is just a determination by some very smart operators to keep attacking the Harmonized gun laws gun safety laws of this country it's about politics on the margins and its dangers you

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 308,030

Keywords: Australia, gun lobby, nra, national rifle association, firearms, america, sifa, shooters fishers and farmers, hunting, sport, gun laws australia, port arthur

Id: w2SQY0kR2V0

Length: 41min 54sec (2514 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 25 2019