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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 4500 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Members will recall that the Assembly, in the Weapons (Amendment) Bill 1996, took out the requirement for shooters to prove that they were shooting on particular land before they could be issued with a licence that was related to hunting. That has now been reinserted in an appropriate form to acknowledge the decision of the Police Ministers meeting. We also ought to acknowledge that, at least as proposed by the Police Ministers originally, the proposal was unworkable because it would have placed a very significant burden on landowners to regulate the flow of people who can shoot on their land. I suspect that most landowners are not interested in doing that, and this proposal is a worthwhile compromise that meets both objectives.

Amendment agreed to.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (5.18), by leave: I move:

Page 18, table (item relating to Firearms collection, second column), omit "a current member of a prescribed collectors' society or prescribed club", substitute "a member of a collectors' club or association approved by the Registrar under paragraph 27(a)".

Page 19, lines 5 to 7, paragraphs (5)(b) and (c), omit the paragraphs, substitute the following paragraphs:

"(b) the extent to which that permission operates;

(c) the manner in which that permission is to be produced as evidence by the applicant; and

(d) the nature of any additional evidence to be provided in support of an application.".

These amendments deal with firearms collectors and represent also a compromise reached last night. They provide that, in order to be eligible to qualify for a licence, a person needs to be a member of a collectors club or association approved by the registrar under paragraph 27(a). That process of identifying appropriate organisations is done by the registrar, and membership of that club needs to take place. There was some question about whether it should be active membership of that club, but there is acknowledgment that many of those collectors clubs have limited appeal or interest, particularly in an area like the ACT, and that some of them do not have meetings of the club in this Territory at all. It would be inappropriate to require people to travel long distances to take up an active membership in a particular club.

Amendments agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 23 agreed to.

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