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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1474 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

present time - I do not know how many, but it must run into tens of millions - and very large numbers, in excess of a million, I think, are now expected to be handed in under this gun amnesty. If those weapons are handed in and they all have to be individually valued, then the logistical problems doing that would be enormous.

More importantly, people would be delaying handing in their guns while they were waiting for the backlog to clear for their gun to be valued. That would, of course, result in a defeat of the very purpose of this legislation, enacted a year ago by this Assembly, as the first jurisdiction in Australia to do so, to get those guns out of the community at the first available opportunity. So, I accept that there are some people who win and there are some people who lose. I suppose that I am asking the gun owning community of Australia to accept that that is a problem that we simply cannot avoid and that this is a process which does not result from any niggardly approach by the Government - the Commonwealth Government, in this case - towards their claims.

Mr Elliott, to whom Mr Wood referred, has raised a number of issues in his letter. What I will do in a moment is table the advice I have received from my department on the points raised by Mr Elliott. I understand that his letter has been circulated to all members. It might be convenient if everybody is able to see what my department says about the matters he raises. To address the specific points raised by Mr Wood, since they were put on the floor here, I understand that Mr Elliott claims that his firearm was not a modified version of the firearm listed on the schedule, as indicated in my presentation speech. He concedes in his letter that the firearm does have a ventilated rib - a device attached to the top of the barrel - and a Win-choke, both of which are attachments to the standard model.

He argues, I think, that, because those things were added to the gun by the manufacturer, they must be standard, and therefore his weapon is not a modified version but a standard version issued by the manufacturer. My department's argument is that, if they are not what appears on the models generally made available to members of the public who purchase such things, then, by definition, the gun must be a modified version. That may be a slightly esoteric argument. I concede that I would not know a Win-choke from a windcheater; but I will say that the argument has been put and the response is as I have indicated. Mr Wood says that he can understand the argument that a different valuation would be expected for a modified weapon. That is true; but, as I have indicated, only certain modifications can be picked up and compensated for without effectively applying an individual valuation for each and every weapon handed in across Australia, which, of course, would be a huge problem.

Finally, Mr Wood referred to the argument that Mr Elliott put, that there is no argument about a floodgate because the weapons which we said could come in from other parts of Australia are illegal and therefore they cannot be brought in from other parts of Australia. The fact that it might be illegal and whether that would stop people from doing it is one argument, which I will put to one side. But, more importantly, Mr Speaker, it is not illegal to transport a weapon, in that sense, to any greater extent than it is already illegal

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