Page 2773 - Week 07 - Thursday, 3 July 2008
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Permit holders will not need to specify the individual items in the collection but the registrar may impose permit conditions and requirements, including expiry dates, and may, at any time, cancel a permit. It is very similar in that respect to what has been proposed by Mr Corbell. My amendment will also enable permit holders to surrender their permits and will require the registrar to review the collector permits at least every five years. The amendment also provides for an appeal mechanism.
This amendment addresses a very serious deficiency in this bill. It preserves the antique, heritage and historical values of the many collections in our community that are important to our culture. I have tried to work out the best way of doing this and one of the suggestions was maybe to make it for a couple of different types of categories that were made before 1950. I am very appreciative of the parliamentary counsel for coming up with this. I have been advised that this type of set-up—the permit and the amendment I have put—was actually envisaged when the discussions were being held.
The antique collectors were somewhat surprised when they did not see it in the final legislation. They were led to believe it would be in there because it is a simple, tidy and effective way of ensuring proper regulation without causing collectors to have to register every single time they pick up an item. The parliamentary counsel who came up with this felt that it was a particularly tidy and useful way of addressing the issues here, and I thank them for it. I also note that I was advised that this type of system was what was envisaged. It was believed, certainly by the historical collectors association, that it would be in the legislation. I am not sure why it did not occur. It would have been tidier if it was. I commend the amendment to the Assembly. Hopefully, this time the government might support it.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (6.53): The government will not be supporting this amendment. I too have had representations from collectors of antique weapons, as I know have Mr Gentleman and some of my other colleagues. I understand that people who are legitimate collectors of military and other weapons are required to hold a permit to possess individual items where those items fall into one of the descriptions of prohibited weapons. Where a person is a collector of antique weapons or where a person comes into the possession of a family heirloom, such as an item souvenired during wartime, and the item is included in the list of prohibited weapons, they can approach the ACT Firearms Registry to obtain a prohibited weapons permit.
It is important to remind ourselves that, as well as preventing the proliferation of dangerous items in the community, the role of prohibited weapons legislation is to keep track of the lawful ownership of these items. All Australian jurisdictions, except Tasmania, have in place a scheme for the control or complete prohibition of a range of dangerous items. Whilst there remains a degree of divergence in the type of items covered across jurisdictions, for the most part items that the community would perceive as offensive are included in prohibited weapons legislation.
The government’s bill makes a series of amendments to the Prohibited Weapons Act to bring the existing list of prohibited weapons into closer alignment with the Customs
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