FIREARMS (FIREARMS PROHIBITION ORDERS) AMENDMENT BILL

Committee Stage

In committee (resumed on motion).

(Continued from page 3352.)

Clause 29.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Koutsantonis): The member for Heysen had asked a detailed question.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Could I hear the question again?

Mrs REDMOND: Mr Acting Chair, I understand that the Attorney would like to hear the question again. It related to the first section of new section 27A, the obligation to report unsafe situations associated with firearms. The Attorney and I were agreed that a general practitioner in the country may well be aware of the likelihood of his patient owning firearms but, in his electorate or mine (or even yours, Mr Acting Chair), it may well be unlikely that the general practitioner would be aware of whether the patient consulting him owned a firearm.

My question was how this was going to operate in practice in terms of the ability of the medical practitioner knowing whether the person owned a firearm and was, therefore, someone to whom this clause should apply and that the medical practitioner should therefore report. If he is not to specifically ask each patient—and I suggested in the course of my question that that might be problematic at the least—then how is it going to operate in practice?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The answer is that a general practitioner does not know whether or not a patient owns firearms and, therefore, it is the policy of the government to urge general practitioners to report their suspicions often and for the registrar to check whether the patient is a person who owns firearms. Of course, one means I suppose is to ask the patient, but that might be giving things away; therefore, the member for Heysen's point is a good one. If she has a better idea for regulating this, let her share it with us.

Mrs REDMOND: I noticed that in the new section 27B below that, the same terminology is used: 'If a medical practitioner has reasonable cause to suspect'. Clearly in the case of a wound, where someone turns up with a gunshot wound, there would be pretty reasonable cause for suspicion and, as I said, in the country practice there would be pretty reasonable cause for the suspicion of the likelihood. I struggle with the idea that the ordinary suburban practitioner will either have to report everybody they consult, or they will have to make some inquiry of the registrar as to whether that person owns a firearm. I assume that the registrar would say, 'We're not allowed to tell you that because of privacy,' because that is the answer you get whenever you ask any government department for any information these days. No matter how sensible it might be for them to give you this information, they always cite 'privacy', and I always ask them specifically what provision of the privacy legislation and which privacy legislation and they never know. That having been said, nevertheless they always respond with they cannot give you that information because of privacy.

If the general practitioner has a person who has consulted him, and let us say this person has come in and is showing signs of schizophrenia, clearly it would be inappropriate to allow that person either to obtain or to continue to hold a firearm licence, but is the way this is going to operate that with every person that comes in with that sort of mental illness, the doctor then has to make inquiries and then report, if the outcome of the inquiries is that the person does have a licence? Or is the way it is going to work that general practitioners in the city just will not bother, because it really would be safer for them not to say anything about firearms, rather than ask the person in particular whether they have a licence?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Reporting to the registrar is encouraged.

Clause passed.

Clauses 30 to 33 passed.

Clause 34.

Mrs REDMOND: In relation to clause 34, which amends section 35, the disposal of forfeited or surrendered firearms, I note that the proposal essentially set out in the new subsection (5) is that, if a firearms prohibition order applies to a person and the person surrenders the firearm, or whatever it is that is the subject of the order then, subject to paragraph (e), the registrar must retain the firearm. If it is only an interim order, then for the period that the interim order applies and, in any other case, presuming there is a full order, for the period allowed for an appeal and, if an appeal is instituted, then either the appeal has lapsed or it has been confirmed, or whatever has happened.

That is fine, I have got that. That is how long the registrar has to retain the firearm but, at the end of that period, if the person is subject to a firearms prohibition order, the registrar must comply with the requirements of the regulations as to the sale or disposal of the firearm—and I am using 'firearm' generally for all firearms, ammunition and so on—and pay the proceeds of the sale or disposal, if any, to the person.

First, whilst that is a perfectly acceptable thing, for instance, for the person who may have a mental illness and who reluctantly is forced to give up a firearm which they have had because of the mental illness which has come upon them, I take it that the effect of it is that, even if they were to be completely well again after that illness, they could never get that firearm back because the process will be that it will be disposed of.

The second part of the question is: how do we decide what is to be sold and what is to be disposed of in some other way? In theory, you could have a whole lot of firearms which were worth a lot of money and which belonged to a criminal, and it struck me as a little odd that we would be wanting to give them back the proceeds; or is the intention that we would have a separate application under criminal assets criminal confiscation?

It seemed to me to be a very broad brush to take that same approach through a whole range of people from the relatively innocent person who, through no fault of their own, has a mental illness and is required to give up their firearm through to the criminal who has it taken.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: My advice is that firearms owners have an opportunity to sell the firearm and dispose of it that way. If they do not, then it is confiscated. We do not want police premises in South Australia ending up as armouries, and so the clear message of this law is that the guns that are confiscated are to be sold or destroyed.

Mrs REDMOND: That is the nub of the question. How does one decide what will be sold and what will be destroyed? Once they are confiscated—and I have no idea of the cost of guns, but presumably some of them could be quite expensive—do you sell them to a licensed firearm dealer and put it into the market somehow so that it becomes a licensed firearm available to legitimate members of the community, or are they all destroyed regardless of their value; and who decides?

There being a disturbance in the gallery:

The ACTING CHAIR: Order! I warn the adviser in the gallery to keep his remarks to himself.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The police would have the choice of disposing of the firearms through a licensed firearms dealer or going through the more formal government marketing method, probably auction.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (35 to 38), schedules and title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

Bill read a third time and passed.