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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-04 Daily Xml
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FIREARMS AMNESTY

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (14:37): Will the Minister for Police provide the house with the results of the recent firearms amnesty held between 1 December 2008 and 28 February 2009?

The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT (Lee—Minister for Police, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:38): I thank the member for Mawson for his question. I am extremely pleased to announce that the most recent firearms amnesty, which was held to coincide with the introduction of new firearms prohibition orders legislation aimed at restricting access to firearms for persons with a known propensity for violence or involved in serious organised crime, has been a success, with 1,144 firearms being surrendered. This, of course, is in addition to the 1,490 firearms that were handed in during the last firearms amnesty, which was held in 2006. This means that the Rann Labor government has seen over 2,500 firearms taken off our streets through gun amnesties. This impressive result clearly negates opposition claims that only a small number of guns are handed in during amnesties.

The South Australia Police have advised me that the vast majority of the firearms taken by police were long arms, consisting mainly of .22 rifles and shotguns. There were also several handguns surrendered as well as pump action rifles, high capacity magazines and self-loading shotguns. It has been very impressive to see so many unused, unwanted and even illegal weapons taken off South Australian streets.

While we realise that the criminal element in our society is unlikely to take part in amnesties by simply walking into a police station and handing in their guns, firearms amnesties help to reduce the total number of guns available in the community. This proactive initiative by the state government and the South Australia Police has quite clearly reduced the number of weapons in the community, consequently diminishing the opportunity for them to fall into the wrong hands.

We gave people fair warning and ample time to help make the community safer for everyone, and it is really pleasing to see so many who have heeded that opportunity. As a government, we feel it is imperative to make every effort possible to reduce the ability for weapons to fall into criminal hands, and this latest result strongly reflects that commitment and we express our gratitude to those people who handed in their guns.

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