On the eve of the Tasmanian election, the ABC have thrown a fake hissy-fit over Tasmanian Police Minister Rene Hidding’s proposal to make very reasonable changes to Tasmania’s Firearms Act.
This press release was done by Rene Hidding all the way back on 9 February 2018, nearly a month ago:
For anyone who knows anything about firearms laws, the proposals are actually pretty reasonable and nothing out of left field. The point is they are proposals only.
So why all the whingeing now?
Simple – there’s no doubt the ABC were using this as a last-minute strategy to try and sway voters towards the Labor/Greens side of the Tasmanian election equation. All the calls of “sneaky” and “no public debate” are completely absurd as it’s been in the public domain for nearly a month.
“Received a copy” of month old correspondence the night before the election. Sure you did. The ABC may as well wheel out David Hogg for an interview on what he thinks of the changes – he’d be just as credible.
To be fair, it wasn’t just the ABC but also The Australian getting in on the act. They also decided to bring out Walter Mikac for another dose of victimhood completely sans facts or rational argument, and as usual he brought up Port Arthur without bringing up why he’s never asked for a Coronial Inquiry.
However, The Australian then chickened out and pulled the article completely from it’s Facebook feed after too much backlash from the public and being caught censoring comments. So much for “public debate” as they so proclaimed.
Roland Brown was also among it, doing his usual ultracrepidarian thing as was the Tasmanian Greens’ resident Helen Lovejoy, Rosalie Woodruff. There was very little talk about the fudging of firearm seizures by Michael Keenan in the media but, water is wet.
10 year licences are already in place in the Northern Territory. The proposals regarding Category C are very minor and are for people who are already licenced. Suppressors are legal across the Tasman in New Zealand and the sky hasn’t fallen in and will also save a ton on hearing related public health costs, as well as aiding pest control numbers.
And the military appearance law, as we all know, is patently ridiculous.
As to whether the Liberal Party will follow through on these actual changes if they’re elected? Snowball’s chance. This is lip service to get elected. Remember, Hidding was the guy who forced through the storage law changes earlier in the year, including the ridiculous alarm systems for safes requirement.
Sure, if they win the election and do implement them then we’ll toast to that. But to be honest, it’s an incredibly safe bet they won’t and is really just more vote buying.
SFFP is your choice in Tasmania. Labor and the Greens last.
And the case for defunding this poor excuse for a national broadcaster just grows stronger by the minute.
Leave a Reply