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| Tim Fischer takes on US-inspired firearms lobby |
Tim Fischer, the former deputy prime minister and leader of the National party who alongside John Howard helped to pass landmark reforms after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, says he believes a “wave” of firearm lobbying influenced by the US National Rifle Association is putting renewed pressure on Australian gun laws.
Fischer told the Guardian he believed “NRA-inspired” lobbying coupled with the increased influence of rightwing parties such as One Nation in Canberra and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party in New South Wales had influenced a “pushback” against Australia’s gun laws, and called on politicians to stand up to pressure.
“Waves of NRA-originated ideology do descend on Australia and have done since 1996,” he said. “I think we are seeing another wave of the NRA’s indirect influence descending on Australia at the federal and state levels [and] that’s deeply concerning to me.”
Fischer’s warning comes in the context of an increasingly well-funded and organised gun lobby with ties to weapons importers and manufacturers.
Last week the Guardian revealed that the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, was considering establishing a committee to allow gun importers to review proposed changes to firearm regulations for “appropriateness and intent”.
The proposal to establish the committee was put to Dutton during a private meeting with representatives from gun importer Nioa and the Shooting Industry Foundation of Australia (Sifa).
A lobbying outfit whose directors include some of Australia’s largest gun dealers, Sifa has only five members and represents a departure from the membership-driven model of most shooting groups in Australia. But what it lacks in numbers it makes up for in funding and influence.
Financial disclosures published with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission show that Sifa’s five members pumped $768,000 into the group in the 2016-17 financial year.
Among the members is Robert Nioa, the managing director of the largest small arms importer in Australia.
Aside from being a major donor to his father-in-law, the independent federal MP Bob Katter, Nioa’s company receives millions of dollars in defence contracts from the Australian government and Nioa himself is well connected politically.
In December the defence industry minister, Christopher Pyne, attended the opening of his new office in Canberra, according to the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia.
The federal lobbying register also lists Sifa as a client of Barton Deakin, a Liberal party-aligned lobbyist group. Barton Deakin’s federal director is Grahame Morris, a former chief of staff to Howard.
When contacted by the Guardian on Friday, Morris said he had never heard of Sifa but after checking said a former consultant of Barton Deakin had done “some work” for the group. However, he said the group was no longer a client.
“Do I want Australia’s gun laws changed? The answer is no,” Morris said.
Earlier this month the Guardian reported that Australian pro-gun groups including Sifa pumped more than $500,000 into helping minor rightwing parties win seats in last year’s Queensland state election.
Fischer said that while interventions such as Dutton’s were not “necessarily” a negative thing, the gun lobby’s motivations needed to be “watched closely”.
“The whole point is that the core structure and content of the Howard gun reforms must not be done away with,” he said. “Creep and corrosion of the core of the gun law reforms is a danger.”
While pointing to the pressure faced by Australia’s current politicians, he noted that he and Howard had faced fierce resistance to the changes in some parts of the country in 1996.
“I got hung in effigy in Gympie, I got shouted at across the country but I did not take step back,” he said. “It was all pretty ugly, but 20 years on there have been no massacres and the case [in favour of the laws] rests pretty strongly.”
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