The government will inject nearly $40 million into the state’s firearm registry in a bid to overhaul the troubled system and increase community safety following the Bondi shooting terror attack in December last year.
On Saturday, police minister Yasmin Catley announced the $39.3 million investment, which will also fund additional staff and system upgrades, to accompany a suite of tighter restrictions on gun owners.
The new restrictions reduce the licence period from five years to two, strengthen checks on people seeking to own firearms and cap the number of firearms a person can own. A comprehensive audit of all existing firearm licences will also be undertaken.
It follows a report in this masthead revealing that, during a meeting at police headquarters on December 8, 2020, psychologist and gun club official Daniel Gregg warned officials from the NSW Police Firearms Registry that far too little was being done to encourage club members to spot and report any signs of extremism among their fellow shooters.
This was the same police unit that sanctioned a gun licence to shooter’s club member turned Bondi terrorist Sajid Akram.
Catley has previously described the registry as being in “shambles” between 2020 and 2023. During this period, the registry had serious backlogs, and applications typically took two to three years to be processed. It was not fully digitised until 2023.
A relatively small number of firearms licensing police oversee huge numbers of gun owners, with multiple Victorian and NSW sources claiming police in gun licensing teams are “overwhelmed”.
NSW Police sources cited increasing concern that “sovereign citizens” with firearms licences could descend into extremism. Previous reporting by this masthead has exposed the efforts of Australia’s largest neo-Nazi group to obtain firearms via associates with gun permits.
Part of the Minns government’s new funding includes 22 additional registry staff who will process licence renewals and the “genuine reason” checks as part of each renewal, expand membership and participation reporting obligations for clubs and licence holders and review new licence application requirements, including Australian citizenship.
“This $39.3 million investment will deliver 22 extra staff for the Firearms Registry, so these reforms can be implemented – strengthening checks, improving oversight and supporting the practical work needed to reduce risk across the state,” Catley said in her announcement.
“We introduced the toughest gun law reforms in a generation following the worst terror attack our country has seen, and today we are making sure the system has the people and capacity to deliver them.”
The NSW Firearms Registry will begin recruiting for these positions shortly.
Kayla Olaya is a culture reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
