I rise to speak to the amendments made by the Legislative Council to the Firearms Amendment Bill 2017. The Greens support the original bill, particularly the firearm prohibition orders. We certainly strongly support the bill. What we do not support is the amendment put forward by the Shooters and Fishers Party.
To go to the detail of the amendment, essentially the current situation is if someone wishes to advertise their firearm for sale in a newspaper or online, they must go through a dealer, who places that advertisement on their behalf. This amendment, I understand, would remove that requirement on the advertisements of people wishing to sell their firearms. This is problematic for a couple of reasons. One is that it would add to the wider publication of firearm sales, but it also adds to the issue of stolen guns, which are the major source of illegal firearms. I know that there has been some conjecture that that is not the case, and that the source is imported firearms. My understanding is that stolen guns within our state are the major source of illegal firearms. This further adds to that problem by allowing details of the location of those firearms to be published online.
We do not support these amendments. We certainly do not support the watering down of gun laws, and the watering down of this legislation was very disappointing to see. The Liberals and the conservative minor parties, and even the Reason Victoria party, supported this amendment and other amendments to water down these laws. It was certainly very surprising to see it from the Reason party. They are the No Rhyme or Reason party, I would suggest. You just do not know where they are going to land and how they are going to vote. It is very disappointing that they have taken this approach to watering down gun legislation.
We will not be supporting these amendments. It would be our preference for this house to send these amendments back to the Legislative Council and ask those parties to consider their position and support this legislation unwatered-down.
