May 2025 President’s Message
President’s Message
With the federal election behind us, we welcome the return of Bob Katter. He has been a strong supporter of us, the firearms community, and it is for that reason we again financially supported his campaign on your, our members’, behalf. We farewell the Liberal’s Ross Vasta, who lost his seat, and thank him for his proud enthusiasm of our sport and note that the Federal Sports Minister continues to be Queensland’s Anika Wells, who will play a role in supporting Brisbane’s 2032 Olympics preparation. While SSAA doesn’t engage in any competitions that are held at the Olympics, we welcome any event that puts the shooting sports in the spotlight and any that may spark an interest in juniors taking up our recreation.
On our ranges, we saw a very successful Muzzleloading National Championship held at Townsville last month and Captains Mountain hosted the Benchrest National Championships. It’s the first time it has been held at Captains Mountain and the event attracted the most competitors from across the country in more than a decade and a half. Well done to all the volunteers who made these competitions such as success, and I think it is true to say that the ranges and facilities we have built over the decades truly makes Queensland the state of choice to hold these events in Australia.
The reality of our sport is that by its nature of utilising firearms we have to engage with politicians and the police at all levels to ensure our sport is not adversely affected by poor legislation and treatment. In the past month alone, we have met with Weapons Branch multiple times, the new Police Minister Dan Purdie and the Federal Attorney-General’s department. Topics have included Permit to Acquire examination, hunting (recreation) licences and the rebuilding of Queensland’s firearms registration database and its one day connection to the National Firearms Register. We have even questioned how firearm renewals are sent out to members; for instance, if a renewal is emailed to a member but it bounces back because their email address has changed, do the police find another way to alert the licence holder that they are soon due to renew their licence? Commonsense would say that they make every effort to ensure the licence holder is informed and compliant.
Commonsense, unfortunately, can be at times not that common, so we will continue to lobby on your behalf to push for that kind of commonsense at all levels of government.
Safe shooting.
Hellen Gill
SSAA Queensland President