SSAA Queensland Membership Q & A
There have been some positive changes at SSAA Queensland in the past two years that have provided greater independence to your Association and better value for your membership. Here are a few of those changes written in a concise question and answer form:
Q. When I pay my annual membership to SSAA Queensland, what am I actually paying to be a member of?
A. Your membership, once approved, means you are a member of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (Qld) Inc. Often referred to as SSAA Queensland. If you nominate a Branch, you are also a member of that Branch, such as Ipswich or Townsville. This has always been the case.
Q. What do the Q and numbers mean on my membership card?
A. The Q stands for Queensland. If you haven’t nominated a branch to be a member of, you are a member of the State and your membership card will read Q00. If you are a member of a Branch it will have the identification number of that Branch after the Q. Ipswich for instance is Q02, Townsville is Q22.
Q. Does membership of SSAA Queensland provide a genuine reason to obtain a firearms licence?
A. Yes, membership of SSAA Queensland provides a genuine reason to hold a firearms licence in Queensland.
Q. Are my membership details, such as name and address, safe? Who has access to them?
A. One of the first changes SSAA Queensland made was to bring the membership database in-house to ensure member details are properly secured. Previously, they were held by SSAA Inc in Sydney. SSAA Queensland actively sought out the most advanced and secure software to ensure it abided by all legal obligations we are subject to, such as the Commonwealth Privacy Act. Our software and management provide the greatest defence against cyber security attacks and also control who has access to it.
Q. Are members covered for insurance? I read SSAA Queensland no longer pay SSAA Inc for public liability insurance?
A. This is another area where SSAA Queensland decided it was better to take control of managing member protection in-house and at a far lesser expense. The cost of the $20 million public liability insurance SSAA Inc has been paying for, on behalf of the states, has been spiralling out of control. The ability for SSAA Inc to obtain insurance has also been getting harder and harder with a question mark as to whether it will be available in the future. In recent years, SSAA Queensland has established Deporte Mutual Limited, which now provides SSAA Queensland members with $20 million public liability protection for shooting on any approved range in Australia and hunting in the field.
Q. Can I get my firearms covered if they are stolen or get damaged?
A. SSAA Queensland has set up its own firearms protection ‘vehicle’ through Deporte Firearms Protection, where for $35 per year you can access up to $25,000 worth of firearms protection. The fees invested in it are kept for the benefit of SSAA Queensland members. No other state SSAA Association has managed to establish such a benefit and protection on its own.
Q. Why are we receiving The Report magazine and not the Australian Shooter magazine?
A. The fact is SSAA Inc was charging SSAA Queensland up to $160,000 a month for members to receive the Australian Shooter magazine. That is almost $2 million a year. SSAA Queensland, with the encouragement of our branches, decided to take over our own communication channels and in the past 18 months have built an e-newsletter, new websites and are now publishing the monthly Report magazine for Queensland members and even distributing it across Australia. The magazine is staffed by an experienced media team who once worked for the Australian Shooter magazine. The team is experienced in shooting and media and produce The Report at a far cheaper cost than we were being charged for the Australian Shooter.
Q. What stories and advertisements will be in The Report? Will they only be Queensland based?
A. Given that firearm laws are mainly state based, the magazine will write about laws relevant to our members. The magazine will also have articles based on the target sport and hunting activities of our state. Members always want to know about what is happening in other parts of Australia and the world so we will of course cover those areas. The firearms industry and anyone wanting to feature their services and products to our 80,000 members are welcome to advertise with us.
Q. Is SSAA Queensland breaking away from SSAA Inc (or SSAA National as it is often referred to)?
A. SSAA Queensland has told SSAA Inc it is not ‘breaking away’ but it does not require most of the services the national Association provided to the state body in the past, such as membership processing, insurance and media production. SSAA Queensland will now invest the money it previously paid SSAA Inc for those services into its own state and member benefits.
Q. In the past SSAA Queensland has relied on SSAA Inc to undertake the federal lobbying on national issues such as buybacks, amnesties, customs issues and attempts to restrict firearm ownership, such as calls to ban private handgun ownership. Who is doing that for SSAA Queensland now?
A. SSAA Queensland believes it is better to take control of all our lobbying efforts at both the state and federal levels rather than outsource it to other bodies. Among its staff and volunteers are men and women who have experience lobbying on the local, state, federal and even international stages, including the United Nations. Some of their greatest achievements have been in securing the continuation of private handgun ownership for club use, resisting ammunition marking and ensuring juniors, the future of shooting, can participate in target shooting and hunting.
Q. What is the Australian Shooters Alliance?
A. SSAA Queensland established the Australian Shooters Alliance (ASA) as a national organisation for when we need to have an Australia-wide identity. The ASA is recognised by the Federal Attorney-General as a stakeholder and is consulted on firearm-related matters. The Report magazine is also published under the banner of the ASA, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of SSAA Queensland.
Q. What does the future hold for SSAA Queensland? Is it still a member of SSAA Inc? Who is a member of SSAA Inc?
A. The future is bright for SSAA Queensland. While membership, assets and ranges have grown in our state thanks to good management, other organisations have not seen similar growth. And now the bulk of SSAA Queensland membership fees are staying in your state to fund programs and ranges at home, rather than subsidising other state associations through SSAA Inc. In fact SSAA Queensland has contributed almost 40 per cent of the total cost of programs and services of SSAA Inc in the past, whether they had any benefit to Queensland or not.
SSAA Queensland remains a member of SSAA Inc, along with the other seven states and territories. Those states and territories are the only members of SSAA Inc as opposed to individual members.
Q. There has been some negative comments on social media about SSAA Queensland ‘leaving’ SSAA Inc and also not providing the names and addresses of its members to receive the Australian Shooter magazine. Why are people unhappy?
A. We note that most of the comments on social media have been from interstate. The fact that SSAA Queensland has subsidised SSAA Inc and other state associations for decades is indisputable, but it must come to end. We are not leaving SSAA Inc. We remain a member of SSAA Inc, we just don’t wish to pay them for services we no longer require and that we are undertaking ourselves. SSAA Queensland’s committee and its members through its branches, want to be able to decide how and on what it invests its money in, rather than be subject to a board decision dominated by non-Queenslanders.
We previously paid millions of dollars for the Australian Shooter magazine and other services but now we would rather fund our own magazine and programs. SSAA Inc won’t mail out the Australian Shooter to members free of charge; it will charge us about $160,000 per month. We have decided not to pay for that service. That means SSAA Inc’s income will drop and they will have to adjust their expenses accordingly. Perhaps that is why they are having difficulty accepting the changes.
