As is always their way, the NSW Firearms Registry dropped the discriminatory and intrusive Health Risk Assessment on firearms owners just before Christmas in their usual duplicitous and underhanded method. In this, the 30th year of the Shooters Fishers & Farmers Party, Robert and Mark were on the offensive from the beginning of the 2025 sitting year, embarrassing the government and calling out the FAR with a series of pointed questions and forcing NSW Police to remove the most offensive parts of the assessment.
Robert fired the opening salvo into this campaign, questioning the government on the data that they had used to discriminate against vision-impaired and wheelchair-bound shooters.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8hAhLwkuKAM
He was followed by Mark who asked a question on how aesthetic features, like personal hygiene, beards and moustaches, wearing dirty clothes, tattoos and scars were the root cause of violent firearms offences, as well as the data to support this claim.
https://youtube.com/shorts/jzyjB27OZoE?feature=share
Mark then questioned how many NSW police officers with civilian firearms licences had their licences suspended as "not in the public interest" and yet carried service pistols in the execution of their duties in public.
https://youtube.com/shorts/TGxKEpwVHbE?feature=share
Next Robert, following in the same vein of discrimination against disability, asked how many violent firearm crimes had been committed as dyslexia or dyspraxia as their root cause, and what data and risk assessment had been used to apply this.
https://youtube.com/shorts/ylGlPQUksVU
Finally, Mark condemned the entire Health Risk Assessment form and process as outright persecution and discrimination against shooters and compared it to tyrannical and totalitarian regimes of the recent past.
https://youtube.com/shorts/AqPk3QRVM_Y?feature=share
In response, NSW Police and the Firearms Registry met with Robert and Mark and partially removed the most offensive parts of the assessment. But the fight goes on as the entire method by which they assess licences falls outside judicial processes and operates in a manner tolerated in no other space.
https://youtube.com/shorts/ENn9yCMQI9I?feature=share
In his own portfolio, Robert has pushed ahead hammering the incompetent and malicious way the Registry has conducted range compliance over the past 25 years. He pulled no punches when talking about their unprofessionalism in this Private Members Statement.
https://youtube.com/shorts/IF_jaaeZlBk?feature=share
Robert Out In the Field
Having a number of hunting goals for 2025 well into the pipeline in parliament, Robert took the opportunity during the holiday break to head over to the Americas to hunt a number of species. First, he hunted Desert Bighorn, Desert Mule Deer and Coues deer in the state of Sonora in Mexico. Unfortunately, he was unable to take a Bighorn Ram but he took a fine Desert Mule Deer and found this impressive skull and horns in the desert.
He then travelled to southwest Texas and took an amazing Aoudad ram right on the border with Mexico on the Rio Grande. It was a truly unique experience and inspired him to return to Australia and fight hard for new hunting opportunities here.
Thank you for your continued support!