Great Southern farmer details gun law frustration

Mark Adams is among the hundreds of farmers at his wit’s end after trying to navigate the State Government’s new online portal to help gun owners comply with sweeping new changes to WA gun laws.

The Woodgenellup farmer said he believed the laws were “unworkable” and would lead a lot of gun owners to be “classified as criminals” due to what he described as “totally unworkable regulation”.

“It’s very time consuming and the process is incredibly convoluted and longwinded,” he said.

He said the registration system failed to take into account the complex nature of many family farming operations.

“Property ownership is in most cases in large family farms,” Mr Adams said.

“This has been somewhat confusing in proof of ownership, as many land titles are held either in family trusts, superannuation portfolios and company holdings — to name a few.

“The very simple titles held in a individual’s name are not common in large farming enterprise that may have multiple family and staff on farm with gun licences.”

The online portal requires all land title ownership to be verified in order to obtain a primary producers registration, to use a gun on that title, to enable other family members to retain there current gun licence, or to allow other gun owners to shoot on that title.

Mr Adams said it was also required to determine how many property letters the landowner could issue.

“These letters are for trusted people, so they can retain there current gun licence... to carry out vermin control on our land like they have in the past,” he said.

In a statement, WA Police said more than 7000 firearm owners had so far successfully created a new online portal account.

It said owners having difficulties with the online system are encouraged to call the dedicated WA Firearms Hotline on 1300 894 474.