The sources said WA and Victoria had brought up the topic of firearms during a national cabinet discussion in late March, but it was simply to provide the Prime Minister with lists of retail activities they were proposing to shut down. One senior Coalition source said the idea any state had banned sales on the basis of national cabinet deliberations was "horseshit". "It wasn’t a national cabinet decision," the source said. "It was pretty well the states making their own decisions re: firearms and the PM being OK with that." States are responsible for regulating firearms under an overarching policy known as the National Firearms Agreement. The Prime Minister’s office declined to comment, citing cabinet confidentiality.

A spokeswoman for the Victorian government said the ban was made after "extensive discussion and deliberation" at national cabinet, but did not mention any collective "decision" of national cabinet. The spokeswoman said the ban was enacted partly to ensure the increase in sales did not lead to firearms ending up in the hands of criminals at a time when police's enforcement capacity is reduced due to the pandemic. Most shooting ranges are closed under COVID-19 social distancing restrictions. Credit:Joe Castro With legal challenges to the bans on foot in Victoria and Queensland and non-Labor states showing no appetite for similar sales restrictions, the bans have made COVID-19 a new battleground over gun policy. Queensland’s Chief Health Officer imposed a total sales ban on March 27 that meant even police could not buy ammunition or gun parts, with claims police only learnt of the decision at the same time as dealers.

Queensland agriculture and firearms lobby groups within days persuaded the Palaszczuk Labor government to allow sales to primary producers. With support from the LNP opposition, as well as One Nation and Katter Party MPs, they have since forced much wider concessions for much broader categories of rural shooters. Several dealerships have nonetheless sent legal letters to Queensland Health as a precursor to court action with a view to challenging the ban in its entirety. Victorian industry counterparts have already filed a legal challenge to sales bans, with lobby groups claiming it could put dozens of dealers out of business, and gun lobby groups have taken out newspaper ads protesting the bans. Dealers and other interest groups led by the Victoria-based National Shooting Council last week lodged an appeal with Victoria’s Firearms Appeals Committee, an independent statutory body that reviews police decisions over licensing. 'No non-Labor state at this point has even shown any interest'

With little official information provided about the reasons for the bans, firearms lobby groups are painting the moves as ideologically motivated. "It’s starting to look like a political thing because it’s only happening in the Labor states," said Graham Park, president of the Shooters Union of Australia, which is based in Queensland. "No non-Labor state at this point has even shown any interest and we have gotten letters back from several states saying ‘we have no interest in following that route’. "We don’t know why the other states did it." Mr Park said the legal challenge in Queensland was needed to prevent future "overreach" by officials.

Authorities in WA and Victoria have cited public or community safety to explain their bans, without providing details, while no reasons were provided by Queensland Health when it added firearms to a list of "non-essential" retail types. AgForce policy officer Michael Allpass, who has been negotiating with the Queensland government on the issue, said AgForce "hasn’t been advised at all as to how the original decision was made (in Queensland)". Loading "I did ask for an explanation but I wasn’t given one," he said. "There’s no rhyme or reason to it. People are just making decisions on the spot in uncertain times." Victoria Police’s licensing and regulation branch wrote to firearms dealers in the state on March 31 advising them that as of midnight the previous night their licences had been varied to stop sales of guns and ammunition to anyone not holding an occupational licence.

The email, obtained by Brisbane Times, stated: "Following a decision by National Cabinet, the Licensing and Regulation Division has been advised there will be a suspension of all firearm transactions including the sale, hire and loan of firearms and ammunition for the reasons of Sport or Target Shooting, Clay Target Shooting and Recreational hunting." An attachment to the email said: "This decision has been made with the overall safety of the public in mind, ensuring people are not unnecessarily storing firearms and ammunition during an extremely difficult time for many in the community, which may be compounded by family and work-related pressures. "It also limits the number of unnecessary firearms and ammunition circulating in the community which have the potential to fall into the hands of criminals." Victoria Police did not answer questions about the references in its statements to a national cabinet decision, referring inquiries to the Prime Minister’s office. WA Premier Mark McGowan said at the time of his government’s ban: "Given the closure of firearm sporting clubs and shooting venues, and the need to comply with social distancing, there is effectively no need for over-the-counter sales at gun stores."

In Queensland, Mr Allpass and Mr Park both said state government bureaucrats had attributed the move to deliberations in national cabinet. "They said, 'oh, this has come out of national cabinet' and I said I don't understand, what has national cabinet got to do with it?" Mr Allpass said. Mr Park said that when his group had asked officials for the ban to be amended, he was told: "It has to go back to national cabinet." "We said 'why?' And they wouldn’t answer," Mr Park said. Mr Park, who sits on a state consultative committee for firearms regulation, said senior Queensland police officers had told him they had only found out about the sales ban when it was made public.

The Queensland Police Service did not directly address questions about when it knew of the ban. A spokesman said that although police were responsible for regulating firearms, the QPS was also "compelled to adhere to all directions associated with emergency powers arising from the declared public health emergency". Hunting is an approved form of exercise in Tasmania Most shooting ranges are closed under COVID-19 social distancing restrictions and NSW has closed public hunting access to state forests. States have not expressly banned hunting, however, and Tasmania has included it in a list of approved forms of exercise, although it, too, has banned public land hunting. There were spikes in sales of ammunition reported early last month but this has been attributed to anticipated price rises because of the fall in the Australian dollar.