AUSTRALIA’S import ban on the lever-action Adler A110 shotgun can be lifted next year with a national agreement on a new D licence, limiting it to a handful of professional shooters.

In a major victory for the gun-control lobby, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and state premiers are now set to ratify the new rules when COAG meets on Friday.

The deal will act as a de facto ban, with the gun only able to be imported and owned by limited to a tiny number of professional shooters who specialise in pest and feral animal control on a D licence.

That is likely to trigger calls for a taxpayer-funded national buyback of thousands of retrofitted Adler shotguns already in the country that will be rendered illegal if they have a magazine capacity of more than five.

The Martin Place siege was the trigger for a review of the National Firearms Agreement and the current Adler import ban will continue until there is unanimous agreement with all jurisdictions about how to classify lever-action shotguns with a magazine capacity of more than five.

The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal the gamechanger was NSW Premier Mike Baird’s ­decision to roll his own Police Minister Troy Grant in cabinet on the controversial shotgun on Thursday.

It was revealed last Sunday that NSW Police had urged cabinet to stare down the pro-gun lobby with a tough D classification.

Mr Grant had publicly campaigned for a weaker B classification for the Adler shotgun in the lead-up to the Orange by-election in NSW that was won by the Shooters Party as the Nationals attempted to court shooters.

media_camera Changes ahead in gun laws.

The NSW cabinet decision is pivotal, because there is ­already broad national consensus that the Adler should be ­reclassified as a D licence firearm and NSW was the final barrier to a resolution.

The Prime Minister confirmed the National Firearms Agreement will be on the COAG agenda on Friday.

“The temporary importation ban on lever action shotguns with a magazine capacity of greater than five rounds was put in place in August 2015 and will remain in place until the states reach agreement on their classification,’’ the Prime Minister’s spokeswoman said.

“The Government is waiting on the agreement of state and territory police ministers to the reclassification of these weapons under the 1996 National Firearms Agreement.”

Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm slammed the proposal to put the Adler on a D classification saying it “would have virtually the same impact as an import ban”.

Originally published as States and PM unite on Adler shotgun ban