[Gunshots]

Paddy Manning: You're listening to a shootout between an ordinary double-barrelled shotgun and an Adler. It's a lever-action shotgun, and it's at the centre of a controversy over our national gun laws.

Marty: And by a bee's dick the double-barrel is faster.

Man: I don't reckon about that, I reckon she was dead even.

Aaron: It was even, it was even.

Paddy Manning: The guys from Shooting Stuff Australia say the Adler is no more dangerous than any other shotgun available to recreational shooters.

New South Wales police disagree. Their advice, issued in 2015, has been secret, until now.

David Shoebridge: We've been involved in a fairly long-running Freedom of Information contest with the New South Wales police to try and find what advice the New South Wales police gave to the police minister about the categorisation of these lever-action shotguns.

Paddy Manning: That's David Shoebridge. He's justice spokesperson for the NSW Greens. He's given Background Briefing exclusive access to that FOI document. It suggests that police believed the Adler should be restricted to occupational users, like farmers and professional shooters, but not recreational users.

David Shoebridge: The documents that we have got make it pretty clear that a lever-action shotgun is basically the same as a pump action shotgun, the same lethality, the same rapid rate of fire, and a lever-action shotgun should be categorised the same as a pump-action shotgun. But unfortunately it's not the position the New South Wales government took and it's not the position the New South Wales police minister took.

Paddy Manning: That police minister was Troy Grant. The briefing note suggests the police wanted the Adler shotgun to be categorised the same as a pump-action shotgun. You know, the kind you've seen in the movies.

The view of NSW police was in line with the view of law enforcement agencies in other states and territories, but when police ministers met to update the National Firearms Agreement last October, Troy Grant took a very public stand, holding out against the tighter categorisation of the Adler.

Troy Grant: I spent 22 years on the frontline as a police officer, and if I thought for a moment that classifying these weapons this way, that there was any weakening of the Firearms Agreement, would jeopardise community safety, there's no way in the world I would support it.

Paddy Manning: That's Troy Grant speaking to the ABC's World Today during the negotiations. The minister declined an interview on Background Briefing, but at the time he told the ABC he couldn't agree to the tougher re-categorisation.

Troy Grant: The fact is the evidence isn't that the case and it's certainly not the case that what we're trying to achieve here is just continuation of the strong Firearms Agreement across the nation and to make sure that all firearm control is properly regulated as it is now in NSW, and stop blaming the people who are doing the right thing for those who are doing the wrong thing.

Paddy Manning: The NSW Police Minister said he was standing up for farmers who used lever-action shotguns every day.

However, the Greens claim Troy Grant—the member for Dubbo and leader of the National Party at the time—was pressured to override the police advice.

David Shoebridge: We've got a National MP who is the Police Minister…

Paddy Manning: A former cop.

David Shoebridge: A former cop, who is clearly under pressure from parts of his party, parts of his rural constituency to go soft on gun laws. They have been furious about the position that was achieved in 1996, a small part of his constituency have been furious about the position we got on gun laws after the 1996 National Firearms Agreement, and they've been keen to pull it back ever since. And what's really put additional pressure on the Nationals is that we're seeing the Shooters and Fishers Party and the gun lobby looking for other micro-parties to support on gun laws, and we've also seen the Labor Party getting in on the act as well and playing footsie on gun laws.

Paddy Manning: NSW did not hold out for long. At the end of last year, in the wake of the Lindt cafe siege, the 1996 National Firearms Agreement was overhauled by all Australian governments. The main thing that came out of it was a messy political compromise over lever-action shotguns, including the Adler.

The result? Well, it's all to do with the size of the magazine. So, five-shot Adlers are widely available, seven-shot Adlers are effectively banned, but it's perfectly legal to modify your five-shot into a seven-shot in every state except New South Wales.

It's a perverse outcome and nobody's happy, particularly anyone who might use the Adler. The gun is perfect for shooting feral pigs. To understand why shooters are so angry about the Adler ban, I travelled to Queensland, where this vexed issue could even sway the next election.

I'm on the road with state MP Robbie Katter, he's the son of maverick Bob, the federal member. And we are going pig-shooting with an Adler. It's late afternoon. We're in a four-wheel-drive, crawling along a dirt track through the grassy plains of a cattle property near Cloncurry.

Robbie Katter: The point I like to make, Paddy is that I don't mind if we land in different areas and people don't want shotguns or they think lever-action shotguns are any different or…that's okay, but you'd just wish that people would take the time to inform themselves. Like, you know, I sat down in parliament, I try my best to try and inform myself of these issues in the city so that I'm part of the parliament, making decisions, and I put my vote in the right place. But I don't feel that's reciprocated that well, like, people are constantly making decisions that impact so heavily on the way we do business and our lifestyles out here.

Paddy Manning: The red-dirt country is dotted with anthills, many as high as your waist. They're rock-hard, and Robbie Katter points the Adler at one.

Robbie Katter: [Gunshots] That's it. It's pretty heavy action, as you see. I've had to pull the first one down pretty hard, and yeah it had a bit of kick.

Paddy Manning: I ask him what makes gun owners so angry about the Adler ban.

Robbie Katter: You'd think, well, why the hell would you take this one? There's other categories that you'd think you'd be going after before this one, but you picked on this one. Why would you do that? You think, well, what's next? I own a lever-action 30-30 rifle. That's what people say. If you really were serious about this sort of stuff, that would not be the first category of weapon you'd pick.

Paddy Manning: Robbie Katter thinks it's nonsense, given the other guns on the market. There's plenty of guns that fire faster, or have magazines holding more than five shots, and are available to all licenced shooters.

Robbie Katter: That shows, it's a clear demonstration that you've got someone who doesn't know what they're talking about who's come in and playing…it's political opportunism, this is done arbitrarily as political point scoring, not evidence-based.

Paddy Manning: All the controversy has generated a lot of free publicity for the country's biggest small arms dealer, NIOA, which imported the Adler. It's a family business run by Robbie Katter's brother-in-law, Robert Nioa, one of the most powerful men in the gun lobby.

Robert Nioa: We made a fair bit of money out of all of the publicity, which was very unexpected.

Paddy Manning: It was a free ad for you, wasn't it?

Robert Nioa: It was and it kept going, and, once again, I'm sorry for diminishing the level of the argument, but we did find it quite amusing. And here we are again talking about it, and I have no doubt at the end of this when people have heard this story, there will be more people that will go out and buy Adlers and yes, so it's been very good for business.

Paddy Manning: To understand the controversy over the Adler you have to understand how guns are categorised under the National Firearms Agreement. There are four main categories of firearms and they differentiate between rifles which fire bullets, and shotguns which fire cartridges loaded with pellets. Here's how it works.

Category A is for low-powered, generally single-shot rifles and shotguns.

Category B is for higher-powered shotguns and 'repeating' rifles. And here's the thing: 'repeating' includes some pretty lethal lever- or pump-action rifles, which can have a magazine of up to 10 rounds.

Category C is highly restrictive, covering low-powered semi-automatic rifles, and semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns with up to five rounds capacity.

Category D is the most restrictive, and covers military-style, fully automatic rifles and semi-automatic shotguns with more than five rounds capacity.

There's not much difference between categories A and B. Most recreational shooters, hundreds of thousands of them, hold both A and B licences. Far fewer have a category C or D licence. They make up less than 1 in 10 licensed shooters, who need high-powered guns for their job.

In 2015 a new lever-action shotgun hit the market, the Adler A110, which came in two versions, the 5-shot and the 7-shot.

Shooters went into a frenzy over its rapid fire capability. With the 7-shot magazine, plus a cartridge in the chamber, it could fire 8 shots in 8 seconds. Nioa said within weeks, 7,000 Adlers were on order from overseas.

Victorian Police Acting Commissioner Tim Cartwright was worried. He told Neil Mitchell on Melbourne's 3AW the Adler had opened a loophole in the national gun laws.

Neil Mitchell: Now, this new high powered shotgun coming to Australia, people are lining up to get it. A lot of gun play, gun talk around at the moment. What's your feeling about this gun? Seven-shot lever-action…

Tim Cartwright: Seven-shot lever-action shotgun. I just can't see why you would need it, why the existing firearms available to the average person who has a licence, why that wouldn't fill their needs. At the moment these things are classified as category A which is the same as a side-by-side shotgun, or a 22 rifle with a small magazine in it, when in fact it does just what a pump-action shotgun can do, from what I can see, which allows someone to fire a number of shots, seven in this case, in a very rapid time.

Neil Mitchell: It's like a semi-automatic, isn't it?

Tim Cartwright: It is, it's just like a semi-automatic or pump-action…

Neil Mitchell: Which are banned.

Tim Cartwright: Well, they're not banned, but they're category C, and much, much smaller numbers and much more restricted in…you'd really need a legitimate, particularity legitimate reason to own them.

Paddy Manning: The Victorian police got strong support from gun control advocates concerned about the Adler's magazine capacity.

Philip Alpers: If you're a mass shooter, which is what the Port Arthur laws were designed to curb, then that's the type of gun you go for. You go for something that's going to just fire and fire and fire and fire and fire. And people are going to have no defence against it for eight rounds. That is a rapid-fire weapon.

Paddy Manning: Philip Alpers from Sydney University, speaking on the ABC's 7:30 Report.

Then Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, agreed. He declared he would ban the import of all lever-action shotguns with a capacity of more than five shots.

Here's Tony Abbott:

Tony Abbott: The instant I heard these guns were destined for Australia in large numbers, these rapid-fire guns, I said no, we've got enough guns in this country already. Shooters are good people but the last thing we want is even more lethal guns in this country because sooner or later, the more guns that you've got, the more likely it is that they'll fall into the wrong hands.

Paddy Manning: Shooters were outraged by the ban. Even within the coalition, some National Party MPs tried to prevent it or spoke out against it. But it was too late. The ban was implemented by Justice Minister Michael Keenan and that's who the gun industry, including Robert Nioa, blames for this apparent 'knee jerk' response.

Robert Nioa: As best as I can tell, the federal Justice Minister, Michael Keenan at the time, really seemed, from what we can tell, really just seemed short of news for the week about what he was doing for the community, so he just assented to the calls and put through a ban overnight without any consultation or discussion.

Paddy Manning: Michael Keenan declined to be interviewed, but in a written statement says the government imposed the ban on the advice of Commonwealth, state and territory law enforcement agencies and officials. His full statement is on our website.

Interestingly, both sides of the gun debate agree it was the kind of ban you have when you're not having a ban.

It seems to me it's a bit of a Clayton's Ban, because the five-shot is legal and can be legally modified to a seven-shot anyway.

Robert Nioa: It has been, that's right, and every state…whilst this whole debate has been going on, every single state in Australia has allowed everyone to modify the shotgun from five to seven shots, whilst maintaining a public debate and national debate about restricting the seven shots. So, it's been quite…once again, quite a ridiculous debate from the...as you're sitting on the inside, we've been quite bemused.

Paddy Manning: New South Wales Justice says the laws have changed and it will soon be illegal in that state.

Sam Lee, chair of Gun Control Australia, also thinks it's a Clayton's Ban.

What has the ban achieved?

Samantha Lee: It's just a furphy.

Paddy Manning: Is it a Clayton's Ban really?

Samantha Lee: That's a good way to sum it up. It's acting as though they're doing something when they really haven't.

Paddy Manning: That's pretty much the position Troy Grant took when the ban first came up for discussion at a meeting of police ministers in November 2015. He believed there was no justification for the ban. But Troy Grant's position went against the advice of his police force.

Background Briefing has obtained a copy of the advice of the NSW Police Firearms Registry. It noted the public concern about the rapid-fire capability of the Adler, and said:

Reading: Technological advancement has meant that these types of firearms are now similar, in terms of their rapidity, to pump-action shotguns which are classified as Category C firearms.

Paddy Manning: It wasn't a recommendation, it was just an opinion. But it raises the question; why didn't Troy Grant take the advice of his own firearms experts?

Sam Lee from Gun Control Australia says he should have.

Samantha Lee: And it's an absolute disgrace. We're talking about a Police Minister that has seen the results of the Martin Place siege and the use of a shotgun in that circumstance, and yet this Police Minister has come out and requested that the Adler be the lowest category possible, and not put public safety first.

Paddy Manning: Background Briefing has approached police agencies in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT. All declined to be interviewed.

But Greens MP David Shoebridge says police want tighter gun controls to keep their officers safe.

David Shoebridge: It's the police who ultimately have to run into a domestic violence situation, and they don't want to be running into a household which has got a brand new lever-action shotgun there. It's the police who ultimately have to deal with, you know, organised crime and terrorism and the like. And their strong preference is that we have tough gun laws, so that their members don't run into a situation with a brand new highly lethal rapid-fire weapon that they have to confront.

Paddy Manning: Shooters don't accept the view of police at all. They question their expertise on firearms, and suspect they just don't want guns in the community.

Phil Donato is from the Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party in New South Wales. He completely rejects the police view that a lever-action shotgun is the same level of threat as a pump-action shotgun. He says there was no need for a ban.

Phil Donato: I mean, lever-action technology's been around for hundreds of years, it's not new technology and it's no quicker, no slower than somebody operating any other action of firearm. And there was a question asked by my upper house colleagues and the government came back with a response after making those enquiries and no doubt getting the information off the police computer system that revealed that the lever-action shotgun had not been used in any criminal offence whatsoever, according to the records available on the police computer system. So really there was no…

Paddy Manning: Nothing?

Phil Donato: Nothing. Zero. So there was no reason to re-categorise the lever-action shotgun.

Paddy Manning: It all came to a head when Donato was running for the National-held seat of Orange last November. Troy Grant was the Nationals leader, and the party was on the back foot because of unpopular policies like the greyhound ban. And Donato believes this played a part in Troy Grant's public defiance on the Adler shotgun.

Phil Donato: And that was clearly no doubt to try and suppress some of the I suppose opinion out there, to try and appease some of the members in the community, no doubt firearms owners in the community, to I suppose show that he was prepared to listen and work with and try to assist law abiding firearms owners.

Paddy Manning: Certainly the timing was politically advantageous. A week out from the vote, the Sporting Shooters Association took out an ad in the local press, headlined 'Congratulations Troy Grant'. It went on:

Reading: At the recent Police Ministers meeting in Canberra held to discuss the National Firearms Agreement, NSW Police Minister and Deputy Premier Troy Grant stood up for law abiding licensed shooters. He resisted demands from uninformed inner-city pressure groups to further tighten the National Firearms Agreement. At last the truth is being told in Canberra. Law abiding sporting shooters congratulate the Deputy Premier for telling it like it is.

Paddy Manning: It wasn't enough. Phil Donato won the seat of Orange. He became the first Shooters Party MP in the NSW lower house. It was the first time in almost 70 years the Nationals had lost the seat.

Troy Grant resigned as Nationals' leader and deputy premier. Premier Mike Baird went along with the national compromise: the 7-shot Adler was put into the highly-restricted D category, while the 5-shot was put into category B, meaning recreational shooters could buy one, much to the disappointment of NSW police. They wanted all lever-action shotguns classed as Category C, out of reach of recreational shooters.

The Adler has assumed huge symbolic importance in the national gun debate. Shooters say the controversy is way out of proportion to the gun's actual capability. As the debate was raging nationally, shooters were posting YouTube videos testing the 5-shot version of the Adler.

YouTube review: Hey guys and welcome to Ozzie Reviews. Well, today I'm checking out the Adler lever-action A110 shotgun. It's made in Turkey, so I guess that's a pretty good warranty, and for $750 it's very much within the price range of the majority of Australian shooters. Anyhow, let's see if it's got the goods, guys, let's get out on the farm now and put it through its paces.

Okay, so I've not fired it before, guys, as you know, so all I'm going to do is cycle through the six shots and just see how it feels.

[Gunfire]

Yeah, okay, I can definitely see the advantage for out there chasing a few ferals. One thing I've noticed though, I mean, look, I know it's brand new but it's not really smooth. You get to about here, and I mean, you can see on my knuckles there, you can see they're pretty pink just from that.

Paddy Manning: By the end of the day, after he'd fired off 200 shots, 'Ozzie' was in agony:

YouTube review: The back of my fingers are absolutely killing me.

Paddy Manning: Over at another YouTube channel called Shooting Stuff Australia, Marty and Aaron also tried out the Adler.

Marty: G'day shooters I'm Marty.

Aaron: I'm Aaron.

Marty: And we're here today with the Adler A110. People were saying it was a rapid-fire assault shotgun that had been designed specifically to get around Australia's gun laws.

Aaron: The anti-gunners were even comparing it to a semi-auto and a pump-action, which is beyond ridiculous.

Marty: Yeah.

Paddy Manning: Then Marty and Aaron went hunting.

Aaron: Be quiet guys…quiet… down, down…through here, it's worse that I thought...they're not drop-bears, they're Tali-bears...this one's beheaded Skippy for god's sake.

Paddy Manning: They had fun shooting teddy bears dressed as suicide bombers, soaked in petrol. And a warning to you: their language could offend.

Aaron: This is for you Skippy. [gunshots] Here's another one —allahu akbar, allahu akbar!—[gunshots] Get off my lawn [gunshots].

Marty: There's nothing new about it. There's nothing terrifying about it, I didn't certainly feel when I picked it up like I needed to go on a shooting spree, did you?

Aaron: No, it didn't even cross my mind actually.

Paddy Manning: Robert Nioa says new generation of young wannabe shooters are buying the Adler as a kind of 'up yours' to the government.

Robert Nioa: And so we've actually ended up…I think over half the firearms we've sold are to people that have no intention of actually using the firearms. They've actually bought it as a protest now against the government.

Paddy Manning: Seriously?

Robert Nioa: Yeah. It's most common you ask people, 'Why did you buy your Adler?' And they go, 'Well, just because we could and because they said we couldn't have one.'

Paddy Manning: Robbie Katter takes me to Ozzie Outdoors, the local gun shop in Mount Isa, owned by John Davies.

How long have you had this shop?

John Davies: We've only been here a month now. I bought my own building.

Paddy Manning: Not just guns.

John Davies: No, it's everything, second hand, pawn broking, trailers, yeah, a bit of everything.

Paddy Manning: But you are a licenced firearms dealer?

John Davies: Licenced firearms dealer, yes.

Paddy Manning: You sell the Adler?

John Davies: I certainly do.

Paddy Manning: Did all the controversy help sales of the gun, do you think?

John Davies: I think it did actually, yeah. Any time you're told you can't have something, everyone wants it, so that's how it works.

Paddy Manning: Do you think lever-action shotguns are any more dangerous than any other type of gun?

John Davies: No, no, no. Lever-action shotgun or any other weapon, they're not any dangerous than anything else. More people get hurt by stabbed or bashed with a stick than shot with a gun.

Paddy Manning: Robbie Katter wants to show me why guns are so important to keep feral animals like pigs in check. We catch up with his friend Colin Muller, he's a farmer from south of the town.

Robbie Katter: Hey Colin, how're you going?

Colin Muller: Good mate, yourself Robbie?

Robbie Katter: Yeah not too bad, yep. Just here, see if you got any pigs here, see if you can help us out.

Colin Muller: Yeah, we'll go and have a look and see what we can find.

Robbie Katter: Not guaranteed, but…

Colin Muller: No, nothing's guaranteed, that's for sure.

Robbie Katter: Like a lot of these trips we might end up going there and not firing a shot but we'll see.

Colin Muller: Exactly, some days you'll pull a trigger, other days you won't.

Paddy Manning: We head off into the scrub to find a pig.

Robbie Katter: I don't like killing most animals but it's guilt-free with the pig because they're an introduced species that spread disease and kill lambs or kill a lot of our turtles up here and dig up the riverbanks and cause erosion. So they're an introduced pest, it doesn't matter how much we try and keep on top of them, they just keep coming back, so you feel like you're doing the environment a good turn while you make a hobby out of it.

Colin Muller: You can see the damage the pigs are doing round that turkey nest, just destroying it. 'Turkey nest' is a name we use for water storage, an earth water tank, basically above ground. This is a good application for a firearm such as the Adler. There could be pigs right there in front of us in the grass and at the last moment they explode out of the grass heading…running and then you have an application where you can get multiple shots off to shoot several pigs.

Paddy Manning: Colin describes the shotgun as a stalk and surprise kind of weapon. But it's important we don't surprise each other.

Robbie Katter: So you're okay, if something bursts out I'll go first.

Colin Muller: You're it, you're first

Paddy Manning: Yeah, don't shoot each other, that's the…

Colin Muller: [Laughs] No, that won't happen, that's not allowed.

Paddy Manning: We stomp around the water storages, edged by long grass.

Colin Muller: They'll be digging up the mussels in the water, native mussels.

Paddy Manning: Serious, the pigs? Eating those?

Colin Muller: A pig just about eats anything.

Robbie Katter: I've seen waterholes like this, we seen a turtle shell and I thought what the hell eats that, but they hibernate in the mud and a pig will eat up…down to a metre, they'll dig them out when they're hibernating and eat the turtles.

Paddy Manning: Wow.

Robbie Katter: They just eat everything.

Paddy Manning: Coming over a rise, we see a big black pig by himself. He's pretty close in, I reckon about 20 yards away. The pig takes off, and we chase it.

[gunshots]

After all that, Robbie Katter missed!

Colin Muller: He's a bit too far off, really, for that.

Robbie Katter: Yeah, the first shot I might of had a chance.

Paddy Manning: Well, you've just fired an Adler, so what's the verdict?

Robbie Katter: Oh yeah, full action felt all right, like there's all…probably the heat of the moment I suppose. Yeah, if we were a bit closer in that'd be a good gun to use I'd say. Yeah, I'd…there was too much distance, so I'm used to having a rifle with a bit more range.

Paddy Manning: You got five shots away, didn't you?

Robbie Katter: Ah, four, there'd be one left in there I'd say. Five. Gun's empty.

Paddy Manning: I was glad we missed, to be honest.

Robbie Katter: As you saw out here the other day and yesterday, Paddy, it's a way of life, it's a culture out here, and it's a tool that is to be respected, and that's about it. There's no more interest or excitement above that.

Paddy Manning: Robbie Katter says it's a different story in the city, where the policies are made.

Robbie Katter: As soon as you mention anything in firearms, and in urban areas, the party conversation goes quiet or you're treated like a pariah. I challenge anyone to say anything different, but I've been at those dinner parties in Sydney or Brisbane, and you're treated as this peculiar person that has this interest in firearms.

Paddy Manning: Katter reserves his harshest comments for Justice Minister Michael Keenan, who he accuses of political opportunism. He says the Adler ban is no more than a stunt.

Robbie Katter: Well, Michael Keenan's a prime example. This whole business with the Adler coming up, if you're standing from the sidelines and didn't know much about the whole thing, you'd say, 'The National Firearms Agreement, that must have come up from the Martin Place siege, that must have had something to do with the Adler, because there's this Adler floating around now and it's the big problem. Once we solve the Adler, once we reduce that, we're really doing a good job to solving, reducing gun deaths in Australia.' Which is absolute rubbish. If it wasn't so serious, it would be laughable that you're going to cut bloody farmers down from seven shots to five shots when you're shooting pigs, that that's going to make people safe in the cities. It's a pretty small piece of the puzzle, this one category of firearm.

Paddy Manning: The revised National Firearms Agreement won't come into effect until each state and territory passes their own legislation. So far only New South Wales and the ACT have done so.

Robbie Katter is hoping to use his balance of power to stop the legislation when it gets to the Queensland parliament.

But you're waiting for legislation. Will you block it?

Robbie Katter: Absolutely. We've been quick to jump on any of those principled positions in parliament. Some of them probably cost us votes, a lot of votes, but we've been quick to jump on them and stop them.

Paddy Manning: But Katter's tactic threatens to fragment the national approach agreed under former Prime Minister John Howard in 1996. It's the worst nightmare of gun control advocates like Sam Lee.

Samantha Lee: We believe that the gun laws are collapsing, and what we have done is commissioned research into gun laws across Australia. What that research will provide is an outline of how each state and territory is failing to comply with the 1996 Firearms Agreement. Our suspicion is that most state and territories have watered down their gun laws, and that our gun laws are in major danger.

Paddy Manning: The backlash to the Adler ban is so strong that the revised National Firearms Agreement may not even be implemented by the states, according to importer, Robert Nioa.

Robert Nioa: I'm not convinced that states are actually going to go and implement that ban. The Justice Minister has put in writing that the National Firearm Agreement is not a binding agreement on the states. I'm not convinced that every state will.

Paddy Manning: Up in north Queensland, Nioa says, recent polling shows that one in five Labor voters in three Townsville seats will shift their vote on guns, and the government has to be careful

Robert Nioa: There is certainly no positive for them in regional seats, however they are very, very keen to try and attract the green votes in west end and inner-city Brisbane, and this is the sort of issue that will play very, very well for people that don't know anything about firearms, and they can be seen to be doing something without doing anything and it will give them some ground against the Greens.

Paddy Manning: The minority Labor government depends on the support of the Katter Australia Party

Robbie Katter warns we could see a repeat of the 1998 Queensland election and the rise of One Nation, if the government gets the licensed shooters offside.

Robbie Katter: 180,000 voters in Queensland, that's a pretty respectable proportion of the vote. That's getting very significant in Queensland, and that starts changing governments. You start messing around, picking fights with these people…I think it was back in 1998, I think, we saw 11 MPs, One Nation, in parliament on the gun laws. I think that's what…the Labor Party in Queensland will run the risk of poking a tiger with this issue.

Paddy Manning: The Queensland government declined to speak to Background Briefing.

But Sam Lee from Gun Control Australia says the gun lobby is disproportionately powerful.

Samantha Lee: There's a lot of tension up there in Queensland and there's a very strong gun lobby voice up in Queensland. I don't think that the Labor Party may risk putting this legislation forward because it's too contentious.

Paddy Manning: The Shooters say that it could cost Labor the election.

Samantha Lee: Look, Labor's very concerned about the Shooters' vote at the moment, and who knows up in Queensland just what impact this legislation may have.

Paddy Manning: But Sam Lee says Essential Media polling shows the overwhelming majority of Australians, almost 90%, think our national gun laws are about right, or not strong enough.

Samantha Lee: So what I would say to the Labor government is that do your homework and don't just listen to the gun lobby, listen to other voices who are very concerned about the rise in a gun culture here in Australia.

Paddy Manning: Gun ownership is rising. There are more than 800,000 licensed firearms owners and they own almost three million registered guns. Annual gun imports have quadrupled in the past 20 years.

The pro-gun vote is rising too, with the Shooters Party, or sympathetic minor parties like the Katter Australia Party, the Liberal Democrats, or One Nation, represented in almost every parliament.

The gun industry made political donations worth more than $350,000 in 2015-2016 alone.

Robert Nioa is a key political donor. His firm has given $180,000 to the Katter Australia Party and Liberal Democrats over the past five years, and that's not all.

Robert Nioa: Well, Robbie Katter and his father Bob don't need any encouragement from me regarding firearm legislation. Bob has been a campaigner and his views are well known on firearms, and have been before I met his daughter. But I also donate to the Shooters and Fishers Party. We've donated to certainly the LNP. Running political parties in Australia, they run lots of different fund raisers and events and so on, the Liberal Democrats I've supported as well. So I certainly do, where people are trying to attempt to have an evidence-based approach to firearm policy.

Paddy Manning: What do you get for your money there?

Robert Nioa: I'd like to say I get a lot, but at the end of the day, it's like anyone else that can engage with their local members of parliament from any group, you don't get any direct favours.

Paddy Manning: With the power of the gun lobby rising, I spoke to Diana Melham, the state director at the Sporting Shooters Association of NSW, which is affiliated with the US National Rifle Association.

She'd be perfectly happy to see an end to the National Firearms Agreement.

Paddy Manning: So do you support recreational access to semi-automatic weapons, for example?

Diana Melham: I think if a person has been deemed a fit and proper person to own a firearm, then I think that access to those firearms should be made available to them.

Paddy Manning: Okay, and what about fully automatic weapons?

Diana Melham: Again, I guess the stance is if a person is a fit and proper person…there is quite a vetting process that you have to go through to get a firearms licence…

Paddy Manning: A criminal record check.

Diana Melham: Oh absolutely, criminal record check, and it doesn't stop once you've got your licence, so that monitoring is constantly there.

Paddy Manning: So if the Association had its way, any person who doesn't have a criminal record could get access to a fully automatic weapon?

Diana Melham: If a person goes through the appropriate licensing process and they are deemed a fit and proper person to own a firearms licence, then I don't believe there should be restrictions on the types of firearms that that they can access, within reason.

Paddy Manning: Where's the limit? Military-style assault rifles? Is that going too far? Where would you draw the line?

Diana Melham: Okay, I'm not going to go any further with this, yeah, yeah I think…because where you're going now is where my personal opinion as opposed to my work opinion…

Paddy Manning: Oh no, no, I don't want your personal…

Diana Melham: So I have to be really, really careful...

Paddy Manning: So can I ask does the Association still support the National Firearms Agreement that was reached in 1996 and just reviewed?

Diana Melham: No, we don't. I think that our stance is that we need sensible, effective firearms laws, that are based on genuine consultation. The National Firearms Agreement process, there was no genuine consultation throughout that process.

Paddy Manning: Not everyone goes as far as the Sporting Shooters, and they do support fit and proper person tests, unlike some pro-gun groups in the US.

David Shoebridge: When it comes to our gun laws we either defend them or we let them fall apart like happened in the US. The US didn't lose the war on guns and firearms at one moment, it was eaten away by the gun lobby with one law after another law after another law, what was billed as a minor reform after minor reform after minor reform and they finally got to where they are now, a society saturated in firearms. Those of us in gun control in Australia see what happened in the United States and that's why we take a very vigilant approach to any watering down of our gun laws.

Paddy Manning: That's David Shoebridge from the NSW Greens.

The Adler opens up the divide between city and country, between those who need guns for their livelihood, and those who are concerned about gun violence. A call for evidence based policy is a reasonable demand from both sides.

The danger for the major parties is pushing shooters and disaffected rural voters to more extreme positions, something in the US that is called 'The Trump Effect'. Robbie Katter is onto it:

Robbie Katter: I think there's a lot of people out there sitting at home that are sick to death of politicians saying, 'I'm going save from these terrible gun crimes, because I'm going to ban this gun,' and taking opportunist positions. Deep in their mind, in their consciousness there somewhere, they're saying, 'This guy's full of it. He's just playing me for a fool. I don't even care about firearms, but I'm sick to death of these guys just picking on issues, and picking on some group and trying to make a name for themself. I'm sick of these politicians. I don't care, I'll vote for Donald Trump. I don't even care. I just want to get rid of this person.' You know?

Paddy Manning: Background Briefing's co-ordinating producer is Linda McGinness, sound engineer this week is Simon Branthwaite, the series producer is Jess O'Callaghan, Suzanne Smith is our executive producer, and I'm Paddy Manning.

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