But with five weeks until the May 18 federal poll, gun groups are planning a more restrained campaign amid growing concerns about their political influence. “You couldn’t be a human being and not be affected by the Christchurch atrocity,” said SIFA spokeswoman Laura Patterson, of the New Zealand mosque shootings in which 50 people died last month. Messages of support for the victims of the Christchurch shooting left at Melbourne's Newport Mosque. Credit:Chris Hopkins Ms Patterson said the “zeitgeist’’ was not right for the gun industry to be campaigning in its own interests. She also confirmed that SIFA would no longer donate to parties or individual candidates. “If you have a look back on our evolution, I think it’s fair to say we’ve learned a lot about our attempt to influence debate. We don’t believe donations are effective.

“I also think the community believes political donations buy influence and are jack of them.” SIFA represents some of the nation's largest gun suppliers, including Queensland-based NIOA, and Australian offshoots of international gun manufacturers Winchester and Beretta. As part of a low-key election strategy, it will call for an ongoing firearms amnesty, and has placed an advertisement in The Saturday Age urging voters to grill candidates about getting “illegal guns” off the streets. SIFA will use the election to call for a national amnesty on illegal guns. Credit:Nick Moir The group has also written to all parties seeking their positions on an amnesty (which would benefit gun dealers as they could sell firearms handed in); a national digital tracking system (allowing guns to be tracked in real time) and the reconvening of a defunct national firearms reference group (so industry experts can have a greater say on policy).

Meanwhile, the national branch of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia has also flagged a limited election role, with the exception of a special election issue of its journal urging its 190,000-strong membership to preference the Greens last. An advanced copy obtained by The Age shows the group has also identified pro and anti-gun MPs to guide members’ votes. Among the so-called “detractors” on the SSAA’s hit list is Liberal MP Jason Wood, from the marginal Victorian seat of La Trobe, who was singled out as “the main architect” of a policy banning Australian trophy hunters from bringing home lions shot overseas. It also targeted ACT Labor MP Andrew Leigh for his role as co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Gun Control, while the group’s list of “supporters” include Liberals Ian Goodenough and Ross Vasta, and Labor agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon.

In Queensland the SSAA has been a strong supporter of Katter’s Australian Party, including at the 2016 election. But on Friday SSAA Queensland spokesman and national president Jeff Jones said that, while a decision had not yet been taken, he doubted his association would contribute so much at this election. The Christchurch shootings, Al Jazeera revelations of One Nation’s flirtation with the notorious National Rifle Association in the US, and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party's growth has made firearms a first-order political issue in Australia. Loading Campaigning by SIFA and gun user groups has drawn comparisons with the NRA and warnings the lobby is trying to water down Australia's gun laws. While the industry vehemently denies such suggestions, a recent report by progressive think-tank The Australia Institute found pro-gun groups had donated $1.7 million to political parties since 2011, based on public disclosures to federal and state electoral commissions.

The main beneficiaries of gun lobby donations were Katter’s Australian Party, with more than $800,000, and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, with almost $700,000. Major donors included NIOA, Sporting Shooters, the Federation of Hunting Clubs and SIFA. “My concern is what they're doing behind the scenes,” said Gun Control president Sam Lee, who commissioned the report with contributions from leftist group GetUp. “Which ministers are they meeting? What sort of conversations are they having? What are they doing in Queensland where NIOA is based?” SIFA was founded in 2014 and has made direct donations of more than $156,000 to candidates from across the political spectrum, with notable exceptions of the Greens and One Nation. It played a central role in the controversial $550,000 ‘Flick ’em’ campaign in the 2017 Queensland election, which called on voters to put major parties last. And it ran the ‘Not Happy Dan’ campaign at the 2018 Victorian election, which made no mention of guns but emphasised broader issues like the cost of living.

Now SIFA says such campaigns may well be over. Certainly its federal election involvement will be lower key and less aggressive. Ms Patterson said that, other than the advertisement in today’s Age, no paid media was planned. University of Sydney expert Philip Alpers, who runs the website GunPolicy.Org - which compares gun law across 350 world-wide jurisdictions - agreed the current climate made it difficult for the gun lobby to aggressively push for widespread reform. To that end, it was not surprising SIFA had simply placed an ad calling for an ongoing amnesty, he said, “as their main intent is to trade and sell more guns”. Labor MP Anthony Byrne, who co-chairs the Parliamentary Friends of Shooting group, is deemed a “supporter” by the Sporting Shooters Association, presumably, he said, because he had a “respectful relationship” with them.

However, he was adamant he would never support weakening gun laws and would resist development of an Australian NRA. “Post-Christchurch we need to have a conversation that will ensure we never get a pernicious group like the NRA in Australia.” Do you know more? Contact us securely via Journotips