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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 4499 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

(b) be an active member of an approved club, state that he or she intends to use the firearm solely for the purpose of taking part in recreational hunting activities conducted by the club and produce evidence that -

(i) the principal objects of the club are to conduct recreational hunting activities requiring the use of the firearm for which the licence is sought; and

(ii) the club has the permission of the owner or occupier of the land to conduct those activities on the land.

In the case of recreational hunting or vermin control on land within a reserved area under the Nature Conservation Act 1980 - produce evidence of permission given by an officer of the ACT Parks and Conservation Service or ACT Forests or a prescribed authority, to shoot on the land.".

This amendment was the compromise position we reached. The Government circulated last week an amendment that said an applicant for a recreational hunting or vermin control licence would no longer have to produce individual evidence or permission by a land owner or occupier if they are members of an approved club and state that they intend to use the firearm solely for the purpose of taking part in recreational hunting activities, that is, collective permission. This concerned us, so we propose to amend it to make sure that it is an active participant of the club.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (5.16): I should comment briefly on this one. There was some debate publicly and in our meeting yesterday about whether it was appropriate to require members of clubs that were engaged in recreational hunting or vermin control to have to individually obtain permission from landowners to shoot on the land or whether that could or should be a collective activity that members of that club could engage in by belonging to a club which in turn had permission of an owner or occupier of land to shoot on that land. As Ms Tucker has indicated, there is a compromise here. This allows for collective permission to be obtained; but, in turn, the member of the club who has that collective permission has to be an active member of that club. Merely being a nominal member of that club, a paper member of that club, is not sufficient to provide them with the right to have that licence for the purpose of recreational hunting or vermin control. I would suggest that this is an appropriate balance that will ensure that we do not unduly place a burden on landowners to administer a scheme of allowing access to their land.

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