Presentation 6/7 - National Gun Conference – Senator Bridget McKenzie

this is the sixth presentation given at the 2024 National Gun conference and this is by Senator Bridget McKenzie on the topic what Shooters can do to improve their Outlook anything I'd like to welcome Senator Bridget McKenzie who's here today so so I've got you on mute at the moment and her timing is impeccable because she's actually got the next presentation so um good afternoon Bridget how are you ah great to be with you uh can you hear me sure every excellent um thank you I'm down in Hamilton in Western Victoria at an event called Sheep vention um which is obviously a convention about sheep but it's a pretty awesome uh day Big Field Day um what what I'll do what so just introduce your your title so Senator McKenzie's title is presentation is what Shooters can do to improve their Outlook and I'm just going to uh just introduce you so Bridget is the shadow Minister for infrastructure transport and Regional development and the leader of the Nationals in the Senate she's a former cabinet minister and the First Federal female agriculture Minister and has held a number of portfolios including Emergency Management National Recovery and resilience sport Regional Communications education and health uh Bridget was elected as senator for Victoria in 2010 and she holds a bachelor for Applied assign science and education uh specializing in mathematics and physical education and has elected at Mish University and she's the author of a biography of former country party prime minister John McKuen right man right place right time and you're quite assur to yourself so thank you for joining us and the floor is yours ah thanks Neil great to be with you all and I just want to congratulate um you for organizing something that I think all of us in all of our different spaces and places have been waiting for and that's to get one United kind of conversation shall we say in this Federated space and place um that favors law abiding firearm owners and and what we need to do you know what we like to do has economic benefits has social benefits uh has environmental benefits and I I don't think we should ever stop promoting that uh as part of what each of us does in our own space a big shout out to my former boss Nigel scallion good to see you n and uh former colleague David lelm um lovely to see you long time no see um I guess the way I can probably contribute um best to this conversation is just to give you a little bit of my experience over the last 14 years in Parliament um things that have worked things that haven't worked uh because I know you've been hearing from a raft of guest speakers um who are much better and much more experienced than I am in their field of endeavor so so including probably shooting but um I do enjoy it uh and and I might say when I did um kitchen cabinet um now a lot of you won't watch the ABC but kitchen cabinet is an ABC show um where uh Annabelle crab gets Poes and does amazing things with them with Nigel he they took him mud mud crabbing and uh when she rang me up she said Bridget I really want to go shooting I really want to do shooting with you and I said well annal I don't think the ABC audience is ready for deer hunting and venison um backstrap capao as the dish dour uh on kitchen cabinet and and to her credit she laughed um she is a country girl and she said no no we can't do Bambi but can we do Clays and and to her credit she couldn't wait she loved it and if I'm at the airport at sheep mention in the shopping center and people that's the most recognized thing they remember me shooting with Annabel crab who they love so it is about taking those moments in our all of our professional lives to demystify hunting and shooting to normalize hunting and shooting and to normalize hunters and Shooters in the eyes of the broader Australian public um yes we have you know there's a militancy uh there's a political arm Etc that has to be employed but that social license to be militant to be political also has to come with a legitimacy and that legitimacy in a democracy like ours comes from people accepting that you have a right um and a privilege to do what we get to want to do and and so I think part of that is normalizing and demystifying and I've tried to take that mindset into everything I've done um or tried to do uh in my political career around firearm ownership and um furthering our cause because once we lose that it then becomes very easy if you're the demonized it becomes very easy for political uh forces to separate you from Joe citizen from from the broader body politic and therefore you're abnormal and we can do things to that group over there that we would never do to this group over here and uh so that's why I want to keep us as part of the mainstream as much as possible and that's why Penny winning a bronze uh Olympics are great for us because they are part of that broader Australian narrative um one of the things I was able to do in Parliament was to set up the Parliamentary friends of Shooters a bipartisan group and David was a member of that group when he was in the Senate as was n um and it contines to this day so um rapol Dan rapol is my co-chair uh he's obviously a a a sporting pistol shooter and that is a great way for media to understand who we are because we have an annual poly shoot against the media they come out to a clay range they meet us all they have a go they realize it's not as crazy as they thought it was and Shooters are actually quite normal people and so the next time they're asked to do a story about a shooting or um you know something particularly from the left leftwing um part of our country they have a better lens on which to analyze the data and to speak to the community and so that's been a really powerful piece and I've noticed a change in the media out of CRA reporting on firearms and Firearm owners over the decade so I would be recommending to anyone and I don't have a view an understanding of who's on the on the zoom but if you involved in state politics my ideal would be that we would have a parliamentary friends of Shooters in every single state and territory and that we would have a convention or a biannual convention um similar to what they do in the US with the sporting the Sportsman's caucus which becomes a caucus where we share um intelligence and understanding not just about the activity itself but legislation um across state and and federal spheres that can impact our ability to do that so just an example um when I was Minister for regional Communications the last government Australia Post decided they weren't going to um allow certain businesses uh to post packages of certain sizes and dimensions which meant that um Australian Shooters wouldn't be able to actually uh receive their firearms or their ammunition via Australia Post and FedEx had refused to do it as well so we actually had a situation where you were asking people say from wa or the territory or Queensland to drive 7 hours 8 hours 10 hours 12 hours to their Lo to the nearest Capital City to pick it up um so being able to find those pieces of legislation call the CEO in do the Roundtable set up the conversation with business and actually affect change that way um that only comes when you've got MPS from all sides of politics um and in all levels of government who are prepared to share the information and who were plugged into stakeholders who are going to go hey Bridget I only knew about that because you know Farmers from wa got really aggro about it and called me and said you know this is going to be an animal husbandry issue for me because I can't actually have um the ammo and the Firearms I need to actually care for my Livestock in a way that's Humane and then obviously all those other flow on impacts so I would like to see something like that set up um I've also been asked to uh speak about how I think we can move things forward and I I think wa has got some really Draconian legislation in front of it at the moment at a state level um and unfortunately both the major parties are backing it um it's only the national party and minor parties um in wa who are saying no to those changes and that tells me we've got a way to go in normalizing the conversation about what law abiding firearm owners need to do to do our thing and so we've got to fight against that and and I noce someone said oh we don't want to be political sorry I'm over that that is a I won't use all the adjectives I was going to use um you know life is political every single decision you make that H you know that someone doesn't agree with is a political decis decision and you've assessed the cost benefit analysis of that before you make the decision before you articulate that publicly we need to be braver more courageous more secure in who we are and our genuine need to exist you can't be celebrating women with gold medals around their necks and the very next minute stopping the club houses where that next generation of athlete is grown in every little country town around the country operating you don't grow Olympic athletes uh once they turn 18 there's no sport that does that um so there's a whole kind of um cascading impact of decision that seem inconsequential over here that result in significant impacts here so times of the Olympics I think are times that as an industry I'll call us an industry I don't know what we're going to call it a community um that whether you're into or not you're going to have to start celebrating it and normalizing it because that's the in it's the in to young people it's the in to funding it's the into legitimizing and it's the into women it's the into women um now I don't know how long I'm a senator so I can go for 20 minutes without a breath um but if if you'd like to go to questions I'm really happy to it's often the best way to get um the most out of a conversation okay so uh again I'm just trying to organize a couple things okay if anybody's got any questions or comments to the Senator's speech then I'm always I'm always good for a comment or a question Neil interesting you mentioned a caucus um Bridget Neil and David uh put this together and obviously we as Shooters Union came out quickly and supporting a concept of a National Conference um and uh Tom from WSAA has been speaking about exactly this same kind I don't know whether you saw some of the material we spoke about earlier but it's funny there's a Common Thread here we're all speaking the same language um is something like a National Conference that we're starting now that we hope to build into being a venue based conference um perhaps at the back end end of a gun show in Brisbane or shot show I was just going to say it'll be perfect at the front or the end or during a shot show absolutely correct and so that's what you were referring to as something like that well yeah so I this is what we this is what we're hoping to build towards I sorry say this is what we're hoping to build towards yeah David I I cannot re I cannot say that enough like um getting um seifa started was critical instead of competing against each other that those Lads had to come together and getting them in a room and saying I'm from government I'm a shooter you can't all come to me separately you need to get together and they they they formulated and and that has been a critical underpinning I think um for a lot of the work we do I will just put it out there like I have always been bedeviled about the fact that I go into a country town and there'll be a ACA target range there'll be a field and game target target range there'll be a double s doua target range an old mate who doesn't get along with any of those other men he'll have his own off off the Record out in the back Paddock like there is something unique about shooting we don't that that someone has a fight with someone in the 1970s and goes and sets up the same thing just down the road that's got to end and you don't want that culture that's probably the culture that's kept everyone separated over a long time and and that's allowed them to pick us off so I think coming together despite differences and that's why I think the idea of a caucus is better because it's not a political party per se and it is finding political situations and talking about a political construct and political Solutions without a singular ideology um Tom Bridget I should just introduce myself hello I'm Tom Kenyan I'm theate Member of Parliament in South Australia and um uh and now for two and a half weeks now the uh CEO of douaa so really just to say hello I very much enjoyed your talk just now and that what you just said about coming together as you know in with one message at least if not one group um is a very good news well it's it's a good message to be giving to the Firearms industry more generally and I think it's super possible right we're well resourced just we're just got to not let the fact that there's a lot of Chiefs get in way of the actual message um which is to legitimize because the social license is being taken away you know firearm owners shop you know you can't get Finance um they'll be stopping you being able to open new clubs um hunting is getting more and more restricted uh you know in my own home state and I hate to say this but if it wasn't for certain Heavies in in the labor party uh we'd be um unable to have a duck season so I mean this is the the reality that we have to deal with so getting moms and dads and kids on board talking about organically sustainably harvested protein um and sporting clubs just like your netball Club is what your local shooting club should be I think and obviously having the back room muscle then to to do the heavy hitting when you need to have it done I think that's a a a good model but a a caucus that is cross parliaments I think would be really really powerful because the legislation that binds a lot of the issues is at a state level not at a commonwealth L I'm sure that one of your former colleagues might have something to say so one of the issues that uh that I found very disheartening when I was in the Senate with Bridget was how difficult it was to get the consultative committee up and running even at the federal level um hearing uh the government needed to hear from Shooters um it needed to hear from the dealers and those trying to import um firearm parts and ammunition and Firearms themselves but also there were there were a multitude of issues from appearances to categorizations of firearms and all all the sorts of things that you're familiar with and yet um uh I I found it extremely frustrating that uh under the Abbott turle um government during the time when I was in the Senate we basically didn't get the consoled committee up and functioning at all and uh one of the um and that was despite the fact that at least for part of the time the relevant Minister was in the Senate in uh Linda Reynolds so I I I found that quite discouraging and I don't think I mean it you know I try not to be pessimistic about um about this um but it certainly doesn't encourage anybody to think that we're making any progress when even at you know basic talking to government level um it doesn't happen any thoughts on that Bridget yeah David thank you my understanding is the consultative committee did get up and going because I sat down with the minister and said you can't have that group you've got to have that group that and we actually had rather than people had organizations being a part of that the problem was as I understood it was that it wasn't um solidified appropriately and so dissolved that it doesn't exist now so just completely um dissolved I I'm yeah I I was of the understanding that it was set up field and game were on itaa was on it ca was on it the dealers were on it so my understanding was that it was eventually set up but it me twice and it achieved s all so you know we might both be right but well we might both be right which can also be true but but I mean I I guess the you know the hope would be that um a consultative committee like that might be listened to um taken notice of and there was no evidence that that was ever the case well and and I think you're right David it has to be permanent not something that a given Minister can at their whim um decide to listen to hold meetings sometimes um and as I recall it was um there people were being sent down uh rabbit holes on who were making the decisions around things that weren't actually the case so a proper structure around having a consultative committee to whoever that Minister happens to be it's usually an assistant minister in the home Affairs portfolio I I think that's something that this group outside of me but um hopefully wearing government can implement it is actually part of a policy platform that caucus would put to as Nigel was saying um all sides of politics and saying we want a permanent consultative committee at a federal level we want you know like what are the high order principles that we can all agree on that don't get into a level of granularity that mean we all disintegrate but that there's two or three things that are non-negotiables um would be I think You' got a federal election coming up uh you'll have a wa election next year you've got a Queensland election very very shortly but whether there's um something that a caucus could sort of agree on because at a bare minimum consultative committees should exist and the minister should have to meet with x amount of times it should be a formulated process of feedback and input i i i quite agree could I just speak to the success we've had in Queensland Bridget it's this may not be the perfect solution but yeah for many years we had police ministers up here that were let's just go suboptimal Mark Ryan came along oh yeah and Mark is on the sort of the Left End of the spectrum um he's a lawyer so he sort of gets law I knew him personally as he was a patron of a pistol club that I was a member of uh for a period of time so I got to meet him through that um uh experience and when he became police Minister the first thing we did was fire in and go come on we want some proper consultation to his credit um and you know we could pick on him for a lot of things but to his credit he has been consultative listening as much or maybe the police don't listen as much as they should but we do have a forum and we do meet reasonably regularly two to three times a year and this has been going on for a few years so it certainly works and apart from anything else it also gets us and the Dealers Association and douaa and a few other interest groups we're all in the same room that's right if they're telling Porky pies we all get to hear it and then ween will go away and you know combat it for the next meeting so um I would encourage other states um and look we're starting to do it a bit in Us South Wales um I know douaa uh in some states are stronger than others certainly up here they're very active alongside us um certainly in South Australia we've got some good representation uh going on down there and obviously Tom's from South Australia so I'm hoping that maybe some of the other states can actually learn from what we've been doing up here we'd like to make it more productive of course but um yeah I think you know you you got to get everybody at the table and make sure that it is an ongoing thing so whether we get another what's his name Steven miles lead government Lord help us um in the future or we get a LMP Kap crossbench balance of power type government which would be excellent um we want to keep that process going with the next Minister and I think that suggestion is something that we could all take away in into every other state jurisdiction it reinforces Bridget's point that that this needs to be entrenched embedded if what I can't remember the word she used the point is of course that with the change of minister in Queensland you might lose all of that and that's the risk and that was the certainly the situation in the federal Arena when um ministers were coming and going you know the committee would would start to get established and then Minister would change and then the committee would disappear it needs to be embedded in the system so that it's it's not subject to changes in Personnel yeah well to that end I mean we're obviously working on the potential other minister the future Minister if he becomes it um so that that does continue so yes you've got to work with both sides of politics um and you know I'm pretty apolitical you know if if Mark Ryan came out and said we're going to adopt a whole new raft of laws and regulations that Shooters Union are really really happy with I'd be saying vote one Mark Ry yeah I don't care what party you're from this is bit more this is a more single issue uh matter which um which I think we've all spoken to today anyway I should be quiet for a bit all right I think I score we'll call this one to an end now