The WA Liberals now have a simple choice. Either avoid war by agreeing to the National’s rewrite of the state’s gun laws, or face political oblivion.
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It’s war!
A PUBLIC FIGHT between the Liberal and National parties in WA has created an opportunity for shooters to regain some of the ground they lost in recent times against the state’s draconian gun laws.
Coalition frayed at edges
The spat started after the Nationals said they would not form a coalition government with the Liberals unless it committed to repealing the new laws.
The Liberals retorted by suggesting the Nationals are leaving the door open to cutting deals with Labor at the next state election.
However the idea of the Nats siding with Labor is extremely unlikely.
In response, Liberal leader, Libby Mettam, held a media conference to refute the claim.
However, sources from both sides of parliament have described her move as ‘train wreck’, leaving several Liberal MPs at odds with their leader.
A two page article then appeared in the WA papers which brought the story together under the one roof.
Our take. It’s war alright…
IN OUR MOST RECENT PODCAST, we take you through that fight, and why the Liberals best hope for next year’s WA State Election is to dump their current leader.
We also explain why the Nationals have a bigger opportunity than they might realise, by going beyond simply repealing the current legislation.
If they simply did a ‘copy and paste’ from legislation in any other state, they would bring WA closer to uniformity with other states. After all, we are supposed to have a National Firearms Agreement. We don’t like the NFA but even this would be a lot better than what WA shooters have now.
WA has ‘property letters’, licences individual firearms (rather than just register them) and a host of other problems that set the state’s firearm regime up to fail.
Click the image below to watch our video on this matter.
An opportunity for WA shooters
The move by the Nationals raises an interesting challenge for the Liberals.
Half of the 10 Liberal MPs in WA either abstained from, or voted against, Labors gun laws.
This means there is real tension within the Liberal Party about this. Either face war with the Nats and shooters, or be unified against Labor. This creates an opportunity that WA shooters can exploit.
If the cards fall the right way, this could create a significant opportunity for shooters to retaliate against the Cook Government – and wind back the clock on what has been happening.
A win in the west would send a key message to shooters in other states.
Getting there will require a bit of luck in having things line up that way, but if enough shooters vote the right way at the next WA State Election, then it can happen.
Harvey hits the mark on WA’s policy shamble
We also suggest shooters check out WA journo, Ben Harvey’s, take on the state’s gun policy shamble.
It covers the story of how WA Police are now going ‘door to door’ to take guns off owners who had the law changed from underneath their feet – and the gun buyback debacle.
Check it out – from the 2:40 mark – by clicking here
