Signs threatening firearms violence on Tasmanian properties have sparked a fiery exchange in state parliament, adding fuel to an already heated debate over the state’s firearms laws.
Greens MP for Lyons Tabatha Badger raised the issue during question time this morning, pointing to signage on properties at Collinsvale.
A ‘no trespassing’ sign featuring an image of a firearm warns “f*** around and find out’.
Other signs said “trespassers will be shot not prosecuted” and “we don’t call 000”.
Badger described the signs as “understandably intimidating and frightening” to law-abiding Tasmanians, particularly given threats and attacks on police by armed self-described sovereign citizens.
She asked Police Minister Felix Ellis to condemn the signage and seek an urgent meeting with the Police Commissioner about public safety.
Ellis said there was “no place for firearms violence in our community” but stopped short of directly condemning the signs, calling private signage “a matter for landowners” while encouraging people to “be civil in their tone.”
He played down the issue, suggesting some of the signs were old and rusted.
Badger hit back, saying “reckless rhetoric like this” was “only emboldening people to continue to display it.”
She pressed Ellis again on whether he was “standing by threats of firearm violence” or would condemn it.
“As I said very clearly, there is no place for firearms violence in our community and we condemn it,” Ellis said.
The clash comes amid an ongoing battle over the government’s Firearms Amendment Bill, with the consultation period recently closing after hundreds of submissions were lodged.
Labor Shadow Police Minister Jen Butler has accused Ellis of wanting “unlimited guns in the community” and called a social media post of him holding a firearm “really not appropriate” for a police minister.
Butler said Tasmania has the highest rate of registered firearm ownership and highest rate of firearm theft per capita in the country.
“We have had a 104% increase in firearms being used in family violence incidents here in Tasmania,” she said.
Labor is pushing for a cap on the number of firearms owned by registered holders, a position backed by the Police Commissioner.
Ellis rejected caps, saying they do not apply to criminals and that other states including Queensland, South Australia and Victoria had reached the same conclusion.
He pointed to more than 11,000 people signing a petition opposing the proposed changes.
