Gun Buyback
Last Saturday, Pete Szaak and I were standing on a brand new range outside Dubbo, talking about where the next generation of shooters in the Central West will learn to shoot safely. By that evening, the Government had announced the buyback.
Most of you did not hear it from anyone in government. You heard it from a late news bulletin, or from a mate forwarding a link, and by Sunday morning the phones had started and did not stop.
So let me be straight with you, which is what this column is for. Here is what was announced, where your SSAA NSW stands, and what we did about it that weekend.
What was announced
From Monday 2 November, New South Wales becomes the first state to commence the Commonwealth’s National Gun Buyback Scheme. It will be administered by NSW Police and funded fifty-fifty by the State and the Commonwealth.
Phase 1 applies to licence and permit holders who sit above the new ownership limits, or who hold firearms that have been reclassified or prohibited under the Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2025 (TOLA). Payment is set by a fixed schedule:
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A flat fee is also payable for associated ammunition. Phase 2, from early 2027, is to open a paid pathway to further compensation for eligible firearms with an indicative market value above $3,000, capped at $10,000 per firearm.
On the Government’s own numbers this reaches around 274,000 registered firearms, roughly a quarter of everything registered in this state, held by some 50,000 licence holders. There is also an industry package: grants of up to $25,000 for eligible dealers and businesses, one-off licence fee relief, and advisory support.
New South Wales is, at present, the only jurisdiction proceeding.
Where SSAA NSW stands
Our position has not shifted. We oppose this scheme, and we continue to call for its repeal. Should it proceed, fair and reasonable compensation should reflect genuine value.
Every firearm this scheme will collect is already registered. Every one of them is recorded by the NSW Firearms Registry, held by a person who has passed a police check, and stored in a safe that meets a legal standard in a home that can be inspected.
Our concern remains that the scheme primarily impacts licensed firearms owners who are already operating within an extensive regulatory framework, rather than addressing the criminal misuse of firearms. Those affected include sporting shooters, farmers, hunters, collectors and family businesses who have complied with the requirements placed upon them.
We remain concerned that the proposed fixed compensation schedule may not reflect the genuine market value of many affected firearms, particularly where replacement costs are substantially higher. We will continue to advocate for fair and reasonable compensation that properly recognises the value of property affected by the scheme.
The announcement also raised more questions than it answered. Much of the detail will sit in regulations that have not yet been made. Until those regulations are known, nobody can say with certainty how this will operate in practice or what it will mean for an individual licence holder or dealer.
And there is the Registry itself. We are acutely aware of the existing backlogs in permits to acquire, genuine reason applications and licence applications. Those delays will directly determine whether members are forced into a position of having to surrender or sell. They must be resolved before any scheme proceeds.
Bills to repeal this legislation are about to be debated in both the state and federal parliaments. Given those bills are shortly to be debated, we believe there is a strong case for Government to allow that parliamentary process to occur before implementation proceeds.
One of our concerns arising from the announcement was the apparent lack of timely information sharing between government agencies. We acknowledge that this may not have been deliberate; however, our position remains that government policy should focus on criminal misuse of firearms while ensuring licensed, law-abiding firearms owners are treated fairly and proportionately.
What we did that weekend
Your association did not wait for Monday.
From the moment the announcement broke, we were on the phone speaking with many politicians including from the Government, Opposition, and with the minor parties. We want to thank every one of them who took our calls and listened, and we want to thank in particular those who are standing with us on this; many of them recorded video messages of support for SSAA NSW that same day.
I also want to thank CEO Pete Szaak and Candice Appel, who both travelled a long way on a Sunday to meet me in the office so we could tackle the whole thing together rather than in pieces over the phone. That is not in anybody’s position description. It is simply what people do when they care about the outcome.
And thank you to the other associations and key stakeholders who moved with us working as one. That unity is worth more to our case than any single argument any of us could make alone.
Beyond that weekend, the advocacy has continued as we engage with the Government, Opposition and the crossbench. We are pressing for the regulations to be released and properly consulted on before commencement. We are pressing hard on the Registry backlogs. We are working with dealers and industry, who are wearing real losses through no fault of their own. And as the detail is released, we will publish plain-English guidance so that members are not left interpreting a media release on their own.
And then there is you
More than 100,000 of you opened a text message, opened an email or watched a post backing our advocacy that weekend. Over a thousand of you followed our Facebook page for the very first time.
I do not want that to slide past as a statistic, because it is not one. Every one of those is a person who decided that this was worth their attention on a weekend. When a politician asks whether licensed firearms owners in this state are actually engaged, those numbers are the answer, and they landed on desks the same week they were needed.
So here is my one ask of you this week. If you are reading this and you have not yet followed the SSAA NSW Facebook page, please do: facebook.com/SSAANSW. It takes ten seconds. It costs you nothing. And it is one more way of showing every member of parliament in this state that we are large, we are organised and we are united.
Go and see your local member
The single most useful thing any member can do between now and November is to sit down with their local state MP.
Ask them, plainly and directly, where they stand on the buyback and on TOLA. Then tell them where you stand. Tell them you are a licensed, law-abiding firearms owner, that you have complied with every requirement ever placed on you, and what this scheme will actually mean for you, your family or your business. Your own story in your own words will do more than any submission I can write.
Please be courteous. I mean that seriously, and not only because it is the right way to behave. The moment anyone is rude to an electorate officer or an MP, we hand non-supporters a reason to stop listening and a story to tell about us.
Face to face is best, so ring the electorate office and ask for an appointment. If a meeting cannot be arranged, ask to speak with your MP by phone. If that is not possible either, then send an email.
Every one of those contacts is counted. Members of parliament keep a very close eye on what is coming through the door, and they form a view about who is organised and who is just noisy. What we need them to see is a group that is large, united and focused. That is exactly what we are, and every conversation you have is one more piece of the evidence.
The road to Dubbo
Our members achieve things constantly, club records, state and national representation, juniors who out-perform their seniors, volunteers who have quietly done thirty years of service without anyone marking it.
Much of it goes unrecognised beyond the branch, and that is a shame. I would like us to be better at celebrating our own. If your branch has something worth sharing, send it through. I would far rather be forwarded good news than have to go looking for it.
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Which brings me back to where this column started.
On the Saturday, Pete and I pointed the car west for two reasons. The first was to sit down with the SSAA (NSW) Dubbo Branch and hear directly from the people who run it, which is the only reliable way to understand what a branch actually needs. The second was to walk the new Orana range before its official opening.
I am not going to spoil the opening by giving away too much here, but I will say this; standing on a brand new range only hours before the announcement was something special.
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Until next week: keep ’em on target, in the field and on the range!
Jai Rowell
President — SSAA NSW
