The Right Leader for a Decisive Moment
When the SSAA NSW Board met on the evening of 2 July 2026 and unanimously appointed Jai Rowell as SSAA NSW President, it backed a leader ready to build on the foundations laid by former President Lance Miller and take SSAA NSW into its next chapter. Few people know this Association as intimately as its new President, and almost nobody has served it in as many different roles.
Jai steps into the Presidency at a genuinely consequential moment for law-abiding firearms owners in New South Wales. The Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment (TOLA) Act 2025 and the broader package of firearms law reform now before the State present the most significant regulatory challenge the shooting community has faced in a generation. The members of SSAA NSW have every right to ask what kind of leadership they are getting.
The short answer is: experienced, energetic, and focused on results rather than just headlines.
Not a Stranger to SSAA NSW
Jai served five years as CEO and Executive Director of SSAA NSW, a period he has described as a passion rather than a job. Working alongside then-President Lance Miller and the Board, he oversaw year-on-year membership and financial growth, secured millions of dollars in grant funding for range development and upgrades across branches, and guided the Association through the COVID-19 pandemic and out the other side in a stronger position than it entered.
He also worked hand in hand with Lance on a sustained advocacy effort, appearing before government and its agencies to make the case for law-abiding firearms owners and, just as importantly, to head off the unintended consequences that poorly drafted legislation so often creates for people who have done nothing wrong. That work delivered real wins for members, amendments secured, problems fixed before they reached the statute book, and outcomes that never made headlines precisely because the damage was stopped before it was done.
Some of that work was structural and unglamorous, which is precisely why it mattered. He led the conversion of SSAA NSW from an Incorporated Association to a Company Limited by Guarantee, strengthened the governance framework that sits behind it, and stabilised the financial base so that more could be spent where members actually see it. He secured new ranges in both rural and metropolitan New South Wales, and led the communications reform that made SSAA NSW one of the most connected peak bodies with its own membership in the Association’s history.
Before that, he was the inaugural General Manager of the SSAA NSW Auburn Shooting Centre, and General Manager of St Marys Indoor Shooting Centre, where he turned the operation’s financial position around and delivered the highest patronage in the Centre’s history. It is experience that matters more than it might sound. Jai knows how to run a range: the rosters and the range officers, the safety systems, the compliance paperwork and the commercial realities. He has done it himself, day in and day out.
He now chairs the Board of SSAA Pty Ltd supporting St Marys Indoor Shooting Centre and volunteers as its Company Secretary. He is a Director of SSAA National and sits on its Finance, Legal Oversight and Legislative Action committees, having previously served on the Disciplines Committee. He is a Founding Director of SSAA Mutual Pty Ltd and a Director of SSAA Insurance Brokerage Pty Ltd. He has also served on the NSW Game and Pest Board under the Department of Primary Industries, and has been appointed repeatedly to government working groups on shooting sports, hunting and game and pest management.
The View from Outside the Tent
What makes the appointment unusual is what Jai brings from beyond the shooting community.
He holds a degree in Law and is a Fellow of Law at a major university. He has served as an elected local government councillor, as a Member of the New South Wales Parliament, and as a Minister of the Crown. He has worked across all three levels of government, including as a Chief of Staff and adviser federally, and today holds a senior executive role in local government as an Executive General Manager.
That background matters for a specific and practical reason. Advocacy for firearms owners is won by pressing the case hard and pressing it where it counts. It is won by knowing how a bill becomes an Act, where the drafting error is, which committee will hear the evidence, and how to make a case that a Minister, a shadow Minister and a crossbencher can each carry back to their own party room. Jai has sat on the other side of that table. He has also served within the bureaucracy itself, so he understands how the parliamentary system and its agencies actually work: who drafts, who advises, who decides, and where a well-made case can change an outcome. He knows what a good submission looks like when it lands, and what a bad one looks like when it is quietly filed.
“Our members don’t need us always to be the loudest voice in the room. They need us to be the most credible and the hardest to dismiss. Make no mistake: we will push hard, we will push constantly, and we will not stop in supporting law abiding firearms owners. We have had incredible success in the past and we must double that resolve for the future!”
Still on the Range
For all the boardroom history, the thing Jai mentions first is much closer to the ground. He remains a Branch President, and a firearms safety instructor to this day. Ask him what he finds most rewarding and the answer is not a legislative win or a grant announcement. It is introducing someone new to the sport.
“There is nothing quite like watching someone shoot safely for the first time. The concentration, then the grin they can’t help: that moment never gets old. They arrive nervous and they leave hooked, and they leave knowing this sport is nothing like what they’d been told. Every one of those people is a win for our community. That’s advocacy too. But most importantly, it is a reminder of why we do any of this, the sport is worth sharing, and every new shooter keeps it alive.”
Hitting the Ground Running
Jai has not treated the first weeks of the Presidency as a settling-in period. He has moved quickly to meet with stakeholders including industry and the wider shooting community, re-affirming the relationships that give SSAA NSW its standing and opening new ones.
He will take the advocacy case directly to decision-makers on the issues facing law-abiding firearms owners, rather than waiting for the next consultation round, or an outcome delivered without consultation, to come to him. Alongside that, he has taken up the leadership of a Board already working well, keeping the Association’s priorities firmly on the work that matters to members and branches and carrying that momentum forward. Just as importantly, he has been working closely with a number of Branches and members directly, helping them through a wide array of issues from compliance and range matters to the day-to-day problems that come with running a branch on the simple basis that the State President should be reachable by the people the Association exists to serve.
The pace has been deliberate. The issues facing firearms owners will not wait, and neither will he.
What Comes Next
Jai has been clear with the Board and with branches about where his early focus sits.
• Members and branches first.
Jai will lead a Board whose every decision is measured against one test: does this help our members and our branches? They are the reason the Association exists, and anything that does not support them is a waste of the Association’s time and their money.
• Legislative engagement.
Continuing SSAA NSW’s evidence-based advocacy regarding TOLA and the current reform package, in coordination with industry and strategic stakeholders. Lance will play a significant role in this space with more details to follow.
• Places to shoot.
Continued work on range development, upgrades and compliance, because participation depends on access.
• Branch support.
Practical help, better tools and stronger back-up for the volunteers who carry the Association, so that the good people running our branches have everything they need to succeed.
• Transparency.
Members should not have to guess what their Association is doing on their behalf. Jai has committed to regular, plain communication about decisions, advocacy and finances, so that every member and every branch hears what is going on from SSAA NSW first.
• Board and management capability.
Investment in director development and professional development for the senior management team, on the straightforward principle that an organisation of this scale should be governed to a standard that stands up to any scrutiny.
He also inherits a genuinely strong position, and he is the first to say so. Lance Miller’s decade as President built SSAA NSW into the organisation it is today, and Lance has not left the field, he is leading a dedicated legislative engagement effort against TOLA. The working relationship between the two men is long-standing and well tested, and Jai’s intention is to build on that foundation; to take an Association in strong shape and lift it further again.
“Lance handed over an Association in the strongest shape it has ever been in. My job is to build on that. To protect what Lance and the Board created, keep raising the standard, and make sure that when the pressure comes, and it is coming, we are the organisation that is not just ready, but ahead of it.”
