'It's inadequate, I've admitted that': police minister sounds off on WA gun laws following Floreat murder

Australian Community Media

The Western Australian police minister, Paul Papalia said 'the threshold needs to be lower' in police intervention following the shocking Perth shooting death of Jenny and Gretl Petelczyc.

Transcript

00:00 I understand that since Arielle's statement was released yesterday, there's been quite

00:07 a few requests for me to comment and I appreciate that.

00:11 Just like to say at the outset, it's unbelievable or incomprehensible what people are going

00:19 through, all of the families, including Arielle and her mum, what they've confronted.

00:25 And I'd like to again extend my condolences and sympathies to everyone that's been impacted

00:31 by this terrible tragedy.

00:33 Where does the blame lie mostly, for the failures of the family?

00:40 So what I've got to say is, as I said on Monday, as I understand it, the police were approached

00:53 by Arielle and her mother and what they reported did not meet the threshold for application

01:02 of a police order.

01:04 I've said, and as a consequence of that, as I said on Monday, the Premier's asked the

01:09 police commissioner and myself to look at that.

01:12 My personal view is there's a need to lower that threshold and move into the space of

01:20 where there's an acrimonious breakup and there's known to be guns involved, move very quickly

01:26 to remove those guns.

01:28 We need to change the law because the current law is what dictates the process.

01:33 That's what dictated what happened here and it's inadequate.

01:37 I've acknowledged that.

01:38 That's why we've got new laws.

01:39 But in this particular case, with respect to removal of firearms in an acrimonious breakup,

01:46 I think we need to move earlier.

01:47 I've asked the police to provide us with a submission to potentially move amendments

01:53 to the current law that's going through the parliament.

01:55 So whilst it's in the parliament, we can amend it to specifically target that challenge.

02:02 It will upset some people because we'll be moving very early at the very first contact

02:08 potentially by someone in an acrimonious breakup where there are firearms involved.

02:13 Police will be moving to seize them.

02:15 And that will remove any discretion or concern around subjectivity around the process from

02:24 police.

02:25 As the police commissioner indicated, some of the things that were in the statement by

02:39 Ari or we hadn't heard before, he's directed an investigation into that whole matter.

02:45 And that's the right thing to do.

02:46 You requested that we talk about guns in light of a horrific gun murder only on Friday.

02:53 The laws are being debated.

02:55 They had been in part in the parliament for months.

02:59 They passed through the lower house.

03:01 They had been debated in the lower house.

03:04 They'd moved to the upper house.

03:05 They'd been debated for more than a week in the upper house by the time this incident

03:09 occurred and by the time your newsrooms requested that our comment.

03:11 It's a reasonable thing that we reflected on what was being done.

03:16 It would have been impossible for me not to have stated in what ways the murderer would

03:23 have been impacted by our new laws.

03:25 I didn't say that they would have prevented him having the ability to carry out the act.

03:32 But what I did say is there are at least four different ways the laws would have impacted

03:37 him.

03:38 He wouldn't have had the ability to have a collector's license for the Glock that he

03:42 used.

03:43 He wouldn't have had those under the new laws.

03:46 He would have had fewer firearms.

03:48 That's a fact.

03:49 Doesn't mean that he wouldn't have had a firearm, but under the new laws, we would be the only

03:52 state in the country that imposes a limit of firearm numbers.

03:57 He would have been impacted by the principle, which we are the only state, I believe, to

04:02 have in our law, which reflects the national firearms agreement statement, an observation

04:07 that ownership and use of a firearm in Australia is a privilege subject to the primacy of community

04:15 safety.

04:16 Now that's in our laws.

04:17 Nowhere else is it in our laws.

04:19 There's other things that we're doing.

04:20 So this is, and I know it's not directly relevant to this case because until he conducted this

04:29 act as far as I know, there was no indication that he was an FDV offender or anything of

04:35 that nature.

04:37 But we, as part of the laws that are going through the upper house, are creating a disqualification

04:43 order.

04:45 There are a thousand serious offenders.

04:49 So people who have been found guilty of serious offenses for which the maximum penalty is

04:54 five years or more.

04:56 There are a thousand of those people who currently have a license, a firearms license under the

05:01 current laws because the state administration tribunal, the Supreme Court of Western Australia,

05:07 enables them to retain their firearms, even if the commissioner deems them not fit and

05:13 proper.

05:14 We are changing the law to create a disqualification order.

05:17 When that law becomes effective, we will remove a thousand firearms licenses from people who

05:25 currently have them.

05:26 We'll take all their guns off them.

05:28 That is part of what we're doing.

05:30 It wouldn't have impacted him obviously on Thursday because he hadn't at that point done

05:36 anything that would enable us to apply that law, but it would impact a thousand people.

05:41 Potentially, as I understand it, around a hundred of those thousand are FDV offenders.

05:47 So they have committed serious FDV offenses, but they still have their guns under the current

05:54 law.

05:55 It's important.

05:56 Because the gun laws that are passing through parliament right now will make the community

06:01 safer.

06:02 They won't necessarily stop every incident.

06:05 They won't necessarily have stopped that incident, but we weren't writing this law for Friday.

06:11 This law began to be written two years ago.

06:15 If you consider what has happened in the last, just the last seven years since we've been

06:19 in government, licensed firearm owners, there have been on average, this is on average four

06:27 people a year are shot dead, murdered with a gun in Western Australia over the last seven

06:32 years.

06:33 A number of those murders are committed by licensed firearms owners.

06:40 The Osmington murder, mass murder, the biggest mass shooting in Australia since the Port

06:45 Arthur massacre happened in Western Australia was committed by a licensed firearms owner

06:51 with a licensed firearm.

06:54 Nick Martin's assassination in a public place at the motorplex surrounded by other innocent

07:01 people was committed by a licensed firearm owner with a licensed firearm.

07:05 Last year, the first school shooting in Australia was committed by a child with a licensed firearm,

07:13 the child of a licensed firearm owner, and last year the Kelleberran murder suicide was

07:18 committed by a licensed firearm owner with a licensed firearm.

07:22 And then this year we've had this horrific event, a licensed firearms owner with a licensed

07:27 firearm.

07:29 Firearms aren't the only thing that needs to be considered in FDV response, but it's

07:35 a part of it.

07:36 It's one of the elements.

07:39 It's not in the upper house because of what happened on Friday.

07:43 It's in the upper house because we've been working on it for two years and that needs

07:47 to be considered.

07:48 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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