Family First’s Jane Foreman says the outcry over a new Victorian agency’s power to promote junior shooting sports is inner-city hysteria that ignores decades of safe, supervised, family-based participation in shooting and hunting across regional Victoria.
The Herald Sun revealed this week that legislation before parliament will merge the Victorian Fisheries Authority and the Game Management Authority into a new super agency, Outdoor Recreation Victoria, with the power to promote shooting and gun ownership to children as young as 12. Outdoor recreation minister Enver Erdogan has conceded as much. The move has been met with a predictable backlash from the Alannah & Madeline Foundation and Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell, who compared supervised junior shooting to unsupervised social media use by children.
“Comparing a supervised, licensed sport to a 13-year-old scrolling social media alone in their bedroom is a false equivalence, and everyone pushing it knows it. A junior shooter needs a licence, a supervising adult, and a lawful reason every single time they pick up a firearm. There is no algorithm, no stranger, and no unsupervised access. If anything, it’s one of the most tightly regulated activities a Victorian teenager can take part in.”
A government spokesperson confirmed the safeguards already in place: any teenager wanting to shoot recreationally must hold a junior firearm licence and a junior game licence from Victoria Police, and must be supervised by a licensed adult at all times. Family First’s own firearm policy backs “the freedom to have responsible gun ownership”, recognising the positive, inclusive nature of shooting sports and the role hunting plays in reducing feral animal populations that damage farms and native wildlife.
Family First believes Victorian families are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves whether shooting sports are right for their children, without inner-city activists dictating what a “legitimate” family activity looks like. Just as Little Anglers safely introduces kids to fishing, junior shooting sports under strict licensing conditions build the same discipline, patience and respect for safety that Victorian families have passed down for generations.
“The government’s response has been to hide behind existing licence rules while refusing to defend the policy in public. Family First won’t be so timid. Shooting and hunting are lawful, regulated, family activities enjoyed by tens of thousands of Victorians every year, and they deserve to be championed, not treated as a guilty secret every time an inner-city lobby group objects.”
Family First supports maintaining Australia’s National Firearms Agreement and the strict, fit-and-proper-person licensing checks that come with it and firmly backs law enforcement efforts against illicit firearm access and trade. None of this changes when a 14-year-old, supervised by a licensed adult, attends a shooting club with their parents on a Sunday afternoon.
“Every family who takes their kids fishing, camping or clay target shooting on a weekend is doing something good for their kids, not something to be ashamed of. Family First will keep standing up for families who want to pass on outdoor traditions, responsibly and lawfully, instead of letting a small group of critics dictate what a normal Victorian family looks like.”
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