At the time when the Eurobodalla Shire Council granted a 5 year licence to the South Coast Hunters Club to hold a festival of hunting there were few requirements. apart from the council’s oft repeated mantra of “as long as the activity is legal!”
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No cost benefit analysis, no community consultation, no trial period. Perhaps council thought it would be easy to renege on the agreement, because the terms and conditions for cancellation of the event by council simply stated
“Council reserves the right to refuse any booking made for whatever reason. Any monies will be refunded and council not liable for any loss or otherwise consequence of the exercise of any right stated under the agreement”.
So what reason or reasons do councillors still need to rescind the remaining two years of the HuntFest licence on any or all of the following grounds?
1)It was not considered by the community
2) It was not wanted by the community as evidenced by letters, rallies, petitions, presentations to council and submissions to state parliament.
3) It could be proved illegal in a court of law, according to the Environment Defence Office, for the main reason that the latest HuntFests are so different from the original approved in 2012 that a new application from the promoters would have been necessary. (A photographic exhibition is not the same as as licence to sell guns!)
4)The possibility that the rapid-firing AdlerA 110 8 shot lever action shotgun may be added to the existing armoury of guns already for sale makes the event even more dangerous and undesirable to the majority of residents.This gun,which promoters are attempting to make available to even the least experienced hunters is the kind of rapid fire weapon the National Firearms agreement was put in place to control after the Port Arthur massacre.
What will it take for council to cancel this public event or at least modify some of the most alarming aspects of a celebration of animal killing such as the provision of free admission for children, promotion of overseas safaris to Africa, and most recently the possible introduction of a rapid firing shotgun which could have a devastating effect on groups of people and not just on flocks of ducks!
Unless sufficient political protest is made by members of the community to counter the influence of the powerful gun lobby, an American style gun culture will continue to grow, as it has, not in the wild and woolly West, but in peaceful, seaside Narooma.
Susan Cruttenden
Dalmeny
