If shooters ignore our voting system, it won’t be a question of “if” the Greens will hold the balance of power in State Parliament, but “when”.
Here’s a number that should worry every shooter. 037.
0– That’s the number of Greens MPs in our state parliament ten years ago today.
3 – the number of Greens who got elected to the upper house in 2006, when the “proportional representation” voting system was introduced.
7– the number of Greens in state parliament right now. Five of them are in the upper house and two in the lower house.
If you aren’t already aware, the Greens’ policy on hunting is simple: to ban recreational hunting. They also want a complete ban on the use of handguns – and more national parks to keep everyone out.
Their success was due in part to hard work on their part, going from door to door months before the election. However they also benefited from preference deals for upper house candidates.
If you voted “above-the-line” for someone who you thought supported what you stood for, without knowing where their preferences went, then your trust was misplaced – you might have been duped.
Fortunately the CFCV and some shooting organisations saw through this and published their advice on this before the election.
However their ability to get this to shooters who aren’t members of a shooting organisation, was limited. That’s around 140,000 shooters who might have been unaware where their vote ended up going.
This has to change. It’s why we’re undertaking a concerted effort to reach out to every shooter who has internet access, which would be most of them.
Following the CFCV will ensure you stay up to date on issues concerning the political future of your sport, who to vote for and who to avoid.
We need to ensure that 0-3-7 doesn’t become 0-3-7-10.
It needs to be 0-3-7-0.
If the Greens do get the “balance of power” in either the upper or lower houses of Parliament, then we might as well make anti duck hunting campaigner, Laurie Levy, Premier. Duck hunting will be the first to go.
Deer hunting, gun collecting and letting our kids get involved in target shooting, will be under severe pressure. Money for range development will disappear.
Don’t let this happen. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or join our email list today so you don’t miss out on important voting information.
It’s too important to not do this. Share this article so your shooting mates so the same.
The next part of this topic will follow next week.
Not only hunting and rifles but also a ban on handguns, most fishing, 4x4ing etc etc. IMO the only way they got so much power is that most of sheep who dont care about anything and dont really think or know what the greens are really like are voting for them as a protest against the LNP and ALP.
The Greens are perhaps one of the worst poltical groups this country has ever seen. They never provide a solution to a problem, their policies are economic suicide for Australia. They are reckless with the environment purely because they refuse to manage it. Manipulative, deceitful, dangerous. Seriously, why would anyone vote for them?
Looking forward to more information to ensure the Greens disappear from our political arena! Dangerous, Ill-informed and disaster not just for our sport but Australia’s financial future. It will be interesting to see where the preferences are spread as I was advised that at our last election the preferences from our Shooters and Fishers Party candidate would go to the Greens? Needless to say I didn’t vote for the S&F party, even though I wanted to.
Ron. You are mostly right, although with a bit of clarification. The S&FP sent their preferences directly to Palmer United Party across the board in the upper house. This was a problem because Clive Palmer is anti-gun. S&FP preferences nearly caused one of their candidates to be elected in the west, at the expense of James Purcell who is on our side. They also preferenced the Greens ahead of Labor in the Western Metro Region in a fairly tricky way – and the Greens did get elected there. I think you’ll find we’ll be exposing more of these deals through social media at the next few elections. Regards Neil
Did not release that my vote could be abused in such a way. So disappointed in our electoral system and also myself for not being more vigiliant in protecting my vote. Will not happen again. I will be watching very carefully the info from you people and my SSAA. We all must band together and keep each other informed and inform ALL other hunters/shooters/4wd’s/ fishing, camping, bush walking people and really anybody who enjoys their freedom of “The Great Outdoors”. PROTECT OUR FREEDOM to chose what WE want NOT what they want for us.