Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Australia State vs. National laws and enforcement

All;
Good afternoon tomorrow your time - still middle of the morning here - regardless I trust you're all well.

My intent in asking the questions here is I find myself more familiar with how our neighbor on the other side of the medicine line runs it's federal government and what the individual states are responsible for as well, but have a less clear view of what you all do.

As a "for instance", up here our firearms laws are federal, so theoretically a firearm that is legal to own in Newfoundland can be legally moved across to Vancouver Island and there's no issues of running afoul of a differing provincial ordinance.

That said, even here in BC, on any given weekend morning out here in what they say is the highest percentage of hunters per capita where on any given morning in fall most of the trucks at a 7 Eleven will have multiple firearms and the local LEO won't blink, if that same rig was anywhere in Greater Vancouver, at very least they'd be better stored out of sight while inside city limits to avoid issues with the constabulary.

There are provincial rules about carrying firearms out of hunting season too, so I believe in some of the Atlantic provinces it's unlawful to wander the woods with a firearm, which many of us almost never do because of our relatively dense black bear population. No shortage of grizzly bears either mind you, but the chance of getting roughed up by a black bear is greater since there's just way, WAY more of them.

During the whole Beer Flu fiasco here, there were federal regulations on travel imposed that mostly impacted airports or international travel, but the provinces had greatly different approaches.

Crazy as it sounds, our next to Communist provincial NDP announced almost immediately that hunting, fishing and foraging were classed as "essential activities" and so we just kept on doing that, whereas next door in Alberta where there was theoretically a conservative government, people were fined for being in a canoe by themselves or so I heard reported.

It was all over the place that way and of course much of it made no sense to any of us then and certainly not looking back on it.

We have interprovincial trade barriers - crazy as that sounds - so if I want to buy a case of Alberta Rye and do that in Calgary, I have to pay BC provincial taxes if I drive it across the unseen line on either highway. Same goes for Albertans buying wine here in the Okanagan.

For the longest time possession of weed wasn't really prosecuted here in BC, but was elsewhere depending again on local LEO and Crown Prosecutors, again that was a federal law but there seemed to be a fair bit of discretion imposed by the locals.

Thanks for any thoughts any of you all care to share, again I'm just curious as to how it's done down there.

All the best.

Dwayne

Dwayne,
Oz has state regulations for firearms.
These are heavily influenced by the Feds as states have no income as it all comes from the Feds.

Australian's pay Federal tax only + a GST on purchases. Nonstate taxes are paid or drawn from wages.

The State Premier's meet with the Feds to beg and deal for their allocations which always favours the like party states.

This is why Western Australia separately introduced recent cartridge bans that are not applicable elswhere.

That's about as simple as I can explain it. Let me know if you need more.
John

Plus you need a permit to bring firearms into WA, which is not required by other states. And you may be searched at the border. It's as if it's a foreign nation. So much for Howards uniform national gun laws....

Not really Howards'.
Those regs were discussed way back in the 80's and there was talk of them when the Strathfield Plaza attack occured, except the perpetrator used a machete for most attacks which didn't suit the narative.

There was another one later, a post office building in Melbourne? Bit hazy now, but still not the right time. That's why that existing legislation was ready at hand to pounce when opportune. Howard was just the incumbent mouthpiece.

I meant that it was Howard that was beating the drum on his plan for 'uniform gun laws' in '96.

''Australia will have its first comprehensive national approach to gun control after the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, last night secured a historic deal with State and Territory police ministers.''

The agreement, which provides a unified government response to the Port Arthur massacre two weeks ago, will see a sweeping ban on the sale and possession of automatic and semi-automatic weapons.''

The States will also move swiftly to enact uniform legislation involving:

* A nationwide registration system linking weapons with their owners.''

https://www.smh.com.au/national/fro...eal-to-control-guns-20190506-p51kmf.html

AussieGunWriter & DBT;
Thanks much for the replies, much appreciated.

It's something I've wondered about from time to time is all, that is how different parts of the world deal with enforcement of various laws in reasonably big countries such as Australia is.

I've had family travel down there and it's on my bucket list as we live in wine country and I'd enjoy seeing yours as well as some of the grain growing regions too.

Each province here raises a good percentage of it's own funds, which is part of what rankles the west as we're legally bound to hand it over to the feds for what's known as Transfer Payments.

While Alberta gets the shaft the most because of the oil revenue which truly is a huge part of Canada's GDP, here in BC our GDP exceeded all of the Atlantic Provinces combined, but as we're considered a "rich" province we pay into the system and they get to take it out.

In part it's due to an antiquated system that was set up more than a century ago when the eastern provinces were subsidizing the west, but that's long ago been paid several times over.

As mentioned we've got interprovincial laws and tariffs which make no sense to anyone other than the politicos collecting the taxes.

Interestingly when Alcohol Prohibition was going on, BC really didn't buy into it as enthusiastically shall we say as Alberta and voted it out before they did, so there was all sorts of "Rum Running" that went on both into Alberta and into the US as well of course.

Again with us firearms are supposed to be nationally regulated, but the interpretation of said laws can vary to some degree even within a province, depending mostly on rural vs. urban.

We've always lived in either extremely rural or now fairly rural areas, so have experienced more relaxed interpretations for the most part, though some enthusiastic Constables can be a tad over-zealous.

Speaking of, we have a national police force - the RCMP - who also contract with various municipalities and some cities to do policing, which makes for somewhat of a hodgepodge as far as communication between LE agencies goes, but perhaps smoother than some of the states, about par with some and not as good as others.

Some cities, municipalities and even provinces have their own police services, such as the OPP - Ontario Provincial Police, Surite de Quebec and Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. There were Alberta, Saskatchewan and BC Provincial Police at one time but they were phased out in the last 60 odd years. There's talk of resurrecting them for sure in Alberta and possibly Saskatchewan as well.

Here in BC many of the larger centers have their own police services.

That based solely upon casual conversions with LEO from various areas, no direct experience personally.

Edit to add;
Wildlife management is the responsibility of the province who make the laws and enforce them.

The exception is that tidal waters are Federal Fisheries regulated and controlled.

Thanks again, much appreciated for the replies.

All the best.

Dwayne