16 November 2021
The South Australian Parliament’s Social Development Committee has tabled the final report from its Inquiry into ‘Issues Related to Bow and Crossbow Hunting in South Australia’.
This inquiry was primarily considered to have been initiated at the behest of the activist RSPCA South Australia. Career Greens Politician Robert Simms sits on the committee, and our understanding is that he was influential in both the establishment of the inquiry and the compilation of the final report.
Key points:
Inquiry makes unworkable recommendations to regulate archery equipment in South Australia
Greens and RSPCA leading the charge against hunting
ADA, ABA and GHAA standing alone defending bowhunting
South Australian election in March next year will be critical
The report makes several recommendations, the first of which is entirely unworkable and would introduce a level of regulatory overreach that is not present anywhere else in Australia and is not justified by any credible evidence given to the committee. It would effectively put archery on a similar footing to firearms.
If the committee has been effective at anything with this inquiry, it has been finding problems that don’t exist and then proposing solutions that won’t work.
With the South Australian election just over one hundred days away, it is improbable that any of the recommendations from this report will see the light of day in the current Parliament. However, there is a risk that they will be dusted off sometime next year and put forward afresh. This report again highlights the glaring need for more effective advocacy for hunters, game management, and public land access in South Australia.
We thank and acknowledge the Australian Bowhunters Association (ABA), the Game Hunters Association of Australia and thirty motivated individual hunters for joining the ADA in making sound, rational, evidence-based submissions to this inquiry. The ADA and the ABA also gave oral evidence in direct hearings with the committee.
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