Matt Thistlethwaite, Federal Labor member for Kingsford Smith, which takes in ANZAC Rifle Range at Malabar, is up to his old tricks again and has now publicly shown his provocative hand in the matter of the aiding locals with gripes against shooting to rail against the continued legal presence of shooters at the ANZAC Rifle Range, which has been in continued use as such since the 1850s. This is despite the shooters having secured an ironclad lease of the complex for 50 years.
It is explained quite one-sidedly in this digital edition of the local News Limited paper, The Southern Courier. The right of reply by the NSW Rifle Association, negating the case in the paper version (which makes no mention of Thistlethwaite’s involvement) is very limited in its coverage compared with the “safety concerns” expressed by the antis.
If you would like to know how he regards shooters you just need to read this.
ANZAC supporting locals have reported that he is attempting to stir them up in anticipation of kicking shooters off the range, even after his predecessor Peter Garrett suffered an ignominious defeat with costs awarded against the Federal Labor Government of the day at the hands of the NSW Rifle Association, when they tried to evict the shooters under what were proven to be unfounded charges some years ago.
Now this would all be bad enough if it were not for a few complicating factors, those being:
- The Randwick Council Elections are occurring this coming Saturday 9th September and there happen to be two Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (SFFP) candidates for the South Ward, which encompasses Malabar and
- The NSW Rifle Association’s premier event for the year, the NSW State Championships (The Queens) in Target Rifle, F-Class Standard and Open commence next week (13th September) which requires the the National Park to be closed to walkers for over a week.
Coincidence?
With this local paper hatchet job out in the week prior to the election, the result for SFFP in the election is no doubt to be affected badly, how much so remains to be seen, particularly in view of the solid, well-received campaign they have so far run. Additionally, if they get to close down the range for the Queens on spurious grounds, it will severely affect the Australian target shooting family.
It has been suggested by an aggrieved citizen on the Southern Courier’s Facebook page that this may well fall within the area of public mischief. It may be that “mischief” is a very soft descriptor in this case.
Get onto the Southern Courier Facebook Page and let them know how you feel about it.
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