Ray Hadley interview with Barry O'Farrell and Robert Brown

This week we heard Ray Hadley interview Premier Barry O'Farrell on gun crime, the bail review and the "weak-kneed, lily-livered" Attorney General Greg Smith. Ray then moves on to the Shooters and Fishers' Robert Brown, who talks about a bill to deal with the punishment of gun crime.

Listen to the interview here.

It is interesting in the BOF interview to see how the Premier deals with Hadley's ravings. It appears he realises that a proper, reasonable discussion with Hadley is out of the question, and so chooses the only sensible option: tell Ray what he wants to hear and let him think he's won.

When questioned on the bail review, watch how O'Farrell appears to play a successful judo trick on Hadley. Of course, it could be a sign of a complete capitulation to the Police Association's campaign against bail reform, but we rather hope that it's an example of how a seasoned pro like BOF deals with an absolute galah like Hadley.

The Shooters and Fishers' bill is so far receiving no support. That is not surprising, as the major parties are not, generally speaking, made up of fools. The Shooters say on their website:

"We want the law to regard the possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime as a separate crime in itself, not an aggravating offence, as the law sees it now.

"It will be a separate, additional crime to be dealt with separately by the law both in terms of the judgement and the penalty the court might impose.

"The Bill proposes that on conviction of the separate offence of being in possession of a firearm while committing a crime, the person so convicted will be sentenced to a period of detention NOT LESS than the period of sentence for the core crime, to be served cumulatively.

As it stands, an ordinary robbery under s.94 carries a 14 year maximum. Robbery armed with a dangerous weapon under s.98 carries an almost double maximum of 25 years.

The Shooters idea, as far as we can work out, is that instead of the Court treating the presence of a firearm in a crime as an aggravating feature on sentence, the Court should instead, for example, impose a sentence for a robbery simpliciter under s.94 (assessing its' seriousness without counting the gun), arrive at a number, and then impose a separate sentence for the possession of the gun during the crime, which can't be any less than the sentence first imposed, and must be cumulative.

"Unworkable" does not do this conceptual dog's breakfast justice.

Let's not forget these are the same geniuses that introduced s.6B Firearms Act, the amendment that allowed the severely mentally ill Shamin Fernando to obtain a gun and ammunition from a gun club with no licence or permit, and no background checks into her mental health, take them home and then shoot dead her father.

Not much more needs to be said about this mob or their backwoods ideas.

Hadley clearly knew nothing about the bill when Brown made a failed attempt to explain it, but nonetheless went ahead and wholeheartedly endorsed it. The same man who threatens governments they will be in Opposition if they don't bend the knee before him.