Senator Duncan Spender has questioned the claim that Australia's law enforcement agencies seized more than 2,000 firearms in a 12-month period, labelling it highly dubious.
Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram told an Estimates hearing last week that: "In the last financial year we made more than 2,000 detections of undeclared firearms."
However, previous seizure claims were revealed to be highly misleading by Senator Spender's predecessor, David Leyonhjelm, who established that the ABF were counting firearm parts in this figure, with barely any functioning firearms seized.
"Along with counting firearm parts as actual firearms, authorities were also counting firearm parts intercepted at United States border as part of its figures," Senator Spender explained.
"The department also double-counted seizures, with the Minister at the time issuing two press releases making it seem like the seizures had occurred on separate occasions.
"It seems that embellishing gun seizures is too hard for authorities to resist."
Following former Senator Leyonhjelm's tough questioning style, Senator Spender quizzed authorities on appearance laws, which result in firearms being classified based on their looks rather than function.
"Appearance laws are some of the worst laws I've ever seen, as it gives authorities the power to essentially ban something based on how scary it looks, rather than its function or potential to cause harm," Senator Spender said.
"There have been instances where a firearm was banned because it too closely resembled a military style firearm, yet the very same firearm was allowed in to the country after it was painted pink."
He also pressed the matter of toy gel blaster imports, with one importer having his shipment seized because of appearance laws.
"There needs to clarity and common sense when it comes to gel blasters, not confusion and conjecture," Senator Spender concluded.
