By Tasmania Police’s Mental Health Proposals Slammed by Experts
Tasmania’s draft firearms licence application, which includes a range of invasive, irrelevant, and counterproductive questions about an applicant’s physical and mental health, has been slammed by GPs, psychiatrists, academics, and farmers.
In yet another ham-fisted approach to Tasmanian firearms policy, documents obtained by the Shooting Industry Foundation of Australia (SIFA) through a Right to Information request (RTI), further highlights how Tasmanian government and police are continually missing the mark on firearms policy.
The RTI process returned submissions from highly regarded medical groups such as RACGP Tasmania, The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, and key farming group TasFarmers, These organisations raised significant concerns about the proposed firearms licence application, particularly section 19 of the document and the implications that the questions asked about an applicant’s physical and mental health may do more harm than good.
In the documents supplied to SIFA, there was not one submission in full support of the application with the majority raising the following concerns:
Concerns about mental health screening—risk of overreach, discrimination, stigmatisation, and deterrence from seeking medical care.
Administrative burden on medical professionals—especially GPs and psychiatrists.
Lack of clear guidelines—uncertainty about how decisions are made and what conditions are disqualifying.
Privacy concerns—who has access to applicants’ health records?
Impact on farmers and rural firearm users—fear of unnecessary delays or unfair rejections.
These highly-regarded organisations raised significant concerns in their submissions:
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Tasmania (RACGP)
- “The process has the potential to avoid or delay patients seeking medical advice for fear of not receiving a firearms licence or licence renewal.”
- “The RACGP is concerned about anything that may dissuade people from seeking help for their mental health, for suicidal thoughts or intent, if that person perceives it to be a risk to their application for, or renewal of a firearms licence.”
- “The process has the potential to create additional stress upon GPs who live and work in the same communities as their patients. “
- “The additional workload has the potential to impact upon GPs working in rural and remote areas.”
- “The process will not necessarily attract a Medicare rebate and therefore the expense would be borne by the applicant with the fee set at the discretion of the GP.”
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP)
- “We understand the intention of the proposed changes to section 19 of the firearms license application form is to improve the capture of Information about an applicant’s history of mental illness. The RANZCP supports this intention. However, we stress that any adverse outcome of an application should not be solely determined by an applicant’s disclosure of a current or former mental health condition, a suicide or self-harm attempt, attending an appointment with a psychologist or psychiatrist, or being subjected to a mental health plan.”
- “Many individuals with a mental illness or a history of mental illness are not at risk of using firearms for self-harm or to harm others. In addition, it is important to note that health practitioners can only assess mental health and associated risks relating to firearms at a particular moment in time. They cannot reliably predict potential future firearms misuse and-or the conditions and context of an illness state that might increase risk.”
TasFarmers:
- “For nearly 20 years TasFarmers (formerly TFGA) has worked with organisations such as Rural Alive and Well (RAW) to encourage people living and working in rural and regional Tasmania to seek counselling when under periods of extra stress. If they now feel that seeking counselling may jeopardise their Firearms Licence, they may be hesitant to get help when most needed.”
- “The proposed additional questions regarding health and personal circumstances, under the reasoning of ‘fit and proper person’ criteria, appear to be overly intrusive, potentially discriminatory and of questionable use.”
- “The aim may be harm minimisation, but the questions in the proposed form may well lead to many people not seeking help for fear of losing their firearms licence, suffering unnecessarily and possibly leading to worse outcomes.”
An Academic from University of Tasmania School of Social Sciences
- “The connection between mental illness and suicide is less clear as ‘simply having a mental illness in and of itself is insufficient to make a determination of risk for suicide, or to even assume that suicidality is present’. When it comes to interpersonal violence, the connection with mental illness is even weaker as ‘just 3% to 5% of all acts of interpersonal violence, with or without guns, were attributable to even serious mental illness’. The connection between mental health conditions and acts of violence is not strong, especially when compared with other risk factors.”
- “At present, section 19 requires applicants to disclose information that has little bearing on the risk of interpersonal violence or suicide”
- “The extremely broad approach taken in the draft licence application form also risks creating stigma. By asking for details of any mental health condition (s 19(a)) or having ever attended an appointment with a psychologist (s 19(i)) creates the perception that Tasmania Police need to know about even the smallest mental health detail of an applicant- even when it is not statistically relevant to being a fit and proper person to own a firearm.”
- “Of course, most Tasmanians would hopefully be alarmed with the idea of exclusion simply based on physical or mental Illness or disability. They would likewise be concerned if no consideration was given to community safety and public health in the application process. It is us as a society that must determine the level of risk we are willing to accept to strike the right balance. A complicating factor is also that firearms ownership is highest in rural and regional areas – the same places where access to medical services is already reduced.”
SIFA CEO James Walsh was unsurprised by the submissions from experts:
“I am completely unsurprised at the resistance this new Tasmanian Firearms Licence Application has received from medical professionals and academics. We consulted with our own experts before making our application in November, and we all identified these major issues.
“Tasmania Police and the Government should go back to the drawing board and completely rewrite the application, taking into account the significant issues that have been raised.
“This proposed licence application and its subsequent assessments will place a massive burden on Tasmania’s health system, especially in rural areas where GP wait times are already months long.
“The dangers of the intrusive and irrelevant questions asked on this application should serve as a warning to all other jurisdictions in Australia.” said Mr Walsh
This failed firearms licence application is just one of many policy missteps by Tasmania Police and the state government over the past year. The government has already been forced to revise their antique firearm laws and rush through commissioner’s authorisations to allow interstate firearms licence holders to hunt in the state.
Mr Walsh urged the Tasmanian Government to consult with industry before releasing unworkable policy.
“Over the past twelve months, we have seen the Tasmanian government put forward unworkable policy after unworkable policy, and ultimately it has led to embarrassment to Tasmanian police and significantly eroded trust within the firearms community.
“SIFA urges the Tasmanian Government to work with industry and stakeholders to ensure firearms licensing policy is both effective and fair. Public safety must always be a priority, but excessive, intrusive, and unclear requirements risk alienating legal firearms owners while failing to achieve their intended outcomes.” said Mr Walsh.
