The Tasmanian Liberal government, under fire for telling only farmers and shooters of its plan to change the state’s gun laws, has declined on the eve of the state election to reveal what other policies it has released directly to interest groups.
Speaking on ABC Radio on Friday morning, the premier, Will Hodgman, defended the government’s decision to promise gun law changes in a letter to a firearms consultation group last month without making a public announcement or posting the policy on its website.
“There are a number of policies that we announce … that have particular interest to certain sections of our community, and certain organisations, and typically we’ll communicate directly with them,” Hodgman said.
At a later press conference, he said the government had 300 policies but had posted only 100 online.
On Friday afternoon, the Liberal party election website listed 85 policies under headings including “investing in health, education and Tasmanians in need” and “protecting the Tasmanian way of life”. Its firearms policy had been added on Friday morning, categorised as “delivering a stronger economy and more jobs”. A Liberal spokesman did not respond to a request for details about the policies not on its site.
The proposed gun law changes – including increasing the limit on the gun licence duration from five to 10 years and pushing for expanded access to Category C firearms to allow more sporting shooters to use rapid-fire shotguns – became public after the letter was leaked to the media.
Hodgman told the ABC the government would always work “with any group that had an interest or an issue, and make sure we get the balance right and the policy right”.
Richard Eccleston, a political scientist at the University of Tasmania, said it was particularly important that parties were upfront about policies on issues that registered strongly in the electorate, such as guns. Many Tasmanians remain affected by the murder of 35 people in the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.
“To cherry-pick certain constituencies and commit to meeting their policy demands without making those policies generally available is not good practice and potentially misleading,” Eccleston said.
The Liberal website lists significantly more policies than Labor, the Greens or the Jacqui Lambie Network, though some are relatively small funding announcements. The opposition and minor parties’ policy statements tend to cover broader subject areas.
A Labor spokesman said all its policy positions were on its website. “Unlike the Liberals, we are proud of our policies and want people to know about them,” he said.
