Mr FILING(7.49 p.m.) —I would like to join in some of the comments made by the honourable member for Bendigo (Mr Reid) about the tremendous work of the Salvation Army because, as he quite correctly remarked, very shortly there will be the Red Shield appeal which is their major annual fundraising exercise. As the City Chairman for Wanneroo, closely involved with the Red Shield appeal in my region, I take a great deal of pleasure in acknowledging some of the key people in the Wanneroo City appeal team. Of course, I look forward to a successful outcome in my second term as the City Chairman for Wanneroo.

First of all, I acknowledge Captain Neil Venables from the Heathridge Citadel of the Salvation Army. Neil and his family are tremendous community people. The Heathridge Citadel serves a very large area that has a large number of families in which there are, in some instances, financial hardships and social problems. They do an extraordinarily good job of making sure that they play their part in assisting to alleviate the sorts of common social problems that go hand in hand with these types of things.

I might add that during the last financial year they suffered some quite significant problems in their government funding. That is something that occurred as a result of the fudging of the unemployment figures, because the funding was based on the unemployment for the region. Of course, as the previous government tried to conceal the unemployed through various schemes, then they in fact artificially lowered the threshold for the Salvation Army's funding. That meant in Heathridge they had a shortfall.

Mr Somlyay —Shame!

Mr FILING —Which is a shame, as the member for Fairfax quite correctly points out. I would also point out that Lieutenant Paul Hately is at the Merriwa Citadel in Merriwa looking after the needs of a very fast growing community. My electorate is one of the fastest growing regions in the country, and in Merriwa, Clarkson and Butler, the brand new suburb developments in my electorate extraordinarily large numbers of new families with children, many of whom are in lower income brackets, are coming into the electorate, coming into these areas needing that sort of help.

I would also like to thank, if I may, Bob Hales, who is a soldier with the Salvation Army and who helps me out on a voluntary basis in my office but who is also very heavily involved with the appeal. I also acknowledge the Mayor of the City of Wanneroo, Councillor Arnold Dammers, who has also taken on a key role in helping out with our fundraising activities for 1996 in the Red Shield appeal.

Secondly, Mr Speaker, I would like to support the comments made earlier today by the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Beazley) in relation to gun control. As somebody said in the last few days, one can make knee-jerk reactions. But as a former policeman in Western Australia, someone who had a job in the supervision and regulation of firearms licensing and the like, I am conscious of the fact that although in Western Australia we had a very tight and quite strict firearms licence regime, we found it very difficult from time to time when we came across people who had come from other states—in particular, Queensland, where it appears that firearms are much easier to obtain.

I give the example of when I was a uniformed constable at Subiaco. A young fellow of about 22 or 23 arrived in the station. He was doing the right thing, he was being a good citizen. He had actually driven across from Queensland in his ute with a semi-automatic firearm hanging up in the back of the ute all the way from wherever he had come from in Queensland. He brought the gun in to get it licensed. Of course, we immediately seized it and pointed out to him that, in fact, he had committed an offence ever since he had arrived in Western Australia. Obviously having done the right thing and brought the firearm in, we were conscious that he had done his citizenship bit or duty to try to get himself licensed in Western Australia.

In this particular case, when we asked him why he wanted to have this firearm in the future, he said he was travelling in Western Australia and he needed it just in case he got into trouble. We were not quite sure exactly what sort of trouble he was likely to get into. But, quite clearly, as the Prime Minister has indicated, with a council of police ministers coming up shortly there is a need for not only uniform national gun laws but also a national register of firearms—that is quite clearly now a very important element—and a comprehensive ban on semi-automatic firearms.

I cannot, for the life of me, see any reason for anyone in Australia, other than a member of the armed services or the police or someone in some other emergency capacity, to own and possess a semi-automatic firearm. It is, quite clearly, time for all semi-automatic firearms to be banned and probably time for an amnesty to allow those people who still have them to hand them in without fear of being prosecuted.

I conclude by saying that I subscribe to the bipartisan views of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. Quite clearly, the national government now has a fundamental role in ensuring there are uniform national firearm laws.