13/09/2022
Attention Bowhunters,
We received this today. We need your help. Whether you hunt or not, this impacts a lot of our club members.
Hi,
I am reaching out to let you know that Susan Close, the South Australian Deputy Premier and Minister for the Environment, is currently asking senior management in the SA Government's Department for Environment and Water (DEW) to change the regulations to ban all bow hunting in SA.
I understand that many of your members have a strong focus on target archery, and may have little interest in hunting, but I suspect that almost all archery clubs have some proportion of their members who have some level of interest in hunting, and hence I believe this is of interest to them.
As you are most likely aware, last year there was a public inquiry into how bows and bow hunting is managed within SA. The committee made 12 recommendations that did not include a ban. However, rather than implementing the recommendations of the inquiry, the Deputy Premier is pushing for a ban, and is providing instructions to DEW to get the necessary things in place. CHASA (the Conservation and Hunting Alliance of SA, CHASA.org.au) became aware of this in late August. You can find out more about this at www.CHASA.org.au, or by watching the attached video.
A lot of people have dismissed this news of a total ban being implemented, as the inquiry did not recommend a ban, and the new Government has not yet made any public announcement. However, on Monday morning, I had a phone conversation with a senior representative from DEW (who was involved in the inquiry last year) who confirmed that this is happening, and that DEW will be generating information to send to key stakeholders in the coming weeks. I fear that once the Government are at the stage of being ready to publicly announce this and sending information out to stakeholders, they will have everything in place, and there will no room for negotiation.
The public inquiry last year only received 82 submissions, of which about ½ were anti-hunting. If we are to have any hope of resistance, we need hundreds of emails to be sent to MP’s, so it would be greatly appreciated if you could raise awareness of this within your respective membership base before it is too late.
Please feel free to give me a call.
Cheers and thanks in advance.
Todd Wallace
0407 607 392
