The Right to Hunt to be Enshrined in New South Wales Law

We certainly live in Trumpian times. In New South Wales, esteemed legal figures, progressive politicians and civil liberties advocates have been campaigning for decades to see various human rights protected in law, yet, after two years in office, it appears NSW premier Chris Minns has cut a backdoor deal to instead prioritise enshrining the right to hunt in state law.

The understanding that the premier has a preference for those with the urge to kill animals with guns are protected in doing so, emerged during a 27 May 2025 Coffs Harbour FM radio interview regarding the recent floods, as the conversation turned to Minns being open to paying hunters to go on pig kills, and further Chris wants to place bounties on the heads of feral cats.

The premier’s desire to not only protect the state’s gun-toting hunters, but indeed, encourage other residents to pick up a rifle and kill invasive species too, could soon be satisfied, because, as chance would have it, on the day after he’d been spruiking pig kills, NSW Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party MLC Robert Borsak introduced a bill into NSW parliament that does just that.

The Game and Feral Animal Legislation Amendment (Conservation Hunting) Bill 2025, which was introduced into parliament on 28 May, actually goes even further than the range of concerns Minns expressed about protecting the right to hunt, as it establishes the new Conservation Hunting Authority, it seeks to open up more land to go animal shooting, it creates bounty schemes and it will legalise hunters’ use of silencers.

NSW Greens MLC Sue Higginson has also pointed to a further positive this bill holds for NSW Labor and that is that it secures the votes of the two Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (the Shooters) MLCs in passing laws, such as currently proposed and unpopular cuts to workers compensation, and as she further points out, this simply repeats Labor and the Shooters failed NSW Game Council of the past.

The right to kill Bambi

“Recreational and conservation hunters are vital partners in controlling invasive species such as feral pigs, rabbits, foxes and wild deer in NSW,” explained Borsak, during his second reading speech. “It is also timely to introduce bounty schemes in NSW on foxes, cats and feral pigs. These schemes should have oversight from a dedicated conservation hunting authority.”

“Bounty schemes in Australia are a proven and effective tool in incentivising community participation in the control of pest species,” the Shooters MLC added. “These schemes encourage landholders and their staff, recreational hunters and paid or contract pest controllers to contribute to broadscale, community-based pest removal efforts.”

The legislation seeks to abolish the 2013 established Game and Pest Management Advisory Board, part of the NSW Department of Primary Industries, which currently represents the rights of licensed hunters, and it replaced the NSW Game Council, which was a body established as a concession to the Shooters by the Carr government in 2002, as they then held balance of power in the upper house.

The Shooters bill will establish a new body, the Conservation Hunting Authority, which would oversee the rights of hunters and the eradication of invasive species. It would also answer to the newly created NSW minister for hunting and fishing.

The CHA would be involved in the governing of bounties established in regard to specific species, which Borsak considers more cost-effective than current sporadic government-run programs.

Current restricted game hunting licences will be replaced by conservation hunting licences, which would ensure holders can use “modern technology, such as night vision and infrared scopes and optics”, as well as be up to date on “risk management to better incorporate them in animal management and control programs” in various areas where such hunting will take place.

The Minns-backed Shooters bill will not only facilitate “conservation hunting” on permitted private and public lands, which includes dozens of state forests, but it will open up killing animals with guns on “declared areas of Crown land”, which must be a minimum of 400 hectares in size, along with such land that directly adjoins declared lands, or where invasive species hunting is already permitted.

The bill too removes restrictions on firearm suppressors, otherwise known as silencers, because, as Borsak explains, it’s a more humane way to kill an animal because it prevents the about to be expired feral pig or wild deer from stressing out and feeling bad in that split second before death, and it also allows hunters to more easily kill because animals don’t scatter once a bullet has been fired.

Pig kills a-go-go

According to Higginson, however, the bill “is a giant lie” because hunting has been shown to be ineffective when it comes to controlling invasive species for the benefit of the environment, and various studies by bodies, such as the CSIRO, have produced reports that debunk the idea of placing bounties on invasive species.

The Greens justice spokesperson has pointed to “conservation hunting” being a relatively new idea. The 2012 Dunn report, which recommended the abolishing of the Game Council, found that the body had introduced the use of this term and was then liberally applying its use with no legislated definition of what it was actually referring to.

The Dunn report found that more than a decade after establishment, the Game Council had “no overarching governance framework”, it lacked “a strategic planning framework”, and while it had achieved some of its objectives, it did this via the taking of risks not usually expected of a government body. Borsak actually chaired the Game Council prior to being elected to parliament.

Higginson told the ABC this week that the Conservation Hunting Authority will comprise of seven members, four of whom are guaranteed to be nominated by the gun lobby, so the interests of hunters will always be in the majority, when providing advice to the minister.

“I am old enough to remember how the Game Council played out,” Higginson added. “I was an environmental lawyer, based up in the Northern Rivers, and I remember people coming to me, going, ‘I went for a walk in the forest with the kids and the dog, and we heard guns and we were petrified’…. It was shocking what was happening across our public forests in terms of safety.”

The only right worth protecting

Proposed new section 4A of the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 (NSW) will serve to enshrine the right to hunt in law, in terms of cultural reasons, recreation and the management of invasive species. And whilst not an absolute right, it will ensure hunting on private and declared public lands, while those exercising their right to hunt shouldn’t pose a risk to public safety.

So, in a state devoid of a Human Rights Act, which would likely include protecting the right to life, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief, protections against torture, and the upholding of the cultural rights of Indigenous peoples, NSW premier Chris Minns is set to protect the right to hunt, because pig kills should actually be encouraged.

This is also being progressed in the face of the ongoing Human Rights for NSW campaign that’s been proactively pushing for a HRA to be prioritised this term of parliament, with the assistance of such groups as Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, and the NSW Society for Labor Lawyers and figures such as former High Court Justice Michael Kirby.

However, NSW Greens MP Jenny Leong put a smile on much of the constituency’s dial in March, when she announced she’ll be introducing a Human Rights Bill into NSW parliament this year. The Greens member for Newtown is currently conducting consultations regarding the rights legislation and she should probably note that there will likely be no need for the right to hunt to be included.

“The proposed law before us seeks to enshrine a ‘right to hunt’ and allow hunters to shoot in the darkness of night in the forests of NSW, with night vision equipment and silencers,” Higginson added in a statement earlier this week. “It’s literally a horror movie nightmare unfolding before us. I just don’t understand how a government can do this to the people of NSW at this time.”

“The proposed law makes provision for the establishment of a minister for hunting and fishing, I mean seriously as if we need that here in NSW right now,” the Greens justice spokesperson said in ending. “It is like the Minns Labor government got punch drunk at the deal with the Shooters and they’re laughing at all of us.”