Gun Buy Back Scheme - The Australian National Audit Office

The compensation scheme
Compensation for surrendered firearms
3 34 In any compensation scheme it is important that payments are
reasonable and consistent between jurisdictions and made with
appropriate legislative authority. The APMC agreed that a common
basis for fair and proper compensation should be developed in
order to prevent firearms being surrendered in the State which
offered the best price. The ANAO examined the policy guidelines
for surrendered firearms to assess whether they helped to ensure
that the cost of the scheme was minimised, that compensation
payments were equitable across Australia and that payments were
properly authorised.
3 35 Policy guidelines on compensation for surrendered prohibited
firearms were developed by the APMC working group noted above.
These guidelines were issued by OLEC to relevant State
authorities. They included a list of APMC-prohibited weapons and
values for new and used examples. The guidelines specifically
refer to the categories of weapons prohibited by the APMC
decision. Other categories of weapons which were already
prohibited under existing State legislation were not listed.
3 36 The schedule of values accompanying the guidelines was compiled
from:
• advertisements of firearms listed for sale in all of the firearms-related
magazines then available in Australia;
• importers’/wholesalers’ recommended retail pricing on new firearms;
and
• consultation with leading firearms retailers.
3 37 The schedule initially included values for about 340 new and used
weapons. The schedule required some amendment in response to
comments from a range of sources regarding some valuations and
omissions of large numbers of models from the list. The ANAO
found that arrangements for including additional models and
ensuring that additions to the list were applied uniformly across the
States were not clear and consequently differences in
compensation for like weapons may have occurred.
3 38 Some State authorities told the ANAO that they added prices for
other models of weapons, prohibited except for occupational and
The Gun Buy-Back Scheme 35