Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate for Collie-Preston Clint Thomas said his party will establish a Rural Fire Service, alter current gun laws and abolish stamp duty if they win power in the state election.
Mr Thomas said the establishment of an independent Rural Fire Service was a priority for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party.
“We were the first party to develop a full bush fire policy for a country Rural Fire Service,” he said.
“When you have local country fire groups who have been the sons of the farmers that have been fighting fires in that country, in that particular area, they are the experts on the ground.
“We need to maintain that local knowledge when fighting fires, that’s why it has to be stand-alone.”
Mr Thomas said Collie would be an ideal location to base the service.
“Collie is a fantastic place to put it, you can get any direction that you need to, and the airstrip has been upgraded,” he said.
Mr Thomas said the party’s firearm policies were aimed at promoting responsible firearm ownership and to ease the current red tape surrounding ownership of firearms.
“What we know from long experience is that an increase in firearms legislation for firearm license holders will not reduce gun crimes against property or persons,” he said.
“The restriction to legal access to firearms doesn’t reduce the number of illegal firearms in the community.
“Firearm legislation in Western Australia is inefficiently administrated, too open to interpretation, excessively expensive, and unnecessarily adversarial.”
Mr Thomas said the SFF party also called for payroll tax, land tax and stamp duty to be abolished.
“We believe that payroll tax, land tax and transfer duty are anti-business, anti-private enterprise, anti-investment and anti-job creation,” he said.
“Stamp duty increases the cost of moving house, and therefore impedes relocation, labour mobility, efficient upsizing or downsizing across population.
Mr Thomas said the SFF party also has policies relating to the regulation of fisheries, access to public land for hunting and pest control, and an overhaul of the current GST system.
