Have your say on knives, firearms and other weapon offences review

5 December 2022

The NSW Sentencing Council is calling for early feedback as part of its comprehensive review of sentencing for firearms, knives and other weapon offences in NSW.

Attorney General Mark Speakman said the feedback will help determine the scope and the direction of the review.

“The NSW Government is committed to keeping our community safe and to ensuring our laws and legal system continue to best promote access to, and the administration of justice,” Mr Speakman said.

“We want to ensure that sentencing laws in relation to crimes of this nature remain in line with community expectations. We also want law enforcement agencies to continue to have access to the tools they need to keep our community safe.

“This is the first time that a comprehensive review of weapons offences will be undertaken by the Sentencing Council. A limited review of firearms offences was last undertaken by the Council in 2004, and some knife offences have never been reviewed.

“I encourage community members and justice stakeholders to have their say about the issues they would like to see included in this review.”

Mr Speakman said preliminary submissions should raise issues that are relevant to the terms of reference. The preliminary submissions are due by 3 March 2023.

The independent review and terms of reference were announced by the Attorney General on 7 November 2022.

Terms of reference

Under the terms of reference, the Sentencing Council has been asked to conduct a review of sentencing for firearms, knives and other weapons offences, including but not limited to offences in the Crimes Act 1900 and Summary Offences Act 1988, and make any recommendations for reform that it considers appropriate.

In undertaking this review, the Sentencing Council should:

• provide sentencing statistics for convictions and penalty notices (where relevant) over a five-year period;
• provide information on the characteristics of offenders, sentence type and length;
• provide background information, including:
  • the key sentencing principles and reasoning employed by sentencing judges;
  • the mitigating subjective features of offenders; and
  • any other significant factors considered in sentencing decisions that explain how courts come to their final decision on sentence (which may be done using case-studies or collation of predominate themes across cases);
• consider whether the standard non parole periods where identified remain appropriate;
• consider whether offences for which penalty notices are available remain appropriate;
• consider whether the maximum penalties for the offences are appropriate with reference to other jurisdictions;
• consider whether any existing summary offences should be made indictable offences;
• consider any other matter the Council considers relevant.

Preliminary submissions should be emailed to sentencingcouncil@justice.nsw.gov.au.

More information on the review can be found on the NSW Sentencing Council websit