A firearms manufacturer hoping to represent One Nation in New South Wales wants to repeal gun laws introduced following the Bondi beach massacre, after arguing “every single one” of the rifles he produces was banned in the state.
Earlier this month, One Nation’s NSW leader, Mike Newman, and the federal MP Barnaby Joyce revealed Jeff Bacon would be second on the party’s upper house ticket in the March state election.
Bacon is the managing director of Oceania Precision, a weapons manufacturer based in Tamworth.
The announcement of his candidacy was made in Tamworth before Bacon hosted a One Nation forum on firearms legislation attended by gun lobby groups and local gun clubs, as well as Newman and Joyce.
Newman said Bacon was “not only a firearms owner, but he is also a manufacturer and also he is an innovator” with “patents across the world”. He said Bacon would be “my go-to man on the firearms industry”.
Bacon ran as the lower house candidate for Tamworth with the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party in ۲۰۱۹. He joined the Nationals in ۲۰۲۳ before defecting to One Nation.
On ۳ October this year, he said in Tamworth that running for parliament again “wasn’t a hard decision”.
“To be honest I’d rather continue in my business than be in some way forced to step into politics,” he said.
“[But] I’m going to do everything that I can do – not only to fight for the repeal of the legislation.”
In a statement at the time, Bacon said: “One Nation will repeal the firearms element of the Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Act, restoring rights to what they were when we had a functioning system before December last year, when the Minns government and the Liberal party rushed legislation through on Christmas Eve.”
In December ۲۰۲۵, Labor and the Liberals changed the law to limit recreational license-holders to four firearms and primary producers to ۱۰, and legislated for NSW to participate in a joint buyback of weapons with the federal government. NSW is the only state to sign on to the federal scheme so far. It’s due to begin on ۲ November.
The NSW parliament also voted to recategorise weapons including straight-pull and lever-release rifles meaning recreational hunters will no longer be able to own them.
One of the alleged Bondi shooters, Indian national Sajid Akram, owned six weapons on a recreational hunting licence, including straight-pull rifles allegedly used during the antisemitic attack on ۱۴ December that killed ۱۵ people during Hanukah celebrations.
Oceania Precision’s website describes its rifles as “built specifically for law enforcement”. It currently advertises one model: a select-fire tactical rifle which it describes as “restricted” for law enforcement.
As recently as June, it described itself as a manufacturer for the “Australian domestic and professional market”, according to website snapshots from the Internet Archive.
At that time, it advertised two models for the commercial market, the straight-pull SP۲۵-TAC and the lever-release Renegade, although archived webpages suggest both have been described as “not available in NSW” since last year, before the firearms changes enacted after the Bondi shootings.
In January, Bacon told the Northern Daily Leader that the government’s firearms reforms had seen “every single one” of his rifles banned in NSW, the paper reported. He said his business would be “broke in six months if this continues – we’re done, we’re finished”.
“I’m in the middle of two manufacturing runs right now,” he said at the time.
“We’re on hold right now, we just don’t know what’s happening. We’ve had all of our orders cancelled.”
In August, Bacon told trade website Defence Connect that his business was at risk of collapse following the gun reforms.
“Our entire research and development budget is funded through our commercial sporting sales,” he said at the time. “These revenue streams have been severely impacted, significantly reducing our ability to invest in ongoing innovation and product development.”
The laws recategorising straight-pull and lever-release weapons have yet to take effect. Owners will be able to surrender them over a ۱۲-month period under the buyback – after which they will become illegal for those on recreational licenses.
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One Nation is running on a platform of repealing the buyback and most changes to firearms laws in NSW since the Bondi attack.
After One Nation won the Farrer byelection in South Australia in May, the Oceania Precision Instagram account posted a picture of Bacon with the federal leader, Pauline Hanson. The caption stated: “The ۲۰۲۷ NSW state election is fast approaching, we need to support the people who support our industry, join the party today.”
In Tamworth in early October, Bacon said he supported changes voted through as part of December’s reforms which are set to make Australian citizenship a requirement for recreational firearms license after the buyback is complete.
“What happened at the end of last year was a tragedy but what followed was probably some of the worst politics that we’ve ever seen,” he said when launching his upper house tilt. Bacon said the weapons industry hadn’t been consulted.
He cited a survey by gun lobby group the Shooting Industry Foundation of Australia which suggested that half of the dealers in NSW were facing closure.
One Nation is polling at ۲۵% of the primary vote in NSW, according to a Sydney Morning Herald Resolve poll in September. If that support eventuated in March, the party could win at least five upper house seats. The Coalition was on ۲۴% in the Resolve poll.
The NSW Nationals voted against changes to firearms laws in December while the Liberal party supported them.
The opposition leader, Kellie Sloane, has walked back her support since then. The Liberal party announced last month that it would scrap caps for primary producers and freeze the buyback while an inquiry examined other changes.
The Resolve poll suggested that opposition to the gun reforms among One Nation voters – at ۳۳% – was higher than for the other major parties. But a majority still supported the post-Bondi changes or were undecided.
The poll suggested ۶۳% of all voters supported the reforms, slightly lower than after the attack, while ۱۹% were opposed and the rest remained undecided.
Newman, speaking alongside Bacon earlier this month, said the firearms debate had become “a very sore point in the regions”.
Stephen Bendle, a senior advocacy adviser to the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, founded after the Port Arthur massacre, said attempts by One Nation or the Coalition to wind back the reforms was “outrageous politics that ignores the victims and survivors of Bondi and the expectations of the community”.
“The outrage is being led by commercial interests in the firearm industry. Mr Bacon and everyone else needs to understand that times change,” Bendle said.
“Many industries have to adapt to changing circumstances, whether they are government regulation or market forces. But in every case, the community determines what is in the community’s best interest.”
Bacon and One Nation did not respond when contacted for comment.
