Letter to Minister Ellis on a firearms survey run off Facebook

Dear Minister Ellis,

I am writing to you in my capacity as President of Shooters Union Tasmania to express serious concerns about a survey link related to firearms that was posted on Facebook today and emailed via internal contacts.

The survey is not being conducted through established departmental channels, such as Firearms Services Tasmania, which operate under privacy protections and a legislative framework. There is a significant risk the results will not be collected, analysed or used in line with standard government guidelines.

This also raises the Ministerial Code of Conduct. Ministers are required to act with integrity and in the public interest. Bypassing official departmental processes for a public consultation is not that. The Code also requires compliance with the Personal Information Protection Act 2004. A survey on an unofficial social media channel does not meet that.

I strongly urge you to withdraw the survey immediately and redirect any such work through the department. Shooters Union Tasmania stands ready to engage constructively through official avenues.

Yours sincerely, Phillip Bigg.