Gun sales at controversial HuntFest festival raise ire as photographers take aim at event
Photo: The Narooma Huntfest has been billed as a family festival. (ABC News: Peta Doherty) The sale of firearms at a festival in a council-owned building is dividing residents in a sleepy NSW coastal town and attracting criticism for being out of step with Australia’s gun laws. The annual Narooma HuntFest has been billed as a family festival — an outdoor expo covering everything from home butchery to shooting wild deer. Warning: This article contains graphic images that some readers may find distressing. And if you have the right paper work, you can walk out of the council-owned Narooma Sports and Leisure Centre with a rifle and ammunition. That has outraged some locals, including Eurobodalla Deputy Mayor Anthony Mayne. "I appreciate that there is a role for weapons in society," said Councillor Mayne, a former Australian Army soldier. "However, by definition, having the event held on council property sends a really, really mixed and poor message. "In a society that’s found a really positive balance, I think this is a slippery slope and we need to be very, very careful of what we’re doing here." The local anti-gun lobby has been engaged in a lengthy stoush with the Eurobodalla Shire Council over the way it approved the event and had recently submitted an extensive complaint to the New South Wales Ombudsman. "The fact they are available in a public building on Crown land in the main street of a small country town I think is totally unnecessary," said Heather […]
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