100 signatures reached
To: NSW Government
No Guns, No Sniffer Dogs, No Killer Cops - Disarm the NSW Police
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Disarm the NSW Police and reinvest savings into programs and services that actually provide safety to the community.
The police are not keeping the community safe, and should not have access to weapons.
Over 580 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have died in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission, including Sistergirl Veronica Baxter, who was incarcerated in a men’s prison. The recent NSW inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes found “shameful homophobia, transphobia and prejudice" amongst NSW police. The 2023 inquiry into NSW Police Force responses to domestic and family violence found that incidents of abuse are deliberately and routinely mishandled when the offender is a police officer.
Fatal police shootings are at an all-time high in Australia, but it’s not only guns police use to kill: in recent years, police have killed people with tasers and bean-bag rounds. Police regularly use weapons like pepper spray, horses and dogs to cause serious injury.
There is no recorded link between police carrying firearms and reduction of crime or increased safety. In 18 countries, including the UK and New Zealand, police do not routinely carry guns.
We call on the NSW Government to disarm the NSW Police Force:
- Ban police use of firearms, tasers, OC spray and batons.
- Disband the Mounted Police Unit.
- End the use of dogs for crowd control and drug sniffing.
Reinvest funding saved into programs, services and infrastructure that demonstrably provide community safety, including domestic violence services, health interventions like pill testing and safe injecting programs and free mental healthcare, public housing, and adequate social security payments.
Why is this important?
Police in NSW are given billions of dollars every year, much of which they use to harass, intimidate and brutalise minority communities.
Imagine all the ways we could improve community safety if that money were redirected to the things that we know, based on evidence, actually keep us safe and well.
Imagine all the ways we could improve community safety if that money were redirected to the things that we know, based on evidence, actually keep us safe and well.