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 2019. He joined the Nationals in 2023 before defecting to One Nation.

On 3 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 2025, Labor and the Liberals changed the law to limit recreational licence holders to four firearms and primary producers to 10, 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 is due to begin on 2 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 14 December that killed 15 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 SP25-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 after 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 12-month period under the buyback – after which they will become illegal for those on recreational licenses.

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 2027 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 will make Australian citizenship a requirement for recreational firearms licence 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 25% 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 24% 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 33% – was higher than for the other major parties. But a majority still supported the post-Bondi changes or were undecided.

The poll suggested 63% of all voters supported the reforms, slightly lower than after the attack, while 19% 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.

Sources:
Algorithm studies 

Government education framework

Non-gov education toolkit  

The Greens created and maintained a secret dossier that catalogues allegations against Senator Jordon Steele-John and set out ways to shut down media coverage and monitor members who raised concerns on social media.

The crisis communications strategy obtained by this masthead reveals that as far back as 2016, before Steele-John was parachuted into the Senate in 2017, the party was managing complaints. The document reveals that one senior Greens official quit her role because Steele-John was reinstated as the WA branch’s volunteer co-ordinator, even though two women had lodged complaints alleging Steele-John had made inappropriate remarks while working with them.

The 47-page dossier, stored on a Google Drive folder accessible to Western Australian Greens and national Greens staff for close to a decade, was first drafted in 2016 and has been updated in the years since. It sets out ways to shut down media coverage of allegations about Steele-John, while also instructing taxpayer-funded Greens staff to monitor social media discussions and take screenshots of comments posted by party members.

This masthead has confirmed with four former Greens staffers that the dossier was real and that it was used by the WA Greens and the national leader’s office to manage stories about Steele-John.

Steele-John on Thursday took leave from the Greens party room after leader David Shoebridge received a letter from seven active Greens members demanding an independent investigation into allegations from party members that the WA senator made multiple inappropriate comments to women over the past decade.

The senator referred the matter to the WA Greens for an independent investigation, while rejecting the allegations.

“I utterly reject this characterisation of me, which tries to assert I am someone I am not,” Steele-John said in a statement provided to this masthead.

“These claims are made without specifics, any allegation of this nature is extremely serious and must be treated accordingly. If someone has made an allegation, I am prepared to address it.”

On Friday morning, Shoebridge confirmed Steele-John would take a leave of absence from parliament during the investigation.

The resignation

In an email sent to WA Greens members on July 29, 2017, Sarah Nielsen-Harvey – then a party co-convener – announced that she was resigning after less than a year in the job, saying she wanted to focus on her university studies. Co-conveners are administrators who oversee the party’s governance and provide day-to-day management and co-ordination.

The letter contained an oblique reference to turmoil inside the WA branch: “There are also a few things that over this year that have manifested in behaviour and culture that I cannot in good conscience continue being involved with right now”.

Five days later on August 3, the independent website True Crime News Weekly published a story about allegations made against Steele-John by two volunteers, whose names this masthead has chosen not to publish. The story alleged that Steele-John, who was not yet a senator, had been accused of making inappropriate comments by “at least two young female members of the Greens in Western Australia.”

Eventually, the two women decided not to pursue the complaint and, as the crisis communications dossier makes clear, a form of words was agreed: the two women had had a “dispute of an interpersonal nature” with Steele-John but had decided to leave it there.

The real reason she resigned

However, the dossier includes a follow-up email sent on August 17, 2017 to senior party office bearers, including former state Greens leader Elizabeth “Giz” Watson and co-convener Grahame Bowland, in which Nielsen-Harvey made clear the real reason she had quit the party.

“I would just like to clear up a few things after receiving accusations that I am ‘about to wreck the good reputation of the Greens’. I am incredibly hurt by this and it is an unfair allegation,” she began. “I could have included my concerns of… allegations in my resignation email. I did not.” She then detailed contact with journalists, including at Junkee, True Crime News Weekly and The Australian, about her resignation and the allegations against Steele-John, but states that she had not assisted any of the journalists.

“I would like to know where along this journey, since this time last year, it is me ruining the good reputation of the Greens,” Nielsen-Harvey wrote. “I am not the one allegations were levelled at. I am not the one who, after being made aware of the allegations, decided to still dismiss member involvement in choosing their senator, despite the very real risk that these allegations could very well come up and jeopardise retaining our Senate spot on this rotation. I am not the one who has chased down and tipped off journalists.

“I am not the one trying to silence members into not talking about this at all. The bullying that has happened since Jordon’s decision to accept the role has astounded me. Never have I felt unsafe to go to a Greens meeting or office. Thanks.”

In a separate post to a private Facebook group on August 4, Nielsen-Harvey wrote that she was “disgusted” by the Greens’ decision to re-employ Steele-John as volunteers co-ordinator in the lead up to the 2017 WA state election, when the party was aware of the allegations against him.

Nielsen-Harvey remains a member of the Greens, but holds no administrative or elected positions. Watson, a former leader of the party in state parliament and now a co-convenor of the WA Greens with Simone Collins, said on Thursday the branch was supporting the commission of an independent inquiry into Steele-John.

In November 2017, Steele-John was parachuted into the federal Senate when former WA Senator Scott Ludlam was disqualified because he held dual citizenship. Steele-John has since made a name for himself as the party’s chief spokesman on the NDIS and mental health. He has cerebral palsy, uses a wheelchair and has advocated for disability rights throughout his nine-year tenure in the Senate.

Monitoring Greens members

But the dossier contains more than the complaints of one former party co-convener. It contains more than a dozen screenshots from a private Young Greens Facebook group, and from X, in which party members and supporters discuss the allegations made by the two women against Steele-John and the party’s handling of them.

Then state convenor Sophie Greer, who helped deal with the initial complaint from the two women, was required to “reach out to them” – Greens members – if they had posted something negative about the newly minted senator and to take screenshots when people discussed the allegations.

Greer is now Steele-John’s chief of staff and is a frontrunner to win the number one spot on the party’s Senate ticket ahead of the next election.

Under headings including “what is to be shared on background”, “potential initiators of media story”, “complaint received by the party” and “external management plan if story printed”, the dossier sets out how the party should kill the story.

Steele-John was to “undergo training with Will [Kelly, a senior media adviser for Greens leaders Richard Di Natale, Adam Bandt, Larissa Waters and now David Shoebridge] in case he was asked about the allegations.

Kelly and Steele-John were instructed to “ensure RDN [then leader Richard Di Natale] are [sic] provided with information”.

It adds that “Sophie [Greer] & Tim [Oliver] to keep an eye on Australian Young Greens discussion group”.

Di Natale was contacted for comment, and subsequent former leaders Bandt and Waters. Steele-John, Shoebridge, Bowland, Watson, Nielsen-Harvey, Greer, Oliver and Kelly have also been contacted for comment.

A statement provided by Shoebridge’s office on Friday says: “This is not a document made by, used by, or seen by the Leader’s Office. The office is committed to having the matters comprehensively investigated with a fair, independent and timely process.

“Everyone deserves a safe workplace, and all complaints should be considered in a fair and robust process.”

In a statement from the WA Greens, current co-conveners Watson and Collins confirmed the authenticity of the leaked crisis communications manual.

“The Greens WA responded to allegations about Jordon Steele-John in 2016. The allegations were not substantiated and the named persons have never lodged a formal complaint,” they said. “Reference has been made to an internal document that has been provided to the media. This document outlines the management of communications about this matter.”

The pair said that Greens WA support the commission of an independent inquiry and that they had no further comment.

The dossier provides “pivot responses” for Steele-John if he was asked about the allegations made against him in the True Crime News Weekly article. He was to issue the following statement: “The Greens take allegations like those in that article very seriously and the Party has never received a complaint of the nature outlined on that blog. I’d suggest you talk to The Party for more on that one”, and afterwards, alert Greer and Oliver.

Other scenarios are also war-gamed – such as Steele-John being asked about “Greens and Women”, “Young Greens not supporting Jordon” and Nielsen-Harvey’s decision to quit, with a stock response instructing journalists to seek more information from the WA head office of the party.

When a journalist calls

Page after page of screenshots show inquiries from at least five media outlets over the next three years following the story in True Crime News Weekly.

The journalists were provided with the stock responses set out in the crisis communications dossier, including that “the allegations were investigated by The Greens (WA). As The Greens (WA) had not received a complaint ... they were only able to identify the individuals concerned as media outlets had their names.”

“The individuals identified had previously spoken to a Party Co-convenor for advice on handling a (sic) interpersonal conflict between themselves and Jordon Steele-John. This was of an interpersonal nature... Jordon has not behaved improperly.”

Who might leak?

In the section titled “potential initiators of media story”, senior party officials are assessed on the likelihood that they could assist journalists pursuing the story.

Nicole Harvey and Grahame Bowland, both former state co-conveners, were considered “unlikely” to assist in a story about Steele-John. “Nicole is unwilling to break the confidentiality of her conversation with the women,” the dossier states.

It goes on to say that “Grahame has a friendly relationship with one of the two women, and wouldn’t put them in a harmful situation. He also does not know details of what the two women brought to the Party”.

But former co-convener Nielsen-Harvey is listed as a potential risk to the party’s reputation because “Sarah has already written on AYG [Australian Young Greens] Discussion Group, personal Facebook page & spoken to journalists, none of these have landed articles”.

It goes on to state “Sarah is still a member of The Greens (WA) – Sophie [Greer] or Chilla [Bulbeck, another party official] to attempt to call SNH” and warns “Do not put anything in writing to SNH in first instance”.

What Shoebridge knew

At a snap press conference on Thursday after this masthead revealed the letter, Shoebridge said he was not previously aware of the allegations reported by this masthead against Steele-John. “No, I received the correspondence in my capacity as leader of the Australian Greens, and I’ve dealt with it with … urgency,” he said.

Asked in the press conference about the NSW Young Greens raising claims against Steele-John in 2018, Shoebridge said he had not known about this.

“I was in a different parliament,” he said. “I do not recall having any involvement at all in that, and I don’t think people would expect an upper-house MP in a state parliament to have any role in that.” The Greens have previously faced questions about the transparency of their complaints handling.

Former leader Adam Bandt was briefed in 2021 on a series of scathing assessments of his party’s culture, leading him to order compulsory workplace training for all parliamentarians in the party, but his office still failed to stop a subsequent alleged culture of bullying in the office of then-Greens senator Dorinda Cox.

This was revealed by this masthead in 2024, after 20 staff left Cox’s office in just three years and several lodged formal complaints alleging a hostile culture.

Cox defected to Labor last year.

In 2021, Victorian Indigenous Aunty Geraldine Atkinson sought a formal apology from then-Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe over what she characterised as “a tirade of abuse” and later said she received no acknowledgment from Bandt. In 2023, Thorpe quit the Greens, claiming she had been bullied and undermined by several of her party room colleagues and had lodged a written complaint about her treatment with Bandt and the parliament’s workplace misconduct support service.