Dear Members

I am now getting into a routine with reporting on the work COLFO is doing on your behalf.

In the past 2 months we have continued to meet with stakeholders. We have met with Police in National office at Assistant Commissioner level and National Operations level to discuss Strategic projects we are developing.

We have had two of our members attend a World Forum on the Future of Sports Shooting Activities in Brisbane.

The focus of this meeting was two fold, firstly to assist the Queensland groups with proposed changes to their Firearms Laws, which included proposing laser pointers be incorporated in Firearms Laws. This is a timely consideration for us given a recent conviction.

Secondly was to understand the implications of the proposed Arms Trade Treaty at the United Nations. This piece of legislation will impact on the importations of Firearms to New Zealand as well as the ability to travel with Firearms for Sports or Recreation. We are working with Police and MFAT to consider options to have activities excluded or exempt from the Arms Trade Treaty as it is primarily written to control the illicit Arms trade.

We have held one meeting of the Council and approached other bodies to be involved on the Council.

We are in the process of uploading the press release, radio and TV comments we have made of the past year so feel free to check our progression of issue at Colfo.org.nz.

We are developing positions on the areas we should monitor. There are a number of ways the activities we enjoy are vulnerable.

These include;
Access to Firearms, Ammunition, parts and equipment both Nationally and Internationally. Shooting disciplines are vulnerable to access to hunting areas or ranges, They are also under new scrutiny around contamination of the environment both from lead and carbon emissions.

We have asked all members to provide information for survey to show how common an activity target shooting is in New Zealand in a given week.

Please encourage your Associations to provide us with the information so we can collate it.

If you can be of any assistance with information of support please contact me on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Michael Dowling
Chair COLFO