Also on this page: Example notice to demand property returned.
Here is a summary and application to a Western Australian licence holder.
Summary: NSW Firearms Prosecution Collapse — McDonald Law (2026)
A criminal defence firm in New South Wales secured the withdrawal and dismissal of firearms charges within one minute of the matter being called. The charges arose after police issued a Firearms Prohibition Order (FPO) against their client and searched his home 40 minutes later. Defence analysis identified 12 separate evidentiary and misconduct issues, including that the FPO was used to circumvent the standard warrant requirements under the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW) (LEPRA). Once those defects were raised with the prosecutor, the case collapsed immediately.
Application to a Firearms Licence Holder in Western Australia
The equivalent legislative framework in Western Australia is the Firearms Act 1973 (WA), administered by WA Police. The equivalent to the NSW FPO regime is found in Part VI of that Act, with additional powers under the Criminal Investigation Act 2006 (WA) governing search and seizure — the WA equivalent of LEPRA.
The core principles from the NSW case apply directly:
1. Search powers cannot be used to subvert warrant requirements
In WA, police must ordinarily obtain a search warrant under the Criminal Investigation Act 2006 (WA) based on reasonable grounds. If WA Police used a licence suspension, revocation, or FPO-style administrative power as a pretext to search a home they could not otherwise obtain a warrant to search, that conduct would constitute an abuse of process on the same basis as the NSW case. Evidence obtained in those circumstances may be excluded or render charges unsustainable.
2. Firearms Prohibition Orders and licence revocations must be properly founded
In WA, the Commissioner of Police holds broad discretionary powers to refuse, suspend, or revoke a firearms licence under ss. 11 and 23 of the Firearms Act 1973 (WA). However, that discretion must be exercised on proper grounds. Where an FPO or revocation is issued without sufficient basis, it may be challengeable by way of judicial review in the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) or the Supreme Court of WA.
3. Charges laid without proper investigation are vulnerable
As in NSW, if WA Police lay charges under the Firearms Act 1973 (WA) without proper investigation, and the brief of evidence contains fundamental evidentiary or procedural defects, those charges may collapse upon proper legal scrutiny before or at first appearance.
4. The Commissioner’s monopoly on licensing decisions
The NSW firm raised a pointed question about whether the Commissioner of Police is the appropriate sole decision-maker on firearms licensing. In WA, the same concern applies. The Commissioner’s decisions are reviewable, but the process is not straightforward and is rarely tested. A WA licence holder who believes their licence was revoked or refused improperly should seek legal advice on review options through SAT or judicial review.
What a WA licence holder in this situation should do
If you are a WA firearms licence holder and police have issued an FPO or equivalent administrative action, conducted a search of your property, or laid charges under the Firearms Act 1973 (WA), do not assume the process was lawful or the evidence sound. Have the brief and the basis for any administrative action properly examined by a lawyer with experience in firearms law and criminal procedure in WA.
The complaints pathway in WA for police misconduct runs through the WA Police Internal Affairs Unit, the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC), and the Parliamentary Inspector of the CCC, which are the rough equivalents of the NSW LECC and Ombudsman.
Note: The NSW article is a law firm’s public post and has not been independently verified against court records. The legal principles summarised above are based on publicly available WA legislation. This is general information only and not legal advice.
Example notice to the actor who appears to be the top of the business/agency that seized firearms.
[FRL-2026-03-16-5]Notice to the Commissioner of Police (WA) Demand for Return of Unlawfully Seized Firearms Without Prejudice as to Rights
[Your Address] [City, State, Postcode] [Date of Notice]To: Commissioner of Police (WA) Col Blanch WA Police Force Headquarters 2 Adelaide Terrace East Perth WA 6004
Re: Unlawful Seizure and Revocation of Firearms Licence — Demand for Return of Seized Property Licence No: [Licence Number] Revocation Notice Ref: [Reference Number] Date of Revocation Notice: [Date] Date of Seizure: [Date]
Audi alteram partem — hear the other side.
1. Identity and Standing
I, [Given name/s], of [family name], Authorised Representative of the legal person [Full Legal Name], being the holder of Firearms Licence No. [Licence Number] issued under the Firearms Act 1973 (WA), hereby give Notice that the revocation of the above licence and the seizure of the firearms described below were and remain unlawful, and demand their immediate return.
2. Property Subject to this Notice
The following firearms were seized on [Date of Seizure] by officers of the WA Police Force:
- [Description — make, model, type, serial number]
- [Description]
- [Description]
3. Grounds of Revocation — Attributed Ideology Without Corpus Delicti
The revocation notice, dated [Date], purports to revoke the above licence on the basis that [Given name/s], of [family name], or the legal person [Full Legal Name], holds or is associated with a “sovereign citizen ideology.” This ground is:
(a) factually unsubstantiated — no evidence of conduct, threat, or demonstrated risk to public safety was particularised in the revocation notice or in any supporting material provided;
(b) legally insufficient — the Firearms Act 1973 (WA) requires the decision-maker to form a view, on probative evidence, that the licence holder is not a fit and proper person or poses a risk to public safety. Attribution of a political or ideological label, without evidentiary foundation, does not satisfy that statutory requirement;
(c) reliant on an irrelevant consideration — Australian law does not criminalise the holding of unconventional political views. The Constitution protects freedom of political communication as a structural implication, and executive action that burdens political expression must be proportionate to a legitimate objective: Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (1997) 189 CLR 520; McCloy v New South Wales (2015) 257 CLR 178;
(d) analogous in character to status-based civil disabilities condemned in comparable jurisdictions, where courts have held that a civil disability imposed on the basis of group membership or attributed status, without objective and proportionate justification, is unlawful: Andrews v Law Society of British Columbia [1989] 1 SCR 143; Sejdic and Finci v Bosnia and Herzegovina (ECHR, Grand Chamber, 2009).
4. Absence of Corpus Delicti — No Factual Body of Wrong Established
Corpus delicti — the body of the wrong — is a foundational legal principle requiring that before any adverse legal consequence may lawfully attach to a person, the factual substance of the alleged wrong must first be independently established by evidence. The principle operates as a safeguard against the imposition of legal disabilities upon bare assertion, suspicion, or attribution.
Although corpus delicti is most commonly invoked in criminal proceedings, its underlying logic applies with equal force to administrative decisions that impose civil disabilities. The principle requires:
(a) that the fact of a harm, risk, or wrong must be established as an objective matter;
(b) independently of any confession, admission, or attributed characteristic of the person subject to the decision;
(c) before adverse legal consequences may lawfully flow.
In the present matter, the revocation decision:
(i) identifies no act, conduct, statement, or event that constitutes the “body” of the alleged unfitness or risk;
(ii) proceeds entirely from an attributed ideological classification — a label applied to the licence holder — without establishing any independent factual foundation for the conclusion that a risk to public safety exists or existed;
(iii) inverts the proper order of administrative decision-making by treating the attributed label as both the evidence and the conclusion, without any intervening factual finding;
(iv) in doing so, deprives the decision of the evidentiary foundation required by law, rendering it not merely unreasonable but void for want of any probative basis.
The position is this: if no act or conduct constituting unfitness or risk can be independently identified and established, there is no corpus — no body of wrong — upon which the revocation can lawfully rest. A label is not evidence. An attribution is not a finding. An ideology, unaccompanied by conduct, is not a risk.
The principle was given administrative law expression in Australian Broadcasting Tribunal v Bond (1990) 170 CLR 321, where Mason CJ affirmed that an administrative finding of fact must be supported by some probative material — that is, material logically capable of supporting the finding made. A finding resting on no probative material is no finding at all, and a decision resting on such a finding is beyond jurisdiction.
Further, in Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZMDS (2010) 240 CLR 611, the High Court affirmed that illogical or irrational reasoning in administrative decision-making — including drawing conclusions unsupported by evidence — constitutes jurisdictional error.
The absence of corpus delicti in the present decision is therefore not merely a procedural deficiency. It is a jurisdictional one.
5. Foundational Legal Principles Affirmed by the Parliament of Australia
The Parliament of Australia’s own published educational materials — House of Representatives Infosheet No. 23: Basic Legal Expressions, published by the Department of the House of Representatives and available at aph.gov.au — confirm the following principles, each of which is directly engaged by the present revocation and seizure.
(a) Rule of Law
Infosheet 23 states that under the rule of law, a person cannot be punished unless a court has found a breach of the law.
No court has made any finding against [Given name/s], of [family name], or the legal person [Full Legal Name]. No charge has been laid. No conviction exists. The seizure of property in the absence of any such finding is inconsistent with this foundational principle, which the Parliament of Australia itself acknowledges as governing this nation’s legal system.
(b) Presumption of Innocence
Infosheet 23 confirms that the accused does not have to prove innocence and is considered innocent until proven guilty.
The revocation decision inverts this principle. By treating an attributed ideological label as evidence of unfitness and risk, the decision-maker has in effect presumed a propensity for wrongdoing in the absence of any proven act. The burden rests upon those who assert a factual basis for the revocation to demonstrate it with evidence. That burden has not been discharged.
(c) Due Process
Infosheet 23 confirms, drawing from statutes founded upon Magna Carta, that none shall be condemned without due process of law. It further affirms that due process means the conduct of legal proceedings according to established principles and procedures designed to ensure a fair trial, also described as natural justice or procedural fairness.
Although an opportunity to respond was nominally provided, the correspondence tendered on behalf of [Given name/s], of [family name], was disregarded without substantive engagement. Due process is not satisfied by the form of an opportunity to respond; it requires genuine consideration of the substance of that response. An opportunity extended and then ignored is no due process at all. This ground is further supported by Kioa v West (1985) 159 CLR 550; Re Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs; Ex parte Lam (2003) 214 CLR 1; and SZBEL v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2006) 228 CLR 152, in which the High Court affirmed that a nominally available opportunity to respond is illusory where the decision-maker fails to engage with the substance of the response tendered.
(d) Principle of Legality
Infosheet 23 confirms that the principle of legality is a common law presumption that seeks to protect citizens from arbitrary uses of power. It operates on the assumption that Parliament would not intend to abrogate fundamental individual rights unless that intention was specifically and explicitly expressed in the relevant legislation.
Infosheet 23 further confirms that this principle of statutory interpretation provides that courts will consider all words of any statute — even general words — to be subject to the fundamental rights of the individual, unless explicit language or necessary implication provides otherwise.
Applied here: the “fit and proper person” standard in the Firearms Act 1973 (WA) must be read, consistently with the principle of legality, so as not to abrogate the right to be free from adverse administrative findings based on bare attribution of belief without evidence. No explicit language in that Act authorises revocation on the basis of attributed ideology alone, unaccompanied by conduct or demonstrated risk. The principle of legality requires that the general words of the statute be read in a manner protective of that fundamental right, not destructive of it.
(e) Bill of Rights Act 1688
Infosheet 23 confirms that the Bill of Rights Act 1688 is important to the rule of law in Australia and includes rights affecting the individual, specifically the prohibition of excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment, and the important provision that laws should not be executed, dispensed with, or suspended without Parliament’s consent.
The Bill of Rights Act 1688 remains in force in Western Australia by virtue of its reception into the law of the colony and subsequently the State. The forfeiture of personal property — firearms of material value — without judicial finding, and on the basis of attributed belief, engages the prohibition against arbitrary penalty. No Act of the Western Australian Parliament expressly authorises the imposition of such a penalty on the basis of political or ideological attribution alone.
(f) Judicial Review
Infosheet 23 confirms that judicial review is the review by courts of public officials and administrators to ensure that official decision-making and the exercise of power is lawful and fair.
The decision presently challenged is precisely the kind of administrative decision subject to judicial review. If the Commissioner declines to remedy this matter voluntarily, application will be made to the Supreme Court of Western Australia for review of the revocation decision on the grounds set out in this Notice.
(g) Separation of Powers
Infosheet 23 confirms that judicial powers should only be exercised by the courts, and that the boundary between the judiciary and the executive is strictly observed.
The practical effect of the revocation decision — imposing a civil penalty by way of property forfeiture on the basis of an attributed characteristic, without judicial process — constitutes an exercise of what is in substance a punitive function by an executive officer. That function belongs to the courts alone.
6. Failure to Afford Genuine Procedural Fairness
Although an opportunity to respond was nominally provided, the correspondence tendered on behalf of [Given name/s], of [family name], was ignored and no substantive engagement with the matters raised therein has been forthcoming. This constitutes a failure of genuine procedural fairness in breach of the requirements affirmed in Kioa v West (1985) 159 CLR 550 and Re Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs; Ex parte Lam (2003) 214 CLR 1.
The opportunity to respond is illusory where the decision-maker fails to engage with the response: SZBEL v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2006) 228 CLR 152.
7. Legal Unreasonableness and Jurisdictional Error
A decision to revoke a firearms licence based solely on an attributed ideological label, without:
(a) any finding of conduct indicating risk;
(b) any probative evidence of threat to public safety; or
(c) any genuine consideration of the response tendered,
is legally unreasonable within the meaning affirmed in Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v Li (2013) 249 CLR 332, and constitutes jurisdictional error reviewable by the Supreme Court of Western Australia. A decision infected by jurisdictional error is, in law, no decision at all.
8. Demand
Accordingly, [Given name/s], of [family name], as Authorised Representative of the legal person [Full Legal Name], hereby demands that the Commissioner of Police:
(a) return all firearms seized as described in paragraph 2 above, within fourteen (14) days of the date of this Notice;
(b) provide written confirmation of the return and the basis on which the revocation is to be reviewed or withdrawn; and
(c) provide the full evidentiary basis, if any, relied upon in making the revocation decision, to the extent not already disclosed.
9. Consequence of Non-Compliance
Failure to comply with this Notice within the time stipulated will be taken as confirmation that no lawful basis for the revocation and seizure exists, and will leave [Given name/s], of [family name], with no alternative but to pursue all available remedies, including but not limited to:
(a) application for judicial review in the Supreme Court of Western Australia;
(b) application to the State Administrative Tribunal;
(c) complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administrative Investigations (Ombudsman WA);
(d) such further relief as may be available at common law and in equity, including damages for unlawful detention of property.
This Notice is issued without waiver of any rights and is intended to afford the Commissioner a final opportunity to remedy the unlawful conduct complained of, without the necessity and expense of litigation.
Veritas et justitia semper praevaleant — let truth and justice always prevail.
By: ________________________
[Given name/s], of [family name]
Authorised Representative of [Full Legal Name].
All Rights Reserved — Without Waiver of Rights Under the Crown of the United Kingdom, within the Commonwealth as Proclaimed and Gazetted, and at Common Law
Drafting notes:
(i) The Bill of Rights Act 1688 reception in WA should be confirmed with instructed counsel, as the precise current reception instrument has not been independently verified in this drafting session.
(ii) Appeal timeframes under the Firearms Act 1973 (WA) and the State Administrative Tribunal Act 2004 (WA) are strict and should be urgently confirmed with instructed counsel before this Notice is served, to ensure no review rights are inadvertently waived or expired.
(iii) This Notice does not constitute legal advice. It is a structured demand founded on verified legal principles and should be reviewed by admitted counsel before service.
Last Updated 6 months ago
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