If you are subject to a final Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) in New South Wales, you cannot hold a firearms licence. That much is well known. But what many people don’t realise is that the restriction doesn’t end when the AVO expires. Under the Firearms Act 1996 (NSW), the consequences follow you for a full decade after the order is lifted. And two landmark Court of Appeal decisions handed down in 2024 have now made it far harder — in many cases impossible — to avoid that outcome.
Here is how the law works in practice.
While the AVO is in Force
Section 11(5)(c) of the Firearms Act 1996 states plainly that a licence must not be issued to a person who is currently subject to an apprehended violence order or interim apprehended violence order. There is no discretion here. The Commissioner of Police cannot issue a licence regardless of any other circumstances. If you are under an AVO, you cannot get a firearms licence, full stop.
If you already hold a firearms licence when an AVO is made against you, Section 24(1) of the same Act provides that your licence is automatically revoked the moment the order takes effect. You do not need to be notified, no process needs to be followed. It is gone automatically.
After the AVO Expires
This is where many people are caught off guard. Section 11(5)(c) continues on to provide that a licence must not be issued to a person who, at any time within 10 years before the application was made, has been subject to an apprehended violence order, other than an order that has been revoked.
That final qualification is critical. Only a revoked AVO escapes the 10-year count. An AVO that simply expires at the end of its term does not avoid the restriction. Once a final AVO runs its course and lapses, the 10-year clock begins ticking from the date the order was last in force, and for that entire period you remain ineligible for a firearms licence.
Can You Revoke the AVO After It Expires?
No. The Court of Appeal settled this question definitively in Wass v Director of Public Prosecutions (2023) and confirmed it again in Majumdar v Director of Public Prosecutions [2024] NSWCA 117. In Majumdar, the applicant had been offered a position in the Australian Army conditional on having no civil restrictions against him. He filed an application to revoke his AVO four months before it was due to expire. However, due to adjournments and the contested nature of the application, the hearing did not take place until after the AVO had expired. The Court of Appeal held that the Local Court had no power to revoke an AVO that had already expired by the time of the hearing, even where the application itself was filed before expiry.
This means filing the application is not enough. The application must be heard and determined before the AVO expires.
Can You Extend the AVO to Buy Time for Revocation?
The Court in Majumdar noted in passing that it had been open to the applicant to apply under section 73(2)(a) of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 to extend the AVO’s operation until the revocation could be heard. He had not done so. Many readers of that decision assumed this suggested a workable solution: extend the AVO, then revoke it, thereby escaping the 10-year prohibition.
The Court of Appeal has now firmly shut that door. In Commissioner of NSW Police v Murphy [2024] NSWCA 311, a defendant had made exactly this move. He filed a revocation application just over a month before his six-month ADVO was due to expire, and successfully obtained an order extending the AVO until his revocation application could be heard. His solicitor was frank with the court about the reason: the client sought to obtain a firearms licence and would be automatically precluded for 10 years unless the AVO was revoked rather than allowed to expire. Some months later a magistrate revoked the order.
The Commissioner sought judicial review, and the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal on two independent grounds. First, the power to extend an AVO can only be exercised for the purpose of protecting people from domestic violence, intimidation and stalking. Since no part of the purpose of the extension was to protect the protected person, the extension was void for improper purpose. The AVO had therefore expired on its original date and there was nothing left to revoke.
Second, and critically, even if the extension had been valid, the Court held that revoking an AVO for the purpose of disengaging the 10-year firearms prohibition under section 11(5)(c) is itself an improper purpose, alien to the objects of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act. The power to revoke an AVO exists to protect people from domestic violence, not to allow a defendant to sidestep the consequences that Parliament deliberately attached to the existence of an AVO. As McHugh JA put it, the purpose of revoking an ADVO in order to disengage the firearms prohibition would defeat Parliament’s intention and the operation of its legislative scheme.
The Court traced the legislative history carefully, noting that Parliament has been acutely aware of the interaction between AVO revocations and the firearms licensing regime since at least 1992. The 10-year prohibition was introduced in express terms and was deliberately designed to operate in parallel with equivalent prohibitions following criminal convictions. It is not a default position that can be negotiated away — it is an intentional and continuing consequence of the making of a final AVO.
What Does This Mean in Practice?
The combined effect of these decisions is severe. A revocation application must not only be filed but must be heard and determined before the AVO expires. It cannot be filed for the purpose of escaping the firearms prohibition. The AVO cannot be extended simply to preserve the opportunity to revoke it for that same purpose. And if the only substantial purpose of either the extension or the revocation is to disengage the firearms prohibition, both orders will be void.
This creates a situation where revocation of an AVO solely to regain firearms eligibility is, as a practical matter, no longer available as a strategy in New South Wales. A court may still revoke an AVO where there are genuine changed circumstances warranting revocation on its own merits, such as a genuine reconciliation, a change in living arrangements, or other substantive developments unrelated to firearms. However, where the dominant motivation is firearms access, the Murphy decision makes clear that any revocation obtained for that purpose risks being challenged and set aside by the Commissioner of Police.
Consider a simple example. A person becomes subject to a two-year final AVO. The AVO expires without a genuine application for revocation on its own merits having been made and determined. That person cannot apply for a firearms licence for a further 10 years from expiry. In total, they are locked out of firearms licensing for at least 12 years, with no realistic legal pathway to shorten that period.
Key Takeaways
The law as it currently stands in New South Wales creates a strict two-stage prohibition. First, no licence is possible while an AVO is current. Second, no licence is possible for 10 years after an AVO that was not formally revoked by a court. The Courts of Appeal have now made clear that revocation is only available where it is genuinely warranted on the merits and is not sought for the purpose of circumventing the firearms licensing restrictions. Attempting to extend an AVO simply to then revoke it for firearms purposes will not work and may result in both orders being declared void, leaving the person in a worse position than if they had simply allowed the AVO to expire.
Anyone navigating these laws should seek independent legal advice as early as possible. The consequences of an AVO for firearms licensing are severe, long-lasting, and — as three Court of Appeal decisions in the space of two years have demonstrated — increasingly difficult to avoid. I highly recommend using Richard McDonald as your nsw firearms solicitor to navigate this complicated area of law.