Australia advances national gun buy-back, tighter checks after Bondi mass shooting
Australia is poised to pass sweeping new gun-control measures, including a national firearm buy-back and tougher background checks, following last month’s mass shooting at a Jewish festival at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, the country’s deadliest in decades.
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The legislation cleared the House of Representatives by a vote of 96-45 despite opposition from conservative lawmakers. It now moves to the Senate, where it is expected to pass with support from the Greens.
Introducing the bill, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the 14 December attack that killed 15 people was carried out by individuals who had “hate in their hearts and guns in their hands.” He added: “As a government, we must do everything we can to counter both the motivation and the method.”
The package would launch the largest national gun buy-back since the program instituted after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, when a lone gunman killed 35 people. It would also tighten background checks for firearms licences by allowing states to draw on information held by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, closing gaps that officials say have allowed high-risk individuals to access weapons.
The government said Sunday there were a record 4.1 million firearms in Australia last year, including more than 1.1 million in New South Wales, the country’s most populous state and the site of the Bondi attack. “The sheer number of firearms currently circulating within the Australian community is unsustainable,” Burke said.
In a parallel push, New South Wales has passed new laws limiting the number of guns a person can own to four — and to 10 for farmers — and requiring licence renewals every two years instead of five. State officials say the changes aim to reduce stockpiles and improve oversight of legal gun ownership.
The federal bill passed without support from the Liberal-National opposition coalition, which has accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor government of failing to adequately address rising anti-Semitism in the wake of the attack. “This bill reveals the contempt the government has for the million gun owners of Australia. The prime minister has failed to recognise that guns are tools of trade for so many Australians,” said Shadow Attorney-General Andrew Wallace.
Parliament is sitting after Albanese recalled lawmakers early from their summer break to address security and social cohesion issues arising from the Bondi shooting. In addition to the gun bill, legislators are debating separate measures that would lower the threshold for prosecuting hate speech offences.
Australia’s firearm laws, among the strictest in the world, were overhauled after Port Arthur, dramatically reducing gun deaths over subsequent decades. Authorities say the number of weapons in circulation has nonetheless climbed in recent years, driven by sports shooting, rural use and, increasingly, illicit trafficking. The government argues the new buy-back and intelligence-enabled checks are necessary to keep pace with evolving threats while reinforcing community safety.
The Senate is expected to take up the bill in the coming days. If passed, the government will begin designing the buy-back program with states and territories and implementing the enhanced screening regime for prospective and existing firearms licence holders.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
