Canberra will take part in a national gun buyback designed to strengthen Australia’s response to the shooting spree that killed 15 people at a Jewish festival in Sydney, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said today.
Mr Albanese’s centre-left government passed legislation in January introducing the buyback, tougher firearms licence checks and measures to combat hate speech after the 14 December attack at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach, in New South Wales’ capital.
- Advertisement -
New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, was the first to sign on to the programme, which is due to begin on 2 November.
The Australian Capital Territory (ACT), where Canberra is located, has now agreed to establish a comparable scheme. The move is intended to ensure that “an antisemitic terrorist attack like we saw at Bondi can’t happen again”, Mr Albanese said.
Anthony Albanese enacted laws for a gun buyback following the Bondi Beach attack last December
The ACT has about 23,000 firearms and more than 7,000 licensed gun owners, according to the statement. It did not provide a start date for the territory’s buyback, and Mr Albanese’s office did not immediately respond to a request for further details.
Police allege that the Bondi Beach attack was carried out by a father and son who had been inspired by Islamic State. The pair used powerful guns that had been obtained legally. The surviving suspect has not yet entered pleas to a series of charges, including 15 counts of murder.
Australia had a record 4.1m firearms last year, according to government figures.
The planned buyback is expected to be the country’s largest since the campaign launched after the 1996 massacre at Port Arthur in Tasmania, where a gunman killed 35 people.
