Anthony Albanese ‘ready for the fight’ to tighten firearms laws as National party and gun groups push back | Bondi beach terror attack
Anthony Albanese says Australia is ‘fight ready’ to tighten firearms laws after Bondi beach terror attack; The gun lobby and the National party oppose the changes, which they claim are an attempt to divert attention from radicalisation.
Former Liberal prime minister John Howard, who introduced sweeping gun control measures after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, said he would support tightening firearms laws and there were too many guns in Australia, but claimed Albanese was focusing on the wrong issue.
Howard said the debate over gun laws was a “distraction” and that “the issue here is anti-Semitism.”
“The failure of the last two years stems from the failure of the federal government, led by prime minister Anthony Albanese, to bring sufficient energy to a broad-based offensive against the evil of antisemitism,” he told Sky News.
Albanese’s push to tighten gun laws has the support of Walter Mikac, whose wife and two daughters were among the 35 people killed in Port Arthur.
“Honoring those killed at Bondi Beach and the legacy of my daughters Alannah and Madeline requires more than words of sympathy,” he said in a statement.
“It requires courage and a renewed commitment to public safety as the guiding principle of our firearms laws. Australia has led the world before; we can and must do it again.”
But the head of the Shooters’ Union has warned of a “major step backwards” into the proposed changes, claiming licensed firearms owners are being treated like punching bags.
Sign up: AÜ Breaking News email
Nationals leader David Littleproud claimed: “This isn’t a gun issue, it’s an ideology issue.”
Federal and state leaders agreed in the national cabinet to explore gun law reform, including limiting the number and type of guns that can be owned, reviewing licensing including greater sharing of crime intelligence in deciding applications, and limiting licenses to Australian citizens.
States and territories have a wide range of laws, including how often licenses must be renewed; some still use paper-based systems for licensing. Victorian premier Jacinta Allan said states needed to “act as one at the national level”.
“That was certainly the point of yesterday’s national cabinet meeting; that we not only need to act uniformly, but we need to act urgently,” he said.
Albanese said New South Wales could not act alone and that “the system is only as strong as its weakest link”, raising concerns that government agencies that issue gun permits “cannot talk to each other”.
NSW to lead work on national gun reforms Western AustraliaThe legislation last year passed what the state government described as Australia’s “strictest gun laws”, including a 10-firearm limit for farmers and competitive shooters, mandatory training for applicants and regular health assessments for gun owners.
The long-awaited national firearms registry, first proposed after the Port Arthur massacre, will also be “accelerated,” but the state’s work to set up the system won’t be completed until the end of 2026, and some state governments won’t be ready to use it for some time after that date.
Questions have been raised about why alleged Bondi beach terrorist Sajid Akram was granted a firearms license and possessed six guns despite his son and alleged hitman friend Naveed Akram being investigated and cleared in 2019 for possible links to an extremist cell.
NSW police commissioner Mal Lanyon announced that Sajid Akram was granted a firearms license in 2023.
Home secretary Tony Burke told ABC radio there were “certainly issues around linking intelligence that we might need to get gun licences”, particularly in relation to family members of licensed shooters.
Littleproud said he believed current licensing schemes were working and instead questioned why police had not raised concerns that Sajid Akram was in possession of firearms despite Asio’s inquiries about his son.
“Existing gun laws work and are being used that way. Changing gun laws is a distraction from the Labor government’s failures to take seriously the rising antisemitism that has increased since October 2023,” he said.
NSW premier Chris Minns said he wanted to allow police to use criminal intelligence on the license applicant, not just criminal records.
“If we can get legislation in place where the police commissioner can say, ‘I have concerns about this person, I don’t want them to have access to a gun even though they don’t have a criminal record,’ that’s the kind of legislation we want to see in NSW,” Minns said.
The federal opposition considered changes to gun laws but called for a focus on anti-Semitism first.
“Changing gun laws will not eliminate anti-Semitism, and that was the reason behind these attacks… Fixing gun laws in some way will not stop what is happening. [on Sunday]”Shadow home secretary Jonno Duniam told the ABC.
“If it’s not a gun, it’s explosive devices, knives, other offensive weapons.”
Efforts to tighten gun laws are already facing resistance from shooter groups.
Tom Kenyon, chief executive of the Australian Sport Shooters Association, said “talking about gun laws rather than the radicalization of individuals is a waste of effort and a waste of the prime minister’s political capital.”
He supported Australian citizenship as a prerequisite for gun ownership but said limiting the number of firearms an individual could own was “an artificial attempt to show that you’re doing something”.
“Even if you limit people to one or two firearms, it would still be technically possible to commit an act of terrorism,” he said.
Shooters Union Australia president Graham Park said Albanese’s push for new gun control was a “disgraceful and disgraceful attempt to distract from the failures that helped bring about this terrible tragedy”.
“I believe you will see a huge response from the Australian firearms community of one million gun owners [to changes] Because we are tired of being punching bags because of politicians looking for distracting headlines,” Park said.
