Coalition opposes gun control changes, hate crimes bill set to pass with Liberal support
Updated ,first published
The futures of three National shadow ministers who voted against the Coalition’s agreed position on hate crimes legislation are in doubt.
Last night, senior Nationals MPs Bridget McKenzie, Ross Cadell and Susan McDonald took to the floor to vote against a bill banning hate groups and making it easier to cancel visas.
The shadow cabinet agreed to support the bill on Sunday; This means that National shadow ministers are breaking the convention on shadow cabinet solidarity.
On Sunday night, a Nationals MP, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Opposition Leader Sussan Ley had been asked whether she would now implement the contract and ask shadow ministers to leave the front bench.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ley rebuked National leaders for opposing legislation banning neo-Nazis and radical Islamist groups, revealing ongoing division and disorganization in the Coalition as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese capped a complicated month by passing two bills responding to last month’s Bondi attack.
In a tense 48 hours in the Coalition backroom that ended with the Liberals and Nationals diverging in their support for Labor’s hate laws, Ley claimed to have fixed the first hate crimes bill by narrowing the circumstances that could lead to an organization being outlawed and requiring post-Bondi legislation to be reviewed within two years.
The hate laws were passed by Labor and Liberal senators just after 11pm (AEDT) on Tuesday after a long day of sitting. National senators walked out of the chamber during the vote on the second reading of the bill and voted against it after no amendments were successfully passed.
South Australian Liberal Alex Antic was the only Liberal to vote against the bill, along with the Greens, One Nation, independent senators David Pocock, Fatima Payman and Tammy Tyrell, and United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet.
Laws providing for a national gun buyback and preventing non-citizens from purchasing guns were also passed in the early evening with the support of the Greens. The entire coalition opposed these laws because they argued Albanese was cynically using gun laws to distract from extremism.
The Prime Minister showed signs of pressure on Tuesday as he was forced to defend his record in the first question since the Bondi attack. Albanese opposed the Coalition, claiming former prime minister Scott Morrison was weak on antisemitism, with Morrison hitting back hours later.
But in a week when polls showed opposition support remained low, tensions also flared within the Coalition and attention turned again to Ley’s authority and leadership prospects as the Coalition split again on a key policy issue.
National leader David Littleproud agreed in principle to pass the hate crimes bill at a shadow cabinet meeting on Sunday evening. But on Monday afternoon the National Party’s stance changed, with a particularly outspoken senator Matt Canavan voicing concerns that the bill could lead to religious or political groups being outlawed. Canavan also reduced the National Team’s opposition to net zero.
At the same time, Coalition MPs were grappling with dubious information from advocacy groups outside parliament, including fake screenshots of parts of the bill claiming the legislation was much stronger than it actually was.
In this context, Ley held several meetings with senior citizens and made strong arguments that the Coalition should be on the right side of history in supporting reforms to protect Jews after the Bondi massacre. Sources familiar with the talks described them as “tense and tense.” Ley and Littleproud’s relationship has long been troubled and led in part to the brief dissolution of the Coalition at the beginning of this term.
The opposition leader separately told colleagues that some of the changes proposed by the National Party would water down the legislation to the extent that neo-Nazis and Islamist extremists would not be caught, and that if they voted against the bill in the Senate, the National Party would vote with the Greens, who are often accused of antisemitism.
The Nationals’ stance on the bills did not ultimately matter, as the Liberals’ support in the Senate was enough for the bills to pass late Tuesday. But the internal drama highlights the pressure facing the tiny Coalition party, which held multiple party room meetings on Tuesday in a difficult internal process to debate the bill.
In a statement made to the media less than 20 minutes before the vote, Littleproud stated that his party’s different stance from the Liberals “is not reflected in relations within the Coalition” and argued that “more time is needed to fully examine and test the bill before it is finalized”.
One Nation is rising in the polls and former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce is aiming to steal votes from the middle party, posing a risk to the Nationals’ lead on voting for legislation if Joyce and Canavan campaign against the policies.
Right-wing Liberal supporters Andrew Hastie and Tony Pasin voted to change hate crimes legislation earlier on Tuesday.
Ley said in a statement: “In the interest of the national interest, the Liberal party has taken action today to correct the legislation that the Albanian government has grossly misused.”
While Albanese ultimately worked with the opposition to support hate crimes legislation, he worked with the Greens in the Senate to pass stricter gun laws, the second component of his legislative response to Bondi. When it became clear that there was no broad support for either bill in parliament, the prime minister was forced to split the bills into two bills.
What are the new gun control and hate crime changes?
gun laws
- Improved background checks for people with gun permits, more information sharing between law enforcement agencies.
- Tougher “fitness and fitness” tests for people applying for gun licences.
- Weapons imports will be limited to Australian citizens and further restrictions will be placed on the types of weapons that can be imported.
- Establishing a national arms buyback plan.
Hate crime laws
- Power to designate organizations as “hate groups,” meaning members and donors could be jailed. The government has said the law aims to target neo-Nazi groups and radical Islamist groups.
- Greater power for the minister to cancel or refuse a visa if a person spreads hateful or extremist views.
- Creating new aggravated crimes for religious or spiritual leaders who advocate violence and punishing religious leaders who preach hatred to children.
The gun laws tighten firearm controls with greater cooperation among law enforcement agencies for background checks on licensed gun owners, strengthen restrictions on firearm imports, and create authority for the federal government to enact a national buyback plan.
Albanese said the plan was similar to the buyback scheme introduced by the Howard government after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 and included import measures to prevent dangerous people from owning guns. He rejected claims by national MPs that the laws were unfairly focused on rural residents.
“This [legislation] “This is not about targeting farmers, it is not about competitive shooters, it is not about law-abiding firearm owners,” Albanese said.
Littleproud argued that the restrictions were an unnecessary distraction in the fight against antisemitism.
He told parliament on Tuesday that the gun bill was a “cheap political diversion”.
“We don’t have a gun problem, we have a radical Islam problem,” the national leader said.
Littleproud had campaigned against tighter controls shortly after the Bondi massacre, prioritizing senior Coalition partners in the Liberal Party as he did in the Voice of Parliament referendum and Australia’s net-zero emissions target legislation.
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Paul Sakkal is the chief political correspondent. It has previously covered Victorian politics and won the Walkley and Quill awards. Reach him securely on Signal @paulsakkal.14Connect with: excitement or email.
Nick Newling is the federal politics correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.
Mike Foley is the climate and energy correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
Brittany Busch is the federal politics correspondent for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
