Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Justice: will the minister inform the House what action the government has taken to protect people in my electorate of Swan and elsewhere from the illegal firearms trade?

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Swan for his question. He is always very keen to work with me on law enforcement projects within his electorate. He knows that trafficking in guns is a deadly crime and, if we even have a small number of illicit firearms entering the community, it represents a significant threat to the safety of the community.

In Victoria alone, Victoria Police tell us that more than 10 crimes a week involve the use of illicit guns. The Australian Crime Commission estimates that there are up to a quarter of a million long arms illegally in the community and up to 10,000 handguns within the illicit gun market.

When Labor were in government, they reduced our ability to detect and seize illicit guns by reducing the funding and resourcing available to our law enforcement community, but particularly to the Customs service, which had $700 million of cuts and meant that sea and air cargo inspections were significantly reduced, stopping the ability of our border agencies to stop illicit guns and other illicit contraband from coming onto our streets They also cut funding to the Australian Federal Police, and they cut a staggering 30 per cent out of the budget for our national criminal intelligence agency, the Australian Crime Commission. Since we have come to office, we have gone about remedying this reckless approach. In particular, we have reinvested $88 million in Customs to make sure that they have a better shot at screening out contraband before it hits our streets.

Illegal firearms remain the weapon of choice for organised criminals to commit violent acts, and we have been focused on doing all we can do to stop the trafficking in illegal firearms—significantly by introducing legislation to make it an offence to traffic in guns and gun parts in and out of Australia, and by creating the National Anti-Gangs Squad, which disrupts organised criminals who profit from the illicit gun trade. Since the full implementation of the National Anti-Gangs Squad, we have seized more than 286 illegal firearms. We have launched the Australian Ballistics Information Network, which is cutting-edge technology that essentially acts as fingerprints for guns, matching guns to criminals and matching guns to crime scenes.

When Labor were in office, because they cut resources to our law enforcement community and cut resources to our border agency, they left us more vulnerable to the infiltration of organised crime and their ability to bring illicit guns into the community. Now, in opposition, they have irresponsibly stopped us from implementing our election commitment of minimum sentencing of up to five years for people who traffic in illegal guns. We will continue to do all we can to stop organised crime from profiting from the illegal gun trade, we will not tolerate criminals threatening the safety of our community, and we will continue to focus on getting guns off the streets.