Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

It speaks volumes of those opposite that not one of them has stood up, since the member for Bendigo did, to seek to defend this legislation, the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Bill 2026, because this is bad legislation. This is bad legislation which has been rushed into the parliament, with no consultation, to solve a political problem for the Prime Minister. And that is the form of this prime minister.

This year, the member for Grayndler celebrates his 30th year in parliament. The Prime Minister is the ultimate insider who is always trying to find a political solution to any problem he faces. His basic instinct after the tragedy at Bondi was to try to find a political solution, and the first scapegoat he found was the law-abiding gun owners in this country. Never forget: we have some of the strictest gun laws in the world. This prime minister has sought to distract and divide the population by pointing to gun owners now and saying, 'We have to take those guns away from you.'

There has been no consultation. I've been to gun-shop owners in my electorate to ask them, 'What consultation was there with you?' How many guns is it reasonable for a person to have? You just heard the member for Dawson explain that it is reasonable for a keen licensed shooter to have multiple guns for different tasks, because different guns do different things in the hands of a law-abiding citizen. It is quite reasonable for someone who may be involved in clay-target shooting to have a shotgun for that purpose, a different shotgun for duck shooting, maybe a light-calibre rifle for control of pests like rabbits and a different calibre rifle for control of deer or pigs. Very easily, a law-abiding Australian pursuing their sport as a hunter or a sporting shooter, or just a farmer doing their job, would rapidly have half a dozen guns with no problem whatsoever. And they are no threat to the Australian public. Yet this government and this prime minister, seeking a political solution, are vilifying law-abiding Australians going about their pastime or their business and causing no harm to anyone else.

This legislation enables the states to pursue a gun buyback, using $1 billion of taxpayers' money. Does anyone think a single criminal, a would-be terrorist or anyone who is a threat to society is going to roll up and hand in their gun to recover the gun buyback money from the Australian taxpayers? It is not going to achieve a single thing in terms of community safety, but it is going to divide our nation, and it is going to cause undue grief for some of our firearm owners through having to surrender guns that were very personal to them or maybe even family heirlooms. This is what we get when we have a weak and divisive prime minister who's always looking for a political solution.

The real issue here was radical Islamic extremism; that was the real issue. And, for two years after the October 7 attacks, we refused—the government of our nation refused—to call out the antisemitism, to keep our Jewish Australian people safe. It was a failure of our nation that we failed to keep them safe. When the attacks occurred, instead of calling that out, instead of taking some responsibility, instead of apologising to Jewish Australians, the Prime Minister's first instinct was to go after the guns—to go after law-abiding Australians with legal guns who have done nothing wrong. They have had a gutful of being continually victimised by people who don't understand their sport and don't understand the lawful purposes for having firearms. And they are reasonable people.

I say that because, if the Prime Minister had come to us and said, 'What are some reasonable changes we could make here?' there would be reasonable changes you could make. Instead, he has gone straight to the buyback, straight to taking guns off law-abiding Australians, because it's always about distraction. It's always about a political solution from a weak and divisive leader who has failed to keep Australians safe.

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