Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Warringah for bringing the issue to the attention of the House. The member for Warringah is exactly right that these issues should be taken into account in the issuing of a firearms licence, but they have to be taken into account at the state level.

There are two different hurdles under what's being proposed. AusCheck, which is what's in the bill, is the federal hurdle. It doesn't exist at the moment, but, by putting that in place, it effectively allows all of the information that we hold to be used in the firearms licensing process. That means the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and ASIO. It then goes to the states to determine the fit-and-proper-person test. The states are the holders of information on family and domestic violence. The states are the holders of information on AVOs. I can't put into the AusCheck process information that we don't hold, but it does come into the second hurdle, which is when licensing is happening from the states. For that reason, whilst I agree completely that this issue must be taken into account, it's not something that we can do in the federal part of the process.

Question negatived.

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