Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today to this bill, the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Bill 2026, as a mum of young children and as someone who can recall the Port Arthur tragedy in 1996 as a teenager and the way in which the country rose up. We saw leadership in this place, working together to get guns off our streets. I also rise as a regional member, a regional MP and a member of parliament. My electorate is 10 minutes from the border of New South Wales, runs through the centre of Victoria and ends an hour north of Melbourne. We are a regional electorate. We have suburbs, we have farms, we have rural communities, and we at the moment are in a challenging time, recovering from the bushfires that devastated the tiny town of Harcourt not more than a fortnight ago. But I stand here today in this place to speak because there are over four million licensed guns in Australia. That was a figure that shocked me post the tragedy in Bondi. The reality hit—just like after Port Arthur, when I was a teenager. Four million guns are circulating legally in our community.

I've had conversations with people in my electorate: 'My brother has guns. He lives with my mother. He's not working.' 'How many guns?' 'Four or five.' 'Well, is it four or is it five?' This is just around the corner from where I live. It's a hidden reality that a lot of us don't know.

There is at least one gun for every seven Australians. That's a lot of guns. To put it another way, that's more than one gun for every person living in Tasmania, South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory, combined. That's a lot of guns legally in our community. On average, a firearm licence holder owns more than four guns, with two individuals in the suburbs of Sydney owning over 300 firearms.

Firearms are not confined to rural areas, like some of those opposite might try to suggest. A third of the guns legally owned in New South Wales are located in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong. These are the facts. This is what we must confront as a parliament and as a society. This isn't new. A report conducted by the Australia Institute, assisted by Gun Control Australia and the Australian Gun Safety Alliance, released this time last year, stated:

The overwhelming majority of Australians expect that our gun laws strictly control the licensing and ownership of firearms and expect their governments to ensure our firearm laws and regulations are responsible, safe and strong, putting community safety before the needs of those people wanting firearms.

It went on to say:

The gun reforms introduced after Port Arthur have served Australia well. It is deeply concerning to see the firearm industry exerting influence on policy and marketing, resulting in over 4 million firearms now in circulation …

They're circulating legally in our community.

Following the devastating impact of the Bondi terrorist attack in Sydney, our government is rightfully reviewing the gun laws in Australia, as Australians demand. Based upon the circumstances around the attack, the government—not on its own but through National Cabinet—is progressing reforms to ensure and improve public safety.

Regional Australians, by and large, are responsible gun owners. Their use of firearms is legitimate and professional. From recreational hunting and pest management to the unfortunate occasions where livestock or wildlife need to be put down, they are responsible. I want to acknowledge the local people in my electorate who have reached out to me, who do want to see safety and who want to have a dialogue on this. An example is the bushfires that occurred in the last fortnight. I acknowledge that there are some farmers who have used guns responsibly, safely and ethically to put down their much-loved livestock. Not all of them did; some of them worked with Agriculture Victoria to euthanise in other ways.

This was not what occurred in Bondi. As we saw in the Bondi attack, the terrorists had the racial ideology but also the means to conduct this awful crime. We have to prevent the ready access to guns by people who do not need them and who will inflict violence with them. (Time expired)

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