Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

I got sighs when I said that! That says everything. You cannot say 'Islamic extremism' to people on the other side of this chamber without getting the sigh. What happened in Bondi was an Islamic extremist attack in this country. That's what happened, and that's what we need to be talking about.

As soon as that attack happened, the victims of the attack, the people who were affected by the attack and the community of this whole country wanted the Prime Minister of this country to call a royal commission straightaway. What the people in this country wanted to know is how widespread Islamic extremism is in this country. How widespread is it? How widespread—

Government members interjecting—

Yes, I get interjections. Isn't this terrible? How widespread is antisemitism in this country? That's what the community wanted us to talk about. That's what the community wanted to be done. Did the Prime Minister act on that? No. He already had the report from the antisemitism commissioner that he appointed, a report that had many recommendations. Had he acted on any of those recommendations? None. He hadn't acted on any of the recommendations from his antisemitism commissioner when that attack happened—none of them.

What was his first instinctive reaction after this horrific Islamic extremist attack in Bondi? It was to clamp down on legal gun owners in this country. That was his first response, not to call a royal commission, to go in to look at the issues we're dealing with or to go to the report from his commissioner into antisemitism—which, by the way, didn't mention guns at all. His instinct wasn't to go to that report and say: 'We have a serious issue with Islamic extremism and antisemitism in this country. What has my commissioner said we should do? Should I call a royal commission? I'll call a royal commission to get our heads around how big this issue is.' No. His first response was to effectively use that tragedy to crack down and justify gun law changes that will be felt by farmers and sporting shooters in our country.

An opposition member: Collectors.

Collectors and also small businesses. I had a chat to a gun shop owner in my community in Grafton the other day. Some of the amendments that we're going to move to the legislation will provide not just that people will get a fair price for the guns that will be bought back but also that there will be compensation for the businesses. Matt in my community is concerned and knows that his business will probably close and he will lose his livelihood. So we're not just talking about people losing guns that they need for their sporting clubs or for their own protection. If you're out on farms, especially big farms, and there are feral animals and all sorts of things, you need different guns for different things. Not only is it potentially going to endanger people's lives but people are going to lose businesses over this.

Some of the amendments we will move here are to make sure there's compensation for people—not only that, even though this is unfair, they will get a fair price for the guns that will be bought back by the government but that people who lose their businesses will be compensated, too. The coalition disagree and will be voting against this legislation. We're not going to use law-abiding gun owners as the scapegoats for that terrible Islamic extremist attack in Bondi, but we also want fair compensation for businesses in this country that are going to be very badly affected by this.

As the Leader of the Nationals just said, what has to be acknowledged is that in this country we already have very tight gun laws. We're not entering this space with an industry that's unregulated or where you can just do what you like. There are inspections and there are 'fit and proper' checks on gun owners. Obviously gun licences can be revoked for different reasons, as well.

Again, we are here debating very important things. We have an Islamic extremism issue in this country. We have an antisemitism issue in this country. We need to do things to make people feel safe, but we are going to make sure that our gun owners are not the scapegoats in this.

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