David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Justice and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Counter-Terrorism. Will the minister inform the House of steps the government is taking to protect Australians 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 Banks for the question and for the interest he takes in law and justice issues. Firearms trafficking is a deadly crime and even a small number of guns illegally coming into the country represents a serious risk to the safety of our communities. That is why, prior to coming to office, we committed to implementing in government tougher penalties for gun-related crime, which includes the introduction of mandatory sentences of five years imprisonment for those convicted of firearms or gun trafficking offences.

When the coalition put these penalties to the parliament earlier this year, the Labor Party opposed them. This is despite the fact that the Martin Place siege review, conducted jointly by the Commonwealth and the New South Wales governments, specifically recommended that the Commonwealth and the states further consider messages to deal with illegal firearms. In March, we introduced this legislation giving the House of Representatives and the Labor Party another chance to join with us in opposing and providing the strongest possible sentencing for gun crime. This gives the Labor Party a chance to reconsider their position and make sure that this parliament sends the strongest possible message. Labor claimed during the last debate that they somehow have a longstanding position against mandatory sentencing. Indeed, the member for Batman, the sometimes shadow minister for justice, said during this debate that it is 'laid out in the Australian Labor Party's national platform that it is the strongly-held view of my party' that 'we oppose mandatory sentencing'.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order. In terms of answering for a minister's responsibilities, he is straying a very long way from that and from being directly relevant to what he was asked.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister has the call.

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

What I was drawing the House's attention to was that the shadow minister for justice apparently believes that the Labor Party has a longstanding view in their national platform against mandatory sentencing, which is interesting because I came across this document: A secure and fair Australia: Let's move Australia Forward, brought to us by Julia Gillard and Labor. It is issued under the imprimatur of then Attorney-General Robert McClelland and then Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor. In this document, they actually brag about introducing mandatory sentencing. I will quote directly from it:

In May 2010, Federal Labor introduced tough new people smuggling offences. They included penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment and mandatory minimum terms of up to eight years.

The fact that this Labor Party have absolutely no idea what they stand for led to six years of chaos for our law enforcement agencies under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments. But they now have a chance to do better. They now have chance to join with the government to send the strongest possible message that this parliament opposes gun crime and this parliament will make sure that you have mandatory minimum penalties of five years if you smuggle guns.