I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Calare moving the following motion:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the state and federal government firearm buyback amounts to legalised theft from law-abiding firearm owners;

(b) the flawed gun buyback and so-called 'compensation' scheme is sending law-abiding firearm businesses broke;

(c) these measures unfairly target responsible firearm owners and legitimate firearm businesses while doing nothing to address the threat posed by criminals and terrorists who obtain and use illegal firearms; and

(d) instead of targeting hardworking, law-abiding Australians, state, territory and federal governments should be:

(i) targeting criminals, organised crime groups and terrorists who pose a genuine threat to community safety;

(ii) taking stronger action to remove illegal guns from Australian streets and to investigate, prosecute and punish those who traffic, possess, sell and use illegal guns; and

(iii)undertaking a comprehensive investigation into the intelligence and security failures that contributed to the horrific Bondi terrorist attack;

(2) calls on the New South Wales and federal governments to immediately repeal these flawed and grossly unfair gun laws and buyback scheme; and

(3) further calls on all governments to focus their efforts on combatting criminal activity, terrorism and the illegal firearms trade rather than making law-abiding firearm owners and legitimate firearm businesses scapegoats for government failures.

Standing orders must be suspended because these gun laws are an absolute disaster for regional Australia. This buyback scheme is nothing more than legalised theft, and it needs to be rolled back today before any more firearm businesses are driven to the wall. The state and federal gun buyback scheme is an absolute insult to every law-abiding gun owner and firearm business across New South Wales and across our nation. It is an absolute farce.

We have a system where state and federal governments are forcing an estimated 50,000 law-abiding citizens in New South Wales to hand over hundreds of thousands of guns, and for what? To pay them cents on the dollar. The amounts on offer are well below market value, penalising honest, decent Australians who've done nothing wrong and who obey the law every single day of their lives. They are rightly outraged, and they have every reason to be.

This motion must be debated today because the government's response to this horrific tragedy has been a kneejerk political exercise. Let me state clearly that every single one of us here condemns without hesitation the horrific acts of violence that occurred on 14 December 2025. These acts of terror were evil, they were shocking, and they shook our sense of safety as a nation. In the face of such tragedy and terror, the responsibility of governments of the day was to respond carefully, transparently and based strictly on evidence. Instead, what have we seen from state and federal governments? A complete failure to meet that standard.

From the very beginning, the first impulse was not to call a full and transparent royal commission to examine the deep intelligence and security failures around this act of terror. The first impulse was to immediately push for tighter gun laws and use law-abiding gun owners as political scapegoats to cover up government failures. There are massive serious questions that remain completely unanswered: How were individuals with known links to extremism dating back years able to get access to licensed firearms when at least one of them was on a security watchlist and both of them were known to security services? Why weren't alarm bells ringing when these people visited high-risk countries and extremist hotspots? Where were the gaps in our intelligence sharing systems, and why were they not closed earlier? How did these terrorists slip through the net?

When the interim royal commission report was released, it stated:

No Commonwealth or state intelligence or law enforcement agency has suggested that it was prevented from taking prohibitive actions before or on 14 December 2025 by the then current legislative and authorising framework.

That sounded like government agencies clearing themselves. In any event, no issue requiring urgent legislative action was identified, yet law-abiding gun owners in regional New South Wales and across Australia are bearing the brunt of this junk policy, purely for political reasons. Taxpayers are going to be slugged up to $1 billion for this scheme in New South Wales, all so governments can make a political point.

In the electorate of Calare, the impacts of these rushed reforms are catastrophic. They are destroying our small-business owners and hitting genuine licensed firearm owners who use their guns for farming, pest control, hunting and sporting activities. Look at what this scheme is doing to our firearm businesses right across regional Australia. This flawed buyback scheme's pathetic, inadequate grants of up to $25,000 are not going to stop our gun shops and local firearm businesses from going broke and out of business.

I recently dropped in to see Shane at Mudgee Firearms. A $25,000 grant doesn't even touch the sides when his local business is losing $25,000 every single week in turnover. Shane is a veteran and has put his life and hard work into this business. He told me that, under these laws, trade has dropped off dramatically. Normally, by this time of year, his shop would have sold around 800 firearms. This year, under these rushed, flawed laws and permit delays, he's sold just 33. Think about that—800 down to 33. Shane has been forced to take up other work just to keep the doors of his business open and to pay the bills. He's had to cut his full-time staff from three down to one.

Small businesses across regional New South Wales are reporting that trade is down by 80 to 85 per cent. We see the same story at Bullets & Bits in Orange, where Ray Hawkins and Matt Shirm have seen sales collapse, going from selling three to five firearms a week down to just 15 in six months. They're pulling stock from the shelves, cutting staff hours and relying almost entirely on ammunition sales just to survive, while they're locked into commercial leases with no way out. Over at Bathurst, Jeff at Gunsmoke gun shop told me that it's the quietest he has ever seen it in 28 years of business. He estimates that 70 per cent of gun shops across the country are likely to go under, with many not expected to last past Christmas. These are legitimate, hardworking Australians whose livelihoods are literally being destroyed. It's creating massive financial stress, mental strain and uncertainty.

The permit process has blown out. Timeframes for permits have blown out, and for what? What do these laws actually target? What do they achieve? They do not target criminals. Criminals, organised crime groups and terrorists do not obtain firearms through legal channels. They do not comply with licensing regimes and they certainly are not going to be handing in their guns as part of a buyback scheme. The crooks will not be handing in their guns. Our streets are awash with illegal firearms, and, when police do manage to lock up crims for illegal weapons, the sentences imposed by the courts are so weak that they are back on the streets all too quickly. This is what police have actually told me.

We must suspend standing orders to deal with this issue now. We need to be going after the illegal firearms on our streets. We need to be targeting crooks, organised crime groups and terrorists, who pose a genuine threat to community safety, and we need stronger penalties for those who traffic, possess and use illicit weapons.

In New South Wales this gun buyback scheme is going to last for 12 months. There's a state election coming up in March. Of course, it's up to every individual as to when they enter the scheme and hand in their guns. But you never know; a strong message at the ballot box in March may make the New South Wales government change course. A lot of gun owners are going to be watching and waiting to see if the New South Wales government heeds the message from the ballot box in March before handing in their guns.

This is causing so much angst and pain across regional Australia, and the pain is real. We must bin this junk policy. We need to repeal these flawed, grossly unfair buyback schemes, give proper respect to country communities and leave honest, peace-loving Australians alone. Stop making law-abiding gun owners and small-business owners the scapegoats. I urge every member of this House to support this motion. We need a comprehensive, transparent investigation into the real intelligence and security breakdowns that failed to prevent the Bondi terror attack. Bin this nonsense, ridiculous policy. We need to be standing up for country Australia, defending our small businesses and bringing common sense back into this parliament.

I take great pride and great honour in seconding this motion. People of my age were called up to go to fight against Sukarno and his government. The Indonesian people also fought against Sukarno and got rid of him. But, before he was gotten rid of, we were at war with Sukarno and the country he represented. I was only 18 at the time, and we were on 24-hour call-up to go over and fight. Straight after that, we went into Vietnam, which went on and off for some 20 years, and then Iran, which is still going after nearly 30 years. So if you think you can avoid conflict, you believe in the tooth fairy. Read your history books.

You have so trusted foreign countries that you have disarmed your country, and you're so mistrustful of Australians that you've disarmed them. If ever there was a truism, it's that when you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns. For those of you who are so crushingly ignorant, you can go down to your local engineering works and I could have a gun machined up in about 20 minutes and no-one would know it was a gun. All it is, is a pipe with a screw back and a hole for a firing pin. That's all it is. That's a gun. If you doubt me, there's a young bloke called Owen and I went down to his local engineering works and a couple of hours later walked out with a machine-gun that became our indicative weapon in the Second World War. It was machined up in a couple of hours by a kid who was just out of school. Anyone can access guns, that's what I'm saying.

When you make a proposition like taking guns off people to make the place safer, do you do any homework at all? It's towering ignorance. Who has the lowest crime rate? These figures are about 10 years old now, but I'll bet they're the same. Who has the lowest crime rate in Europe? Switzerland. What is the country? By law, every single house has an automatic rifle—a semiautomatic rifle—with nine rounds of ammunition. It's the highest gun ownership in the world. And if you think that is an anomaly, East Germany, where guns were banned, had the highest death rate with guns in Europe. So much for Europe! Now let's turn to the United States, because I love the debate. They say: 'What about the United States? You left that out.' Oh, you stupid person—I just put the dingo trap outside the dunny door and you just stepped right into it, because the highest ownership of guns in the world is in North Dakota and the second highest ownership of guns in the world is South Dakota. Guns are very restricted in Washington, DC, and in Chicago in the United States. They're the toughest gun laws in the United States. Guess who has the lowest death rate with guns? Actually, they don't have any death rate at all in the two years I looked at it, no-one was killed with guns in North or South Dakota. Guess who has the highest death rate with guns? Washington, DC, where they're virtually banned.

Whether it's America or whether it's Europe or whether it is Australia—in Queensland we had no gun laws at all when I was a minister in the Queensland government. I was on holidays at the Gold Coast and I went in to buy a pair of sand shoes, and they had AK-47 seconds for sale, so I bought an AK-47 semiautomatic rifle and 350 rounds of ammunition instead of buying my sand shoes. I threw it in the back of the Volkswagen and neglected it—it was there for about a week. We had no gun laws at all in Queensland. Guess how many deaths we had with guns? Eight. Guess how many deaths New South Wales had, with fairly draconian laws? They had 36. Guess how many in Victoria, with prohibitive laws? They didn't have eight like Queensland, they didn't have 18, they didn't have 38, they didn't have 48—they had 54 deaths with guns. Queensland had eight had eight deaths with guns. There is the case. (Time expired)

I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

The question is that the debate be adjourned.