Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks Senator O'Neill, who I know has had consistent advocacy on these matters, not just since the Bondi attack but well beforehand as well. As I think all Australians know, the terrorists who carried out the antisemitic Bondi attack had hatred in their hearts and guns in their hands, and any response to this horrific attack that ignores either hatred or guns is an incomplete response. That's why the Albanese Labor government is acting on both the motivation and the method for this attack by strengthening laws to confront hate and extremism and by reforming gun laws to keep Australians safe.

Australia now has more than four million firearms in circulation. This is more than at the time of the Port Arthur massacre, which was nearly 30 years ago. That fact alone requires us to confront a difficult truth: our current system allowed someone who posed a deadly risk to legally access firearms. That cannot be allowed to happen again. The Albanese Labor government's reforms that we're considering this week restore the principle that firearms ownership in Australia is a conditional privilege secondary to public safety. So what these laws will do is reduce the number of guns in the community, strengthen background checks, improve intelligence sharing and make sure that people who do not need guns or who might pose a risk cannot obtain them. You really would think that's something that this entire parliament could support.

In the wake of the tragedy at Bondi on 14 December, we as a parliament have a responsibility to come together and act decisively to make sure that Australians can be safe and feel safe. We can do this. Just like the country did after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 and just like John Howard did 20 years ago, the government will establish a national gun buyback scheme to purchase back arms that are not necessary— (Time expired)