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

Thanks again, Senator O'Neill. If this national reform package, including the hate crimes bill and the gun law reforms, had already been in place the gunmen involved in the Bondi terrorist attack would not have been eligible to hold firearms at all. They would have had none. The father in this incident would have been ineligible because he was not a citizen. The firearms that they were using would not have been available to them. And the son, who of course is now facing charges, who didn't have a firearms licence in any event, had he tried any intelligence holdings with respect to him would have formed part of the licensing decisions. Now, no-one is pretending that dealing with guns deals with everything behind Bondi attack, but it deals with the method used to commit this atrocity. We must deal with that method, despite the fact that we see some opposite pretend that these laws are about something completely different. As David Meagher, the brother of former police officer Peter Meagher who was killed at Bondi, said:

… an antisemite without a gun is just a hate-filled person, an antisemite with a gun is a killer. (Time expired)