Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to be able to rise on behalf of the coalition to start debate in the Senate on the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Bill 2026. As the Senate would recall, the legislation that we're currently debating was, in fact, part of a broader package of laws all jammed together, all tied in together, as an omnibus bill. These laws, for the most part, deal with gun laws—a framework to set up a gun buyback scheme; a system to enable Commonwealth intelligence agencies to share information around background checking for state and territory law enforcement agencies, which are the responsible bodies to issue licences for firearms in this country. It expands that background check arrangement; it expands the importation controls and new tests; it expands customs import and export prohibitions relating to extremists and hate linked materials, symbols and weapons.

One of the big concerns we had about this legislation in the first instance was that it was legislation jammed in with other legislation relating to matters to deal with the antisemitism crisis we face in this country, to deal with how we might proscribe and manage hate groups in this country, how we might deal with individuals under these laws who, of course, are spreading hate, inciting violence, are seeking to do terrible things to unpick the social fabric of our country that are not in our national interest, to deal with people who hate this country, who do not want democracy to succeed, who do not feel that the way we live in this country is indeed the way that it should be. They want to change everything. So to have this set of laws jammed in together was a huge concern for us.

I will also point out that these laws were slapped down on the table by the Prime Minister, by his government, and he said, in doing so: You've got a week to look at this. The parliament will be coming back—and here we are—and you've got to get it right by then. You've got to go through the 150 pages or thereabouts of legislation, you've got to read the 350 pages of explanatory memorandum—all of it very complex, all of it impacting existing laws across our statute book, all of it having impacts on things that many of us have raised concerns on towards freedom of speech and the like—and you've got to get it all done within the week. This is a truncated process off the back of legislation having been tabled that no-one outside of government had any input into prior to the legislation being made available to the public on Tuesday of last week—seven days ago.

At 9.00 am on Tuesday last week, the government released this legislation, or a draft version of it, for public consultation. Of course, since then, the legislation has been taken out of the omnibus bill they'd tabled, because they did see the writing on the wall. They realised, of course, that in its form then and the approach being taken—'Take it or leave it; we've drafted legislation, and you're going to have to pass it, or we'll blame you for the failure of this legislation'—was not going to work. As anyone tuned into this debate might realise, the Australian Greens political party have offered their support to the government to pass the firearms component of this legislation and the related customs element as well. They saw fit to pass this; they were able to do that in short form. I'm not sure what interrogation was had into this legislation, but they've reached that conclusion anyway.

The coalition does support elements of the legislation. If we start with, of course, the provision regarding expanded background checks using intelligence holdings, it's frankly baffling that today we don't actually have that in place, that that is not a standard form, that a police or law enforcement agency—whoever the licence-issuing authority in any state or territory is—doesn't, as a matter of course, go and interrogate the holdings of intelligence information or seek to understand whether there is any information held by national intelligence agencies. It's the fact that here we are in 2026 and that's not actually happening. To that end, it is a good move to have that arrangement in place—that we are actually able to ensure that level of information, which was, as at today, unavailable to agencies who are making decisions, is important.

It has also highlighted the very slow-going nature of the National Firearms Register. As I understand it, there are some jurisdictions—and this is the reason we don't have a national firearms registry—that still have a paper based registry. It's not electronic, it is not online, it's not even an Excel spreadsheet! It is an antiquated system, which, of course, makes one wonder how it can be properly administered, especially when there are quite a number of people in our community who do have firearms and who are law-abiding citizens. But how do you manage this kind of system if it's in a book or on a bunch of scraps of paper? Who knows how that operates? But it does show that the government does need to speed up.

We, of course, do have some concern around unintended consequences of the expansion of importation controls and the new tests contained in this legislation. We are concerned about the impact of changes to the types of weaponry, the types of ammunition that can be imported and for what purpose, and the arrangement that a firearm licence holder would have to go through to get to them and to comply with the law. My colleague the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, Senator McKenzie, will be moving amendments on behalf of the opposition to deal with some of the concerns we have. We think it is important, given the rushed nature of the legislation here, that we do get the balance right, that we do make sure that this does not improperly impede law-abiding gun owners and licence holders from being able to continue abiding by the law.

Some of those concerns, of course, relate to what changes these laws might have on the ability of an individual to continue to earn an income. You've got individuals out there who draw an income from controlling vermin who will have an array of firearms as part of their toolkit to be able to do the job they need to do. A colleague, Senator Colbeck, showed me a picture last night of an individual who manages property at a place called Barrington in Tasmania, where, in his scope, there were hundreds of wallabies destroying the pasture for his livestock. That is an impact on business, so that person legitimately needs a range of weapons which have a range of fixtures—and there's a range of ammunition related to it—which will be caught up and impacted by this legislation. Some of those things, as I say, will be dealt with under the amendments to be moved by Senator McKenzie, who ordinarily would have led debate on this—