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

Praise the lord, yes. Look, if we could please just stick to the issues at hand here, the other concern that the coalition had in this was the suggestion that dealing with gun laws was going to be a silver bullet to deal with issues related to antisemitism. The first response of this government after Bondi was to announce that there would be a review of and changes to gun laws. That is not the cause of what happened here. The gun laws we have in this country were not what caused the event in Bondi on 14 December last year. Yes, firearms were used. They were a weapon, along with homemade bombs. As we know by the proliferation of terrorist activity across the globe, there are a range of weapons that people use beyond firearm, sadly. Indeed, there was an impassioned contribution by another colleague of mine, Senator Liddle, around perpetrators of domestic violence and how there are a proliferation of weapons used there. To suggest that the terrible terrorist event perpetrated by Islamic extremists, the worst terror attack on our soil in our history, would be fixed by changing the gun laws in the way we do is, sadly, a misnomer. So we took issue with the fact that the government's first and only response for a period of time was indeed to change the gun laws and say: 'You know what? All will be well.'

As we know, as history has shown and as the Prime Minister was forced to concede, there was a need for a royal commission. Everyone was calling for one. The world united to have that beyond a response in the form of firearms legislation amendment. You had the victims' families calling for a royal commission. That's much more than just changes to gun laws. You had business leaders, community leaders and not only the opposition but others in this party calling for a royal commission. They finally did it, beyond firearms legislation amendments, and indeed there was much more required.

An omnibus bill landed on the table of this parliament—not even this parliament but the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security—of 150 pages which included the racial vilification provisions which the government said were necessary to tackle antisemitism in this country. But, again, as some of the witnesses to that inquiry said, the changes proposed under racial vilification in part 5 of schedule 1 of the bill as it was originally slated were the biggest changes to laws governing speech in this country for more than half a century. That is a serious step that parliament would take and requires more than seven days of rushed consideration on laws that have such a dramatic impact on freedom of speech.

It is pleasing, though, that the laws have been separated, and we are dealing with the firearms laws and the customs laws separately. I will also indicate that the coalition were supportive of the provisions of the schedule relating to customs, which were originally, I believe, in schedule 3 of the previous bill. But we do have a myriad of concerns relating to the firearms provisions. I have given voice to those elements we support, and I'm sure other colleagues, including Senator McKenzie, will go into greater detail around the provisions that we actually have real issue with, including through the amendments that the opposition will be moving and including a second reading amendment Senator McKenzie will move.

We do want to deal with genuine issues, including the illegal manufacture of firearms, and with some of the issues around unintended consequences relating to electronic files. There are people out there who access information about how to reload ammunition. They need to genuinely understand how to do it properly so that they don't cause injury or harm to themselves or others. But, under these laws, what they do to try and reach a safe outcome will be deemed illegal. These are the unintended consequences for the representatives of shooting bodies and of farmers' and graziers' associations across the country, as Senator McKenzie and others will, I'm sure, talk about and give voice to.

With that, I'm pleased to have kicked off debate in the Australian Senate around these laws. Obviously, the position is clear: we don't support these matters as they stand today. There are elements of the bill we are supportive of, but we are not supportive of it in total. Unless amendments can be agreed to, we have real reservations around this, and the coalition will not be supporting this legislation.