Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Bill 2026. Thirty-seven days ago Australia was shaken by the worst terror attack on our nation's soil. It was meant to be a day of celebration, love and joy, but in mere moments it turned into pain, grief and tragedy. There were 15 innocent lives lost and many others injured. As they were celebrating Hanukkah with their loved ones at Bondi, they faced an act of antisemitic terror that defies comprehension. Now, more than ever, we need unity across our nation and a parliament that is prepared to act to strengthen our national security and social cohesion without weakening the values that define us as a country.

Rabbi Mendel Kastel, who lost his brother-in-law in the attack said:

I think it's time that people actually step up and say, 'You know what, we need to step forward and say we are with the Jewish community, we care about you, we're here to support you.'

Rabbi Ulman, who lost his son-in-law, Rabbi Schlanger, urged communities to say strong. He said:

We have to step up now. They're looking to us. Now is the time to unite, and forget petty things.

To them, and to all Jewish communities across Australia, we say clearly and without hesitation: We are with you. You deserve more than words. You deserve action. That means confronting both how this atrocity was carried out and why it happened.

The terrorists at Bondi had hatred in their hearts and minds and guns in their hands. Right now there's a record number of over four million firearms in Australia. There are more guns in this country now than there were at the time of the Port Arthur massacre. Just like the Howard government then, we can't address this horror without confronting how this violence was carried out. Dr Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, a Jewish Australian, public health expert and senior research fellow at the University of Wollongong, said:

Our legislation has long been the envy of the world, but time and distance has done its work and we are no longer as safe as we once were. It is vital that we take the lessons of Bondi to heart, and ensure that future generations of Australians are as protected as we have been for decades.

That's what this bill seeks to deliver. We'll introduce some of the most significant changes to our Commonwealth gun laws in decades.

We're making sure that firearms can only be imported by Australian citizens. We're strengthening licensing and background checks so that national security and criminal intelligence can be used when someone applies for, renews or holds a firearms licence. We're tightening the rules around importing dangerous firearms and related equipment, including straight-pull weapons, high-capacity magazines and speed loaders—the same kinds of tools used by the Bondi terrorists in their horrific attack. On top of that, we are also introducing a new public safety test for firearms and weapons imports which will allow the minister to block items that pose a real risk to the safety of the public before they ever reach our shores.

We're making it a serious crime to use the internet to access or share instructions for making guns or explosives, including digital blueprints used for 3D-printed weapons. And we're establishing a national gun buyback—the largest since the Howard era—to reduce the overall number of firearms in the community. These laws support the National Cabinet commitments to make Australian citizenship a condition of holding a firearm licence, accelerate the rollout of the National Firearms Register, limit the number of firearms any one person can own and limit open-ended import permits so every firearm brought into this country must be individually approved. And it's not just guns. We're also shutting the door on the import and export of violent extremist material—hate symbols and the goods that contain such things.

I want to be very clear about something else. These laws are not about putting blanket bans on guns for farmers or sporting shooters or law-abiding Australians who have legitimate reasons to own guns. These laws are aimed at stopping extremists. Extremist beliefs, combined with access to firearms, are what turn hatred into deadly action. We've seen this again and again. We saw it last year with Dezi Freeman in Victoria. We saw it in 2022 in Wieambilla in Queensland, where Gareth, Stacey and Nathaniel Train shot three police officers and a neighbour in cold blood. And now we've seen it again in the terror attack at Bondi Beach.

All of these changes could have made a practical difference at Bondi. If this national reform package, including the hate crimes bill and the gun law reforms, were in place, the gunmen involved in the Bondi attack wouldn't have been eligible to hold firearms at all. They would have had none at all. The father would have been ineligible because he was not a citizen, and the firearms would not have been available to them. The son, who is facing charges, who didn't have a firearms licence but had tried—any intelligence holdings with respect to him would have formed part of the licence decisions. He wouldn't have had the gun. The means is not the only issue but is such a vital one that we must deal with it.

Just today in a statement, the families of Constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold, who were murdered by those extremists at Wieambilla in 2022, spoke out in support of our stronger gun laws. The families that lost those constables in just 2022 said this:

We fully support the federal government in its plan to tighten guns laws and promote the national gun buyback scheme.

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All the Australian population must play a role in shaping firearm legislation in Australia.

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Instead of the 'bickering' between parties, and across law enforcement agencies, we hope they will come to their senses and work together for change.

That's the victims—those families and many others. I want to quote David Meagher, brother of Peter Meagher, a former police officer who lost his life at Bondi:

Gun reform alone will not solve hatred or extremism, but an antisemite without a gun is just a hate filled person. An antisemite with a gun is a killer.

These laws would not have erased the hatred in their hearts but they would have made it vastly harder for that hatred to be turned into mass murder. How could anyone in good conscience vote against these measures? We owe it to the families grieving, we owe it to the Jewish community, who are hurting, and we owe it to every Australian, who deserves to feel safe in their own country. I commend this bill to the Senate.