Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I speak in support of the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Bill 2026, and I do so not only as a senator but as someone who has lived through what major firearms reform looks like when it moves from this place into practice. I was a police officer during the last gun buyback scheme that followed Port Arthur nearly 30 years ago. For those who remember that period only through the headlines, it's worth recalling what that meant on the ground. During the buyback police officers just like me worked at front counters, which are normally known as non-operational spots, but we were handling surrendered firearms every day. We did not always know whether those firearms and weapons were loaded. We also didn't know how they had been stored. We didn't always know the emotional state of the person standing on the other side of the counter, whether they were angry, distressed or unwell or whether they were simply having the worst day of their life.

That is what the police did back in those days. We wore our tactical accoutrements during that period not to escalate situations but because the risk demanded it. It is a good reminder that gun laws are not theoretical to first responders. They are lived by police, paramedics, emergency service workers, at police station front counters, in rural sheds, in roadside stops and in people's homes. When those laws are fragmented, outdated or incomplete, it is police and the paramedics who absorb the risk first.

Australia learned a hard lesson at Port Arthur, and the response was decisive, it was national and it was, in fact, bipartisan. It worked. Firearm deaths fell, mass shootings stopped and lives were saved. But, nearly three decades on, we are no longer in the same conditions or facing the same level of risk. There are now more than four million firearms in circulation across Australia. That's more than at the time of Port Arthur, when close to one million licences were held. In several states the number of registered firearms alone exceeds one million.

This is not an argument about responsible ownership. It is about scale and saturation and about what happens when the scale collides with moments of crisis. As firearm numbers rise, so does the likelihood that weapons are lost, stolen, poorly secured or accessed by people they were never intended for. Again, for police and paramedics, those risks do not stay theoretical. They show up in call-outs every single day, in split-second decisions and in situations where errors have permanent consequences. My good friend and colleague Senator Mulholland has already articulated that in her home state of Queensland.

Firearms rarely stay confined to their original context forever. They, in fact, move between households, between relationships and sometimes into those moments of crisis. It is also critical that we are honest about the relationship between firearms and family and domestic violence. Domestic violence call-outs are among some of the most unpredictable and dangerous situations first responders attend. They are emotionally charged, fast moving and often unfold behind closed doors. But when a firearm is present, or even suspected to be present, the risk to victims, responding officers and children in the home escalates immediately. The presence of a gun changes the dynamic entirely. It compresses time, limits safe options and removes those margins for error. This is not an abstract concern. It is the reality that first responders confront repeatedly.

In 2023, in Floreat in my home state of Western Australia, Jennifer Petelczyc and her daughter Gretl were murdered by a man with a history of family and domestic violence. He was looking for his former partner and his own daughter before he took his own life. Subsequent reviews identified clear warning signs in the period leading up to those deaths about his escalating behaviour, feared expression, observed by those close to him, and ongoing access to firearms. As the number of firearms in circulation grows, so does the chance that weapons remain accessible, despite signs like this. Again, they may be poorly secured or drawn into moments of coercion, instability or loss of control. Jennifer and Gretl's case is not an anomaly; it is a pattern encountered again and again by police and paramedics across this country.

This is why firearms reform must be understood as a domestic violence prevention measure, not merely a matter of crime control. Reducing overall firearm numbers, strengthening licensing decisions and ensuring intelligence is considered when risk emerges are interventions that prevent harm before it becomes fatal. Gun laws are not only about what happens behind closed doors; they are about how risk escalates when hatred, grievance and instability are combined with access to weapons, whether that violence occurs in a home or in a public space.

The Bondi Beach terrorist attack on 14 December 2025 was the most devastating expression of that risk. Fifteen innocent people lost their lives in an attack motivated by antisemitism and carried out in a place meant for community, celebration and belonging. In response, we are right to say we must deal with both the motivation and the method; that is the why and that is the how. This bill does exactly that. It recognises that firearms policy must be fit for purpose in a changing risk environment, one shaped not only by volume but also by technology.

We now live in a world where weapons do not always arrive in a crate. Sometimes they arrive as a download. Digital blueprints for firearms and explosives can now be accessed online. Components can be ordered separately. Firearms or critical parts of them can be manufactured using 3D printers outside regulatory oversight. For first responders and investigators, this represents a profound shift in the risk. An unregistered, unserialised and untraceable firearm does not just breach the law; it defeats prevention, frustrates investigation and enables repeated harm.

That is the reality this bill responds to. It addresses not only the physical imports but the digital pathways to violence. It introduces targeted offences related to the use of carriage services to access and possess material that facilitates the illicit manufacture of firearms and explosives. These offences are carefully framed and proportionate, with clear pathways for licensed manufacturers, law enforcement, public officials and legitimate academic and scientific research. This is not about criminalising lawful activity; it is about interrupting a pathway to harm that is already being exploited—the same preventive logic that applies at the border.

Our borders are often the last opportunity to stop high-risk firearms, parts and accessories before they enter our communities. When those controls fail, the consequences are not borne by systems; they are borne by people. That is why this bill tightens controls on rapid-fire weapons, high-capacity magazines, belt-fed firearms and serialised components and sound suppressors. It removes open-ended import permits that allow bulk imports with minimal oversight, and it introduces a clear public safety test so that the items posing an unacceptable risk can be stopped before they enter into circulation.

This bill also establishes the legislative framework for a national gun buyback, building on the approach taken after Port Arthur. This is not unprecedented or ideological; it is a proven public policy, one for which Australia has been praised internationally. By compensating the voluntary surrender of surplus, newly restricted and illegal firearms, the buyback supports state and territory reforms and reduces overall exposure to harm. Fewer guns mean fewer opportunities for diversion, misuse and escalation.

Finally, this legislation strengthens the way firearm licensing decisions are informed. It allows for security and criminal intelligence to be considered while also preserving state and territory decision-making authority. As someone who has been a police officer, I can say this plainly: a clean criminal record does not always equate to low risk. Intelligence exists to identify emerging threats, and ignoring it does not protect civil liberties; it endangers lives.

This bill is not about punishing lawful firearms owners; it is explicitly protecting legitimate, occupational and sporting use for farmers, pest controllers, professional shooters and competitors. But access to firearms is not a right; it is a responsibility, one that must be assessed in light of public safety, changing technology and also lived experience. When our firearm laws fail, it's not the politicians who face the consequences first; it is the police responding to the calls, the paramedics treating the injured and the emergency workers managing the aftermath. It is the families and the communities living with the irreversible loss. It is all Australians right now mourning the 15 lives taken at Bondi. People in this place made the hard choices before when the stakes were high, and now it's time for us here in this place to do it again.