Leah Blyth (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Stronger Families and Stronger Communities) Share this | Hansard source

The Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Bill 2026 is a case study, I think, for this parliament on how not to legislate. Labor has taken a national tragedy and responded not with calm, precision or competence but with a rushed, poorly targeted and deeply flawed piece of legislation. It has been pushed through this parliament with inadequate scrutiny, truncated consultation and a 'take it or leave it' attitude that shows contempt for proper lawmaking. Australians deserve better than policy made on the run.

Let me be clear about one fundamental point that this bill deliberately obscures. Australia does not have a gun problem. What we have is a radical Islamist extremism problem, and this government has consistently failed to confront it honestly and directly. Every major terrorist attack on Australian soil in the past two decades has been driven by radical Islamist ideology. That is the uncomfortable truth the government refuses to name. Instead of tackling that ideology, dismantling the networks that promote it and stamping out the antisemitism it fuels, Labor has chosen an easier political target: lawful Australian gun owners. Farmers, sporting shooters, collectors, dealers and licensed competitors are being treated as collateral damage for the government's failure to act decisively against antisemitism and extremism when it mattered. This is unjust, and it's dishonest.

This bill uses the horror of the Bondi attack to justify sweeping firearms changes that would have done absolutely nothing to prevent that atrocity. Nothing in this legislation would have stopped the attack. Nothing in it addresses the radicalisation pathways that led to the attack. Nothing in it confronts the ideology that motivated the attack. Instead, it punishes people who already comply with some of the strictest gun laws in the world. Labor wants Australians to believe that confiscating more firearms, tightening imports and expanding bureaucratic control over lawful ownership will somehow make us safer. It will not. It simply diverts attention from the government's longstanding inaction on antisemitism, radicalisation and community safety.

This bill has been rushed. It is poorly drafted. It was originally so unworkable that Labor was forced to split the bill in two. That alone is an admission of failure. And yet, even after that embarrassment, the government persists in trying to ram through the remainder of this bill without proper inquiry or scrutiny. That's not leadership; that's panic.

Law-abiding Australians should not pay the price for the government's refusal to confront hard truths. Farmers should not lose tools essential to their livelihoods, sporting shooters should not see their disciplines strangled, and small businesses should not be driven under. Lawful gun owners should not be treated as suspects, because the government lacks the courage to deal with extremism at its source.

Antisemitism must be crushed wherever it appears. Radical Islamist ideology must be confronted, named and dismantled. Terrorist networks must be disrupted. Noncitizens who promote hatred or violence should be removed from this country without hesitation. But none of that requires punishing lawful, gun-owning Australians. This bill does exactly that. It targets the compliant instead of the dangerous, it expands bureaucracy instead of security, and it offers symbolism instead of any kind of substance.

Australians are entitled to safety, but they are also entitled to honesty. The honest assessment is this: you do not defeat terrorism by targeting farmers, you do not defeat antisemitism by confiscating sporting firearms, and you do not strengthen a nation by eroding trust in law-abiding citizens. For those reasons alone, this bill deserves criticism, scrutiny and resistance, and this parliament should have the courage to say that Australia's problem is not guns, it is extremism, and the solution lies in confronting that reality, not in avoiding it. For that reason I will not be supporting this bill.