Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance and Administration (Senator Minchin) to a question without notice asked by Senator Bob Brown today relating to hand guns.

The problem with the government’s performance on handguns, while I think there has been universal support for its action on long guns, is that the two are not comparable. The Greens first moved to restrict the use of long guns, particularly semiautomatics, back in 1987, when I introduced legislation to the Tasmanian parliament. Unfortunately, the coalition government of the day held that down. Then we had the massacre at Port Arthur, and the legislation of the Greens—who then had the balance of power—which Senator Milne brought to the cross-party committee in the Tasmanian parliament, had a model role in the national legislation which followed. That was adopted by Prime Minister Howard and the leaders of state governments and had huge public support back in 1996.

The problem with handguns is that they were not included in the legislation. There are an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 handguns now available in the Australian community, and they are just as lethal as the rifles or shotguns which were dealt with in the early days. As Senator Minchin said, it is true that there was a move in 2002 to restrict handguns, but it dealt with about 20 per cent, and 80 per cent were not dealt with. And so we have a situation in Australia where, despite the licensing restrictions, there is a wide availability of handguns and semiautomatic handguns in particular through state laws. They are allowed to have up to 10 bullets in the magazine—that means 10 people in a row can be shot. They are allowed to have a barrel length of 12 centimetres and up to a .38 inch calibre. These are very deadly weapons. For sporting shooters, the calibre can be up to .45 centimetres. The barrel length is longer than for single-shot revolvers. Unfortunately, these are weapons that can lead to massacres. The Dunblane massacre in Scotland of the 16 little kids in the auditorium was by a man with a semiautomatic revolver. The shootings at Virginia Tech were also by a man armed with revolvers. They may be outside the ambit of Commonwealth law, and I am not sure about that, but nevertheless they are very deadly.

There are too many handguns available in Australia. They are not necessary. We agree that police, security guards, some sporting shooters and collectors should be licensed to hold handguns, but the availability is altogether too great. There needs to be a gun summit where the state and territory leaders and the Prime Minister agree to greatly reduce the number of these deadly weapons, capable of a massacre, in the Australian community. We should not wait until we have a Dunblane or a Virginia Tech massacre in our country for that action to take place. I appeal to the government yet again—I have done this a number of times in this chamber since 1996—and, through the minister, to the Prime Minister to take action on this matter. Please do not wait until a massacre occurs. Please do not wait for a Port Arthur style day of infamy in this country again. Many, if not most, of these handguns are unnecessary. They should not be abroad in our community. Bank officers and police will agree with what I am saying. So I ask the government to listen and take action.

Question agreed to.