Australia to buy back guns, toughen laws after Bondi massacre

[CANBERRA] Australia will implement a gun buyback programme and strengthen background checks on owners and buyers of firearms under legislation rushed through parliament following last month’s attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, when two ISIS-inspired gunmen killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration.

The Bill, passed through emergency sessions of both houses of the parliament in Canberra on Tuesday (Jan 20), will impose stricter checks during firearm licence applications and establish a national gun buyback programme, as well as limiting the import of firearms.

The centre-left government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will now work with state authorities to implement details of the law, as the first part of the government’s response to the worst terrorist attack in Australia.

The buyback comes almost 30 years after the first such effort to reduce the number of firearms in Australia, after a lone gunman killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996. Since then, the number of guns in the community has actually risen, with more than 4 million owned by civilians now, or one for every seven people, according to research from the Australia Institute think tank.

“Australia now has more firearms than we had before Port Arthur,” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told lawmakers as he introduced the Bill to parliament. “Many people are also surprised to see that it was possible for a visa holder to have a licence, and that the information held by our intelligence agencies was not integrated into the firearms licensing decision.”

Also under the new laws, only Australian citizens can be licensed to own firearms, as one of the Bondi attackers was not a citizen. However there has been some opposition to the moves from the community and local governments, with some states objecting to having to share the cost of buying back weapons, and farmers and others opposed to the crackdown. BLOOMBERG