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Australia’s lower house of parliament has voted in favour of a national gun buyback programme and new checks on firearm licence applications, a month after the deadly shooting at Bondi Beach.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said had such legislation already been in place prior to the attack that targeted a Jewish festival, the gunmen would not have legally had access to firearms.
The individuals who killed 15 people on 14 December had “hate in their hearts and guns in their hands,” Burke told parliament.
The father in the father-son duo allegedly behind the Bondi attack legally owned six firearms, while his son had been on the radar of intelligence agencies.
The bill was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 96 to 45. It will now make its way to the Senate for consideration, where it is expected to pass with the support of the Greens.
Parliament is also debating hate speech reforms.
The buyback scheme will target “surplus and newly restricted firearms”, Burke said, reducing the country’s 4m registered guns.
Burke added that it “comes as a shock to most Australians” to know that the country has more firearms that it did before the 1996 Port Arthur attack, in which a gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania.
That shooting had prompted the then government to introduce some of the world’s strictest gun controls.
Other measures passed on Tuesday include stricter firearm import controls and provisions to improve information sharing between intelligence agencies on people trying to obtain gun licences.
The lower house of parliament is also expected to pass reforms to hate speech on Tuesday aimed at tackling antisemitism.
Its passage through the Senate had initially looked unclear after members of the conservative Liberal-National coalition opposition said its provisions could impinge on free speech among other things.
However, late on Monday reports said Liberal leader Sussan Ley had reached an agreement with the government on a watered down version. It remained unclear whether the Nationals would support the legislation.
Liberal MP Julian Leeser, who is Jewish, on Tuesday told parliament Bondi represented a “moment of choice” and that “the choice the Liberal Party makes this morning, as we have always done, is to stand with the Jewish community and law-abiding Australians.”
The Greens have said they will not vote in favour of the reforms unless changes are made to protect all minorities and legitimate protest.
