Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: The Prime Minister's regional visits are to explain why he
Speaker 2: believes new gun laws will make Australia safer. I'm sorry
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 3: In the aftermath of the nineteen ninety six massacre at
Speaker 3: Port Arthur, Prime Minister John Howard donned a bulletproof vest
Speaker 3: and argued the case for gun control to crowds of
Speaker 3: angry protesters.
Speaker 2: Aware that once legal guns would now be banned. John
Speaker 2: Howard apologized for the inconvenience the gun laws may cause.
Speaker 4: I know that, I regret that.
Speaker 1: I apologize for that, but that is the mass of.
Speaker 2: Out a season, and he addressed any threats of a
Speaker 2: loss of electoral support for the Coalition against me.
Speaker 3: His reforms, including a ban on automatic and semi automatic
Speaker 3: weapon and a national buyback scheme, changed the country by
Speaker 3: getting rid of more than half a million guns, but
Speaker 3: in the years since, the number of guns in Australia
Speaker 3: has skyrocketed, and as Anthony Alberinezi tries to change that,
Speaker 3: the Coalition is fighting back. While the Greens have shown
Speaker 3: early support for the bill set to be debated today.
Speaker 3: I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven AM today
Speaker 3: Deputy Director at the Australia Institute, Ebonie Bennett, on why
Speaker 3: Australia has more guns than ever and whether Labour's proposed
Speaker 3: clan would make us safer. It's Tuesday, January twenty Ebonny,
Speaker 3: thanks for speaking with me. Can you lay out for
Speaker 3: me what the government's proposing.
Speaker 5: Well after the Bondai massacre last year, National Cabinet and
Speaker 5: agreed to a number of gun law reforms, and now
Speaker 5: the government is implementing a bill that will hold up
Speaker 5: its end of the bargain on there, and that includes
Speaker 5: things like limiting the number of firearms that anyone individual
Speaker 5: can hold, as well as limiting the open ended kind
Speaker 5: of firearms licensing that we've seen in the past. Obviously,
Speaker 5: the National Buyback Scheme and things like accelerating the work
Speaker 5: of standing up a national Firearms Registry.
Speaker 1: The government will establish a national gun buyback scheme to
Speaker 1: purchase surplus newly banned and illegal firearms, the largest buyback
Speaker 1: since the Howard government initiated one in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 5: So in nineteen ninety six we saw the banning of
Speaker 5: semi automatic and automatic weapons, and again we'll see many
Speaker 5: more restrictions introduced of the type of firearm that we
Speaker 5: used in the Bondai massacre here and the Commonwealth's part
Speaker 5: of that in this legislation will be, for example, restricting
Speaker 5: the importation of reloading rifles and shotguns into Australia.
Speaker 1: Australia's gun laws were last substantially reformed in the wake
Speaker 1: of the Port Arthur tragedy. The terrible events at Bondai
Speaker 1: show we need to get more guns off our streets now.
Speaker 3: In the aftermath of the Bondai attack, one of the
Speaker 3: most shocking revelations was the fact that the older gunman,
Speaker 3: Sajid Akron, that he had six legally registered guns even
Speaker 3: though he was living in this city and his son
Speaker 3: had been investigated by ASIO. Why was that able to
Speaker 3: happen and how do these laws go about addressing that?
Speaker 5: Well, it's not exactly clear as yet how that happened,
Speaker 5: but obviously it's evidence that our current gun laws as
Speaker 5: they stand aren't working as intended. It appears like the
Speaker 5: New South Wales authorities may not have had access to
Speaker 5: that intelligence from ASIO, or the fact that one of
Speaker 5: those perpetrators was known to ASIO in the way that
Speaker 5: he was, and this legislation will introduce provisions that mean
Speaker 5: that all of those licensing authorities at the state and
Speaker 5: territory level will be able to access that kind of
Speaker 5: intelligence from Commonwealth agencies like AZO and the Australian Criminal
Speaker 5: Intelligence Commission. For example.
Speaker 3: If we could talk about the last time that we
Speaker 3: had major gun reform after Port Arthur, what changes did
Speaker 3: John Howard make and how do we know about how
Speaker 3: they actually made the country safer?
Speaker 5: Yeah, the National Firearms Agreement was historic and landmark legislation
Speaker 5: and it's obviously still hugely popular with the public today.
Speaker 1: The Prime Mins to John Howard tonight detailed sweeping plans
Speaker 1: to reform Australia's national gun laws.
Speaker 5: Which could mean the introduction of a one.
Speaker 2: Off text to buy back illegal weapons.
Speaker 5: John Howard, in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre,
Speaker 5: gathered all the states and territories and the National Firearms
Speaker 5: Agreement did things like banning or restricting semi automatic and
Speaker 5: automatic fire arms, restricting the importation of those kinds of firearms.
Speaker 4: We need to achieve a total prohibition on the ownership, possession,
Speaker 4: stale and importation of all automatic and semi automatic weapons.
Speaker 5: It included introducing mandatory licensing systems and background checks for
Speaker 5: all license holders. It introduced things like rules for the
Speaker 5: storage and use of firearms. Obviously, it implemented the National
Speaker 5: Gun Buyback Scheme, which saw around six hundred and fifty
Speaker 5: thousand firearms surrendered to the authorities that at the time
Speaker 5: cost around three hundred million dollars to the Commonwealth. People
Speaker 5: could surrender their firearms, often to their local police station
Speaker 5: and then from the Australian Federal Police were in charge
Speaker 5: of destroying those weapons. And obviously it included people who
Speaker 5: owned guns that subsequently became illegal to own, or who
Speaker 5: in the wake of Port Arthur just felt like I
Speaker 5: don't really need these firearms anymore and I would like
Speaker 5: to do my part by handing them in. And we
Speaker 5: know that the National Firearms Agreement was incredibly successful because
Speaker 5: in the years leading up to the Port Arthur massacre
Speaker 5: we saw around thirteen mass shootings in the eighteen years
Speaker 5: preceding Port Arthur. In the wake of the National Firearms
Speaker 5: Agreement being introduced, that number of mass shootings involving casualties
Speaker 5: of five or more people dropped to zero. It had
Speaker 5: a number of other great benefits for the Australian community
Speaker 5: and their safety. So it accelerated the decline of homicides
Speaker 5: by firearm in Australia, and it also accelerated the decline
Speaker 5: in suicides by firearms in Australia. So it had a
Speaker 5: dramatic improvement in public safety. And it's really clear that
Speaker 5: the fewer guns are in the Australian community, the safer Australians.
Speaker 3: Are coming up the unfinished business after Port Arthur ebony.
Speaker 3: While John Howard's reforms had a big impact, there is
Speaker 3: some unfinished business from that time. Could you paint a
Speaker 3: picture of our current patchwork of gun laws around the country.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, as popular as the National Firearms Agreement was at
Speaker 5: the time, it's really important to note that really no
Speaker 5: state or territory or the Commonwealth indeed fully implemented all
Speaker 5: of the details of that agreement. Each state and territory
Speaker 5: still has a slightly different approach to gun laws, and
Speaker 5: really we're only as safe as our worst state or territory. So,
Speaker 5: for example, there was never implemented the agreement to prevent
Speaker 5: children from having access to firearms. Across the board. In
Speaker 5: most states, there's no limit on the number of guns
Speaker 5: that any individual can hold for a long time, Western
Speaker 5: Australia was the only state that had any kind of
Speaker 5: cap on the number of guns that you could legally own,
Speaker 5: and it was only December last year that New South
Speaker 5: Wales introduced its own caps. For example, thirty years after
Speaker 5: the fact, there is still no National Firearms Registry, something
Speaker 5: that all law enforcement would like access to. But for example,
Speaker 5: some states like here in the Act, all of their
Speaker 5: records of gun ownership for their Gun Register are analogue.
Speaker 5: They're on paper essentially, so that makes the process of
Speaker 5: establishing the National Firearms Register obviously much more difficult. We've
Speaker 5: also seen a steady chipping away in states and territories
Speaker 5: at Australia's gun law reforms over many years. People might
Speaker 5: not remember, but just prior to the Bondai massacre, for example,
Speaker 5: the Men's government in New South Wales was considering really
Speaker 5: relaxing New South Wales gun laws in a deal with
Speaker 5: the Shooters and Fishers Party. They were looking to enshrine
Speaker 5: a right to hunt, to open crown lands to hunting
Speaker 5: and shooting, and to legalize the ownership of silences and suppressors.
Speaker 5: They've obviously dropped all of that kind of legislation and
Speaker 5: now committed to much more restrictive gun laws. But it
Speaker 5: just shows you that over time state governments have become
Speaker 5: complacent about Australia's gun laws and that there are always
Speaker 5: elements of the gun lobby who've been trying to weaken
Speaker 5: them over decades.
Speaker 3: And on this issue of how many guns were allowed
Speaker 3: to have all the limits, could you tell us in
Speaker 3: some states how many guns we can actually own and
Speaker 3: what's the maximum?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so in Western Australia they had a cup of
Speaker 5: five for most gun owners and that could increase up
Speaker 5: to ten guns in New South Wales. I think the cap,
Speaker 5: for example, applies across the board. But currently WA and
Speaker 5: New South Wales are the only states that have caps
Speaker 5: on the number of guns an individual can own, So
Speaker 5: all the other states and territories really have no limits.
Speaker 5: And we know from the data that we looked into
Speaker 5: from various police forces across Australia that there are a
Speaker 5: number of people who own huge numbers of guns and
Speaker 5: it's not necessarily you know, farmers who are using them
Speaker 5: to control pest animals on their properties. For example, we
Speaker 5: know a large number of guns are held in city
Speaker 5: and metropolitan areas and in New South Wales, for example,
Speaker 5: there are close to one hundred people who own over
Speaker 5: one hundred guns each, many of them in the city.
Speaker 5: And obviously when it comes to the Bondai perpetrators, they
Speaker 5: had six guns lived in the city. And there's a
Speaker 5: lot of people in the Australian public saying, you know,
Speaker 5: why do you need that many guns?
Speaker 3: Ebany, you mentioned the National Register and there's been calls
Speaker 3: for this since Port Arthur, why do we need one?
Speaker 5: Obviously it's really important for law enforcement to know things
Speaker 5: like who has a gun at a property or if
Speaker 5: there are guns at a property, but it's also important
Speaker 5: for the Australian public. When the Australia Institute tried to
Speaker 5: find out how many guns there were legally owned in Australia,
Speaker 5: it was actually really difficult to find that information. It's
Speaker 5: not publicly available. Some states and territories really had difficulty
Speaker 5: locating that information. It wasn't easily accessible. The Northern Territory
Speaker 5: just didn't respond at all to our requests for that
Speaker 5: kind of information. So it's I think really important for
Speaker 5: the public to know, not you know, the personal home
Speaker 5: address of every gun or not. Obviously that's only for
Speaker 5: law enforcement, but just knowing in general how many guns
Speaker 5: there are in the community and roughly where they are.
Speaker 5: Are they in your suburb? I think you know is
Speaker 5: should be publicly accessible information for Australians.
Speaker 3: So Ebonie. On that point, what is it that you
Speaker 3: found out about the numbers and how did they end
Speaker 3: up increasing after the buyback scheme in the nineties.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so obviously the number of guns in the community
Speaker 5: has dramatically increased. It's now hovering around four million legally
Speaker 5: owned guns in Australia. And we've also found that a
Speaker 5: huge number of guns. Legally owned guns are stolen every year.
Speaker 5: When we looked at the number of guns that had
Speaker 5: been stolen over time, it equated to roughly one every
Speaker 5: four hours. And law enforcement has said that the theft
Speaker 5: of legally owned firearms is the biggest single source of
Speaker 5: illegal guns in the community, and we know that police
Speaker 5: I think, only recover around a third of those stolen.
Speaker 3: Weapons, so Ebonie. John Howard was able to pretty easily
Speaker 3: change Australia's gun law and was celebrated for it ever since.
Speaker 3: But how's the debate changed to the point where getting
Speaker 3: both sides of politics to agree on stricter gun control
Speaker 3: seems almost impossible.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was just really saddened to see John Howard
Speaker 5: come out in the wake of the Bondai massacre and
Speaker 5: call gun law reform a distraction. Obviously, gun law reform
Speaker 5: can't stop hate, it can't stop anti Semitism, but it
Speaker 5: can stop the kind of hate that we saw in
Speaker 5: Bondi from turning into the horror that we saw in Bondai.
Speaker 5: And I think John Howard's intervention here to label a
Speaker 5: gun law reform just a distraction really shows that the
Speaker 5: Coalition is really willing to trash its political legacy on
Speaker 5: gun law reform in the interests of politicizing this issue
Speaker 5: and making life more difficult for the Labor government. Obviously,
Speaker 5: there are big parts of the Nationals constituency, rural people,
Speaker 5: farmers who do want access to guns, and increasingly in
Speaker 5: recent years we've seen the Nationals really as the tail
Speaker 5: that's wagging the coalition dog. Thankfully, Australia does not kind
Speaker 5: of fetishize gun ownership in the way that we've seen
Speaker 5: in the United States, for example, but it's really clear
Speaker 5: the kind of retric employed by the NRA and the
Speaker 5: gun lobby, and to see Australian political debate all the time,
Speaker 5: and more and more frequently. It's only a few years
Speaker 5: since we saw Pauline Hanson's One Nation, for example, caught
Speaker 5: on tape trying to solicit tens of millions of dollars
Speaker 5: of donations from the NRA in exchange for weakening Australia's
Speaker 5: gun laws. But the Australian public really overwhelmingly supports stricter
Speaker 5: gun laws and it's widely considered, I think, the biggest
Speaker 5: and most positivelegacy of the Howard government. So it's really
Speaker 5: sad to see them abandon that for what looks like
Speaker 5: pure electoral politics.
Speaker 3: Ebony, thanks for speaking with us on seven AM.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Also in the news, the Albanezy government is seeking more
Speaker 3: details on an invitation to join US President Donald Trump's
Speaker 3: so called Board of Peace for Gaza. Deputy Prime Minister
Speaker 3: Richard Marles says the government welcomes the invitation to join
Speaker 3: the new international body, despite concerns from some diplomats it
Speaker 3: could undermine the work of existing organizations like the UN.
Speaker 3: The Board, which would be chaired by President Trump, will
Speaker 3: limit member states to three year terms unless they pay
Speaker 3: one point five billion dollars to fund the board's activities
Speaker 3: and earn permanent membership, and over the past year, Australian
Speaker 3: billionaire's average wealth grew by almost six hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 3: a day, or more than ten point five billion dollars collectively,
Speaker 3: according to new analysis from Oxfam. In its annual Inequality Report,
Speaker 3: Oxfam noted that Australia now has forty eight billionaires who
Speaker 3: hold more wealth than the bottom forty percent of the
Speaker 3: population combined. That's eleven million people. I'm Nicole Johnston. This
Speaker 3: is seven am. Thanks for listening.