SYDNEY, Jan 20 (Reuters) – Australia’s lower house of Parliament on Tuesday passed laws to enable a national gun buyback and tighten background checks for gun licences in response to the country’s worst mass shooting in decades at a Jewish festival last month.
The bill, which was opposed by conservative lawmakers, passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 96 to 45 and will now go to the Senate.
The December 14 attack at Bondi Beach that killed 15 people was carried out by individuals who had “hate in their hearts and guns in their hands,” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said as he introduced the new laws.
“The tragic events at Bondi demand a comprehensive response from government,” Burke said. “As a government, we must do everything we can to counter both the motivation and the method.”
The new measures would establish a national gun buyback scheme to purchase surplus and newly restricted firearms.
They would also introduce tougher background checks for firearm licences issued by Australia’s states by drawing on information held by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
The government said on Sunday there were a record 4.1 million firearms in Australia last year, including more than 1.1 million in New South Wales, the country’s most populous state and the site of the Bondi attack.
New South Wales also passed new laws last month that limit the number of guns per individual to four and 10 for farmers, and mandate firearm owners to renew their licences every two years instead of five years.
“The sheer number of firearms currently circulating within the Australian community is unsustainable,” Burke said.
The bill passed without the support of the conservative Liberal-National opposition coalition, who accuse Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor government of failing to adequately address rising antisemitism.
Parliament, which is sitting after Albanese recalled it early from its summer break to address issues following the Bondi attack, is also debating separate legislation that would lower the threshold for prosecuting hate speech offenses.
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Michael Perry)
