SYDNEY, Aug 16 (Reuters) – Australia’s New South Wales state will start a gun buyback in November, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday, part of the national response to a shooting spree that killed 15 at a Jewish festival in Sydney, the state capital.
Albanese’s centre-left government enacted laws in January for the gun buyback, tighter checks for gun licences and a crackdown on hate in the wake of the December 14 gun attack at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration in Australia’s most populous city.
The alleged gunmen used powerful firearms that were legally obtained. Australia had a record 4.1 million firearms last year, the government has said, with more than 1.1 million of those in New South Wales, its most populous state.
The buyback is to be Australia’s largest since a similar campaign after a 1996 massacre in Tasmania’s Port Arthur, in which a gunman killed 35 people.
Albanese and New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said in a statement the scheme would start on November 2 and that people returning rifles and handguns would be eligible for up to A$1,000 ($700) compensation per firearm.
“Australians are quite rightly proud of our gun laws, but the fact is there are more guns in Australia today than there were at the time of dealing with the Port Arthur gun buyback,” Albanese said in televised remarks.
New South Wales now limits individuals to possession of four guns under its own reforms prompted by the Bondi Beach attack, which police say was carried out a father and son who police believe were inspired by the militant group Islamic State. The surviving suspect, Naveed Akram, 24, is yet to enter pleas to a raft of charges, including 15 counts of murder.
($1 = 1.4122 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney)
