Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Bill 2026
Senator DUNIAM (Tasmania—Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) (15:07): I'm pleased to be able to rise on behalf of the coalition to start debate in the Senate on the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Bill 2026. As the Senate would recall, the legislation that we're currently debating was, in fact, part of a broader package of laws all jammed together, all tied in together, as an omnibus bill.
These laws, for the most part, deal with gun laws—a framework to set up a gun buyback scheme, a system to enable Commonwealth intelligence agencies to share information around background checking for state and territory law enforcement agencies, which are the responsible bodies to issue licences for firearms in this country. It expands that background check arrangement; it expands the importation controls and new tests; it expands customs import and export prohibitions relating to extremists and hate linked materials, symbols and weapons.
One of the big concerns we had about this legislation in the first instance was that it was legislation jammed in with other legislation relating to matters to deal with the antisemitism crisis we face in this country, to deal with how we might proscribe and manage hate groups in this country, how we might deal with individuals under these laws who, of course, are spreading hate, inciting violence and seeking to do terrible things to unpick the social fabric of our country that are not in our national interest, and to deal with people who hate this country, who do not want democracy to succeed, who do not feel that the way we live in this country is indeed the way that it should be.
They want to change everything. So to have this set of laws jammed in together was a huge concern for us. I will also point out that these laws were slapped down on the table by the Prime Minister, by his government, and he said, in doing so: 'You've got a week to look at this.
The parliament will be coming back'—and here we are—'and you've got to get it right by then. You've got to go through the 150 pages or thereabouts of legislation, you've got to read the 350 pages of explanatory memorandum'—all of it very complex, all of it impacting existing laws across our statute book, all of it having impacts on things that many of us have raised concerns on towards freedom of speech and the like—'and you've got to get it all done within the week.' This is a truncated process off the back of legislation having been tabled that no-one outside of government had any input into prior to the legislation being made available to the public on Tuesday of last week—seven days ago.
At 9.00 am on Tuesday last week, the government released this legislation, or a draft version of it, for public consultation. Of course, since then, the legislation has been taken out of the omnibus bill they'd tabled, because they did see the writing on the wall. They realised, of course, that in its form then and the approach being taken—'Take it or leave it; we've drafted legislation, and you're going to have to pass it, or we'll blame you for the failure of this legislation'—was not going to work.
As anyone tuned into this debate might realise, the Australian Greens political party have offered their support to the government to pass the firearms component of this legislation and the related customs element as well. They saw fit to pass this; they were able to do that in short form. I'm not sure what interrogation was had into this legislation, but they've reached that conclusion anyway.
The coalition does support elements of the legislation. If we start with, of course, the provision regarding expanded background checks using intelligence holdings, it's frankly baffling that today we don't actually have that in place, that that is not a standard form, that a police or law enforcement agency—whoever the licence-issuing authority in any state or territory is—doesn't, as a matter of course, go and interrogate the holdings of intelligence information or seek to understand whether there is any information held by national intelligence agencies.
It's the fact that here we are in 2026 and that's not actually happening. To that end, it is a good move to have that arrangement in place—that we are actually able to ensure that level of information, which was, as at today, unavailable to agencies who are making decisions, is important. It has also highlighted the very slow-going nature of the National Firearms Register.
As I understand it, there are some jurisdictions—and this is the reason we don't have a national firearms registry—that still have a paper based registry. It's not electronic, it is not online, it's not even an Excel spreadsheet! It is an antiquated system, which, of course, makes one wonder how it can be properly administered, especially when there are quite a number of people in our community who do have firearms and who are law-abiding citizens.
But how do you manage this kind of system if it's in a book or on a bunch of scraps of paper? Who knows how that operates? But it does show that the government does need to speed up.
We, of course, do have some concern around unintended consequences of the expansion of importation controls and the new tests contained in this legislation. We are concerned about the impact of changes to the types of weaponry, the types of ammunition that can be imported and for what purpose, and the arrangement that a firearm licence holder would have to go through to get to them and to comply with the law.
My colleague the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, Senator McKenzie, will be moving amendments on behalf of the opposition to deal with some of the concerns we have. We think it is important, given the rushed nature of the legislation here, that we do get the balance right, that we do make sure that this does not improperly impede law-abiding gun owners and licence holders from being able to continue abiding by the law.
Some of those concerns, of course, relate to what changes these laws might have on the ability of an individual to continue to earn an income. You've got individuals out there who draw an income from controlling vermin who will have an array of firearms as part of their toolkit to be able to do the job they need to do. A colleague, Senator Colbeck, showed me a picture last night of an individual who manages property at a place called Barrington in Tasmania, where, in his scope, there were hundreds of wallabies destroying the pasture for his livestock.
That is an impact on business, so that person legitimately needs a range of weapons which have a range of fixtures—and there's a range of ammunition related to it—which will be caught up and impacted by this legislation. Some of those things, as I say, will be dealt with under the amendments to be moved by Senator McKenzie, who ordinarily would have led debate on this— Senator Shoebridge: Old wallabies, young wallabies, so you need different wallaby guns.
Senator DUNIAM: I'm not sure what Senator Shoebridge is worried about there, but I was just giving voice to some of the concerns that have been raised in a very reasonable fashion. Indeed, I'm sure that I'll be able to interrupt Senator Shoebridge's contribution on the subsequent bill, which, of course, will be very interesting to hear. Senator Shoebridge interjecting— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Interjections are always disorderly.
Senator Shoebridge! Senator DUNIAM: Praise the Lord, yes. Look, if we could please just stick to the issues at hand here, the other concern that the coalition had in this was the suggestion that dealing with gun laws was going to be a silver bullet to deal with issues related to antisemitism.
The first response of this government after Bondi was to announce that there would be a review of and changes to gun laws. That is not the cause of what happened here. The gun laws we have in this country were not what caused the event in Bondi on 14 December last year.
Yes, firearms were used. They were a weapon, along with homemade bombs. As we know by the proliferation of terrorist activity across the globe, there are a range of weapons that people use beyond firearms, sadly.
Indeed, there was an impassioned contribution by another colleague of mine, Senator Liddle, around perpetrators of domestic violence and how there are a proliferation of weapons used there. To suggest that the terrible terrorist event perpetrated by Islamic extremists, the worst terror attack on our soil in our history, would be fixed by changing the gun laws in the way we do is, sadly, a misnomer.
So we took issue with the fact that the government's first and only response for a period of time was indeed to change the gun laws and say: 'You know what? All will be well.' As we know, as history has shown and as the Prime Minister was forced to concede, there was a need for a royal commission. Everyone was calling for one.
The world united to have that beyond a response in the form of firearms legislation amendment. You had the victims' families calling for a royal commission. That's much more than just changes to gun laws.
You had business leaders, community leaders and not only the opposition but others in this parliament calling for a royal commission. They finally did it, beyond firearms legislation amendments, and indeed there was much more required. An omnibus bill landed on the table of this parliament—not even this parliament but the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security—of 150 pages which included the racial vilification provisions which the government said were necessary to tackle antisemitism in this country.
But, again, as some of the witnesses to that inquiry said, the changes proposed under racial vilification in part 5 of schedule 1 of the bill as it was originally slated were the biggest changes to laws governing speech in this country for more than half a century. That is a serious step that parliament would take and requires more than seven days of rushed consideration on laws that have such a dramatic impact on freedom of speech.
It is pleasing, though, that the laws have been separated, and we are dealing with the firearms laws and the customs laws separately. I will also indicate that the coalition were supportive of the provisions of the schedule relating to customs, which were originally, I believe, in schedule 3 of the previous bill. But we do have a myriad of concerns relating to the firearms provisions.
I have given voice to those elements we support, and I'm sure other colleagues, including Senator McKenzie, will go into greater detail around the provisions that we actually have real issue with, including through the amendments that the opposition will be moving and including a second reading amendment Senator McKenzie will move. We do want to deal with genuine issues, including the illegal manufacture of firearms, and with some of the issues around unintended consequences relating to electronic files.
There are people out there who access information about how to reload ammunition. They need to genuinely understand how to do it properly so that they don't cause injury or harm to themselves or others. But, under these laws, what they do to try and reach a safe outcome will be deemed illegal.
These are the unintended consequences for the representatives of shooting bodies and of farmers' and graziers' associations across the country, as Senator McKenzie and others will, I'm sure, talk about and give voice to. With that, I'm pleased to have kicked off debate in the Australian Senate around these laws. Obviously, the position is clear: we don't support these matters as they stand today.
There are elements of the bill we are supportive of, but we are not supportive of it in total. Unless amendments can be agreed to, we have real reservations around this, and the coalition will not be supporting this legislation.