Firearms Legislation Amendment (Repealing Unfair Gun Laws) Bill 2026

Senator McKENZIE (Victoria—Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (11:51): I move: That this bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill. Leave granted.

Senator McKENZIE: I table an explanatory memorandum, and I seek leave have my second reading speech, which is excellent reading, incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows— On January 20 this year a great injustice was done to Australia's law-abiding firearm owners, who number almost a million people.

Australian citizens and their families who were unfairly, wrongly and improperly blamed for the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history. They were ambushed by legislation that was not consulted on in a country that already has amongst the toughest firearm laws in the world. This Bill seeks to right that wrong.

The Firearms Legislation Amendment (Repealing Unfair Gun Laws) Bill 2026 restores Commonwealth law relating to firearms and the importation of firearms, firearms parts and accessories, to the position that applied before passage of the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Act 2026. The Bill also repeals the Government's National Gun Buyback Scheme.

The Bill does not repeal the prohibition on importing or exporting certain violent extremist material or material depicting or containing prohibited symbols as implemented by the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Act 2026. The Bill does not repeal Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Firearms and Customs Laws) Act 2026 changes to enhance background checks by facilitating consideration of national security information in firearms licencing decision-making, to reduce the risk that individuals who pose a threat to national security or community safety can obtain or retain access to firearms.

Australia has almost one million licensed firearm owners. Who are they? They live in every electorate in the country; they are law-abiding members of your community and mine.

Before the Prime Minister condemned the Islamic extremism that inspired this attack, he blamed these Australians. Who are they? They are the volunteer shooter who spend his weekends culling the foxes, feral pigs, rabbits and goats on farms or bushland that government programs can't.

They are the paraplegic athlete who discovered in target shooting the one sport where her wheelchair is no disadvantage, and who now beats able-bodied competitors across the state. They are the young woman with the breath technique, incredible eyesight and steadiness to hit a target five hundred metres away. They are the farmer two hours from the nearest vet, who owes a horse with a shattered leg a quick, compassionate, and painless end.

They are the hardworking electrician who takes the same week of leave every year to sit in a swamp at dawn with his mates and come home to the city with ducks for dinner. They are the fifteen-year-old junior marksman, shooting under his coach's supervision, who says should seriously dream of being an Olympian. They are the retired schoolteacher whose locked safe holds a dozen registered historic firearms, among them the Lee-Enfield of the pattern his grandfather carried at Tobruk.

Yes, they are farmers, sporting shooters, hunters, recreational users, collectors and Olympians. In my home state of Victoria that I represent there are around 243,000 of them. Many are members of clubs or associations, and this time their members said they would not take this lying down.

They weren't going to be blamed for something horrific and unimaginably inhuman by their own government. So, they fought back. Our law-abiding firearm owners follow the rules and use their firearms responsibly, under some of the strictest firearm's laws in the world.

One of the often-used arguments about the Government's legislation was to get guns "off our streets". But the guns that are "on the streets" in the hands of bikie gangs or criminal gangs are the illegal guns. In January this year, the Australian community was penalised for a crime it did not commit.

The atrocity at Bondi Beach in December was an act of Islamic terrorism that horrified every Australian. The firearms laws introduced by Labor were brought forward in a rushed manner, without consultation with key affected stakeholder groups and limited consultation with state jurisdictions. The laws were implemented without any basis of evidence relevant to the Bondi Islamic terrorist attack.

The perpetrators of the Bondi Islamic terrorist massacre should never have had access to a firearm in the first place under pre-existing laws. How they obtained one, why the warning signs were missed, and whether gaps between our agencies allowed it to happen are questions now before a Royal Commission, and that is where they belong. The January legislation was a Prime Minister's deflection from the real cause of the atrocity, which was radical Islamic terrorism and the tacit permission for antisemitism to run rife in the community for two years., and from the questions about agency coordination that are now before the Royal Commission.

Rather than confront those failures, the Labor Government targeted law-abiding firearm owners. Consider what that legislation did. It established a National Gun Buyback Scheme directed at firearms lawfully acquired and lawfully held.

It restricted by permit or banned outright the importation of whole categories of commonly used firearms and accessories, including straight pull and assisted repeating action firearms, magazines, handgun categories and sound suppressors. Not one of those measures would have stopped the antisemitic Bondi attack. The Interim Report of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion has found: "No material or advice from any agency identified any gap in the existing legal and regulatory frameworks that impeded the ability for law enforcement, border control, immigration and security agencies to prevent, or respond to, an attack of the kind that occurred at Bondi on 14 December 2025.

No Commonwealth or state intelligence or law enforcement agency has suggested that it was prevented from taking prohibitive actions before or on 14 December 2025 by the then current legislative and authorising framewo rk. In these respects, no issue requiring urgent or immediate action has been identified." (page 8) Law-abiding firearm owners bear no responsibility for the Bondi Islamic terrorist attack, and they should not be treated by the law of this country as though they do.

A national buyback requires the co-operation of states and territories, because they are the jurisdictions that license and register firearms. To date only New South Wales and the ACT have committed. Queensland is refusing to participate, the Northern Territory has rejected the buyback, South Australia will not overhaul its laws, and Victoria has rejected both the buyback and the Government's proposed ownership cap.

Tasmania is pursuing its own arrangements, compensating owners fairly for reclassified firearms while rejecting a cap. While negotiations with states drag on, and deadlines come and go, the damage to lawful businesses is happening now. When the legislation commenced in January, dealers' standing import approvals were cancelled overnight.

Containers of lawfully ordered stock sat stranded at the border while importers paid the holding costs, with no transition period and public servants unable to explain the new rules. Dealers now report sharp falls in sales and shelves of stock they may never be permitted to sell. The buyback announced in December has not commenced and may be a year away, yet there is no timetable, no published valuation framework, no cashflow support, and no answer on whether businesses will be compensated for stranded inventory, leases, staff or forced closures.

Many are small family businesses that have served their communities for generations. They are carrying the losses of a policy the Government announced and then walked away from. On top of that sits an important constitutional question.

Section 51(xxxi) contains the only words of our Constitution that everyday Australians can quote verbatim: the acquisition of property (must be) on just terms. They can quote it because it goes to the very Australian principle of fairness. Australians don't like government over-reach, whether it is world record vaccine lockups, exorbitant and unfair fines and charges and taxes, or laws that take away property rights unjustly.

The national buyback was a gambit and a diversion by the Labor Government—designed to pressure law-abiding Australians into surrendering lawfully acquired property, and every firearm owner in the country knows it. The contribution of the shooting community has been documented because my party, The Nationals made sure of it. The Economic and Social Impacts of Recreational Hunting Report, found that recreational hunters and shooters contributed more than $2.4 billion to the Australian economy in 2019—worth considerably more today—much of it flowing into regional towns.

Shooting is open to all Australians regardless of gender, age or physical ability, and the nation cheers when our Olympic shooters stand on the podium. They should not have to do so under a government that makes it harder to train and compete. The Nationals led the fight against this legislation in January, with the support of our Coalition partners.

I tabled a petition ahead of the vote, which has now been signed by more than 71,000 Australians. The Coalition moved amendments and opposed the buyback scheme and import restrictions. This is a bill about justice.

The legislation it reverses was unjust, it was unfair, and it was not based on evidence. The way to make Australians safer is simple. Enforce the law against the people who break it and stop burdening the people who keep it.

If this Government really want to make Australia safer, deport hate preachers, the indoctrinators and the urgers, who encouraged this antisemitic atrocity. And stop giving tacit approval to antisemitic behaviour in this country. This Bill restores commonsense to Australia's firearms laws.

It takes us back to where we were before January 20, that is all. But it tells almost a million law-abiding Australians that their Parliament has not forgotten them, and that they deserve to be treated by their government with fairness and respect—not with suspicion, and certainly not as second-class citizens. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Senator McKENZIE: I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned.