STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Mr GEE (Calare) (13:30): The state and federal gun buyback for New South Wales is an absolute insult to every law-abiding gun owner and firearm business across our state. What a farce! Forcing around 50,000 law-abiding citizens to hand over hundreds of thousands of guns but only paying cents on the dollar is a disgrace.

The amounts on offer are well below market value, penalising honest Australians who obey the law. They are rightly outraged. Look at what they're doing to our firearm businesses.

Pathetic, inadequate grants of up to $25,000 are not going to stop our gun shops and firearm businesses from going broke to the cost of our regional communities. It's not good enough. Taxpayers are going to be slugged up to a billion dollars, all because the state and federal governments wanted to make a kneejerk political point following the horrific Bondi terrorist attack.

What we need to be doing is going after the illegal firearms that our streets are awash with. The crooks aren't going to be handing in their guns under this buyback. When police do lock up crims for illegal guns, the sentences are so weak that they're back on the street all too quickly.

Let's get to the bottom of the real issues behind this attack, including security and intelligence failures, and go after the real criminals. Bin this junk policy and leave honest, peace-loving Australians alone. Stop making them scapegoats for government failures.