QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator HODGINS-MAY (Victoria) (15:28): I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to a question without notice asked by Senator Shoebridge today relating to gun buybacks. As a Victorian, I want to say plainly that our communities deserve better than what the state Labor government is dishing up on gun law reform.

After the Bondi massacre, the Prime Minister said Australia needed a major national response to get dangerous and excess firearms out of our communities. But a national gun reform buyback only works if the states actually participate. New South Wales has signed up but Victoria hasn't.

It has so far refused. At the same time, the then Allan Labor government rejected a recommendation from former police commissioner Ken Lay to cap the number of firearms a person can own. That means that we can have recreational hunters with dozens of guns and sports shooters with hundreds of guns, with no legislated cap on firearm ownership.

Astonishing. This is not the leadership Australians were promised after Bondi and, frankly, it is a blatant capitulation of state and federal Labor governments to the gun lobby—a blatant capitulation. The federal Labor government needs to show the leadership that Victorians deserve, and Victorian Labor needs to stop making excuses for inaction.

We should be removing excess and high-risk firearms from our communities not finding reasons why we can't do that. We need strict limits on firearm numbers, bans on rapid-fire and high-powered weapons, stronger and recurring licence checks, mandatory reporting of lost and stolen firearms and a properly funded national buyback. As a federal representative of Victoria, I want to see these dangerous weapons out of circulation.

When it comes to keeping people safe, there should be no state border, no politics and no gun lobby veto. State and federal Labor, the people who voted you in are expecting leadership on this issue. They're expecting you to support this national scheme and to stop capitulating to the gun lobby, who, I might add, are a donor to the corporate parties, once again, and show some of the leadership that Victorians expect in this place.

Question agreed to.