ADJOURNMENT
Senator McKENZIE (Victoria—Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (21:03): On 20 January this year, a great injustice was done to Australia's law-abiding firearm owners, who number nearly a million people—Australian citizens, and their families, who were unfairly and 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 this country, which already has amongst the toughest firearm regulations in the world.
And who are these almost one million law-abiding firearm owners? They live in every electorate across the country. Let's get rid of that myth straight away—that they only live in the country.
They're law-abiding members of my community and yours. Before the Prime Minister condemned the Islamic extremism that inspired this attack, he blamed these very Australians. And who are they?
They're the volunteer shooter who spends his weekends culling the foxes, feral pigs, rabbits and goats on farms and bushland that government programs just can't get to. They're the paraplegic athlete who discovered that target shooting is the one sport where her wheelchair is no disadvantage and who now smashes able-bodied competitors across the state. They're the young woman with the breath technique, incredible eyesight and steadiness to hit a target 500 metres away.
They're the farmer who's two hours from a vet who owes the horse he loves with a shattered leg a quick, compassionate and painless end. They're the hard working sparky who takes the same week off every year to sit around a swamp with his mates and come home to the city with ducks for dinner. They're the 15-year-old marksman, shooting under his coach's supervision, who hopes one day to represent our great country in the Olympics.
They're the retired schoolteacher whose locked safe holds a dozen registered historic firearms, amongst them the Lee-Enfield his grandfather carried at Tobruk. Yes, they're farmers, sporting shooters, hunters, recreational users, collectors and Olympians. In my home state, there are over 243,000 of them.
Often used by the Prime Minister when he talks about his unfair gun laws is the need to 'get guns off our street'. That's a direct quote. Prime Minister, I can tell you the only guns on Australian streets are those carried by criminal gangs and mafioso, and they're illicit firearms, not those of law-abiding firearm owners.
In January this year, Australians in my community of law-abiding firearm owners were penalised for a crime we did not commit. The atrocity at Bondi Beach in December was an act of Islamic terrorism that horrified, and should horrify, every single Australian. These people should never have had a New South Wales firearm licence.
As the royal commission that we, the opposition, fought for that the Prime Minister avoided for so long uncovered, it turns out in the interim report that every agency and every state and territory government gave evidence that they had the laws available to them at the time and didn't need any changes to those laws to have prevented this atrocity. That's the evidence.
How these Islamic terrorists then came to have a New South Wales firearm licence will come out over the course of the royal commission. The gaps in the information sharing between agencies and the implementation of state laws when it came to licensing and regulating that licence will all become apparent. But in January the unfair gun laws that were passed in this Senate that the National Party voted against and the coalition voted against were a clear deflection by the Prime Minister from the real cause of the atrocity.
Rather than confront those failures, deport hate preachers, address Islamic terrorism and tackle bikie gangs and organised criminals who are committing crimes using firearms, 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—assets of individual people.
Imagine if the government decided it didn't like Corollas any more and walked into your home, or probably that of your grandmother, and said: 'We're coming to possess that vehicle. I know it's worth'—let's be generous—'$7,000. We're going to give you $2,000.' That is exactly what Chris Minns and Anthony Albanese are doing right now to lawful firearm owners in New South Wales, and they want to be lauded as heroes for stealing from Australians.
A national buyback actually requires the cooperation of all states and territories. It turns out it was a hard no from the Northern Territory within 24 hours of this even being discussed. Labor Western Australia—no.
The coalition government in Queensland said: 'Thanks, but no thanks. We've got better things to spend our hundreds of millions of taxpayer money on than buyback, lawfully acquired and stored firearms.' Even the Labor states of Victoria and South Australia said no to the Prime Minister's demands. Only New South Wales and the ACT have signed up to that.
When the legislation commenced in January, firearm dealers standing-in-port approvals were cancelled overnight, and our ports still have stock on them that are waiting to be delivered to lawful small businesses right around the country. Containers of lawfully ordered stock sat stranded at the border while importers had to pay holding costs, with no transition period, and public servants were unable to explain the new rules to legitimate businesses operating here.
Firearm dealers are legitimate businesses, many of whom have not sold a firearm in New South Wales since Christmas as a result of this legislation. They're carrying the losses of a policy the government announced. On top of it sits the constitutional question about just compensation.
Section 51 in our own federal constitution contains the only words that everyday Australians can quote verbatim, which is that 'acquisition of property must be on just terms'. They can quote it because it goes to the very Australian principle of fairness. Australians hate government overreach.
Whether it's world record vaccine lock-ups; exorbitant and unfair fines, charges or taxes; or laws that take away property rights, the national buyback was a gambit, a diversion, by Labor that was designed to pressure law-abiding Australians to surrender lawfully acquired assets. Every firearm owner and their friends in this country knows it. The Nationals led the fight against this legislation in January with the support of our coalition partners, and I was able to table in this chamber signatures of more than 71,000 Australians who say no.
We moved amendments, but last week I was able to table in this parliament a commitment in the form of a bill that will seek to repeal this draconian, unfair, unjust and misplaced legislation. We need to enforce the law against the people who actually break it and stop burdening the people who keep our laws. If the government really wanted to make Australians safer, deport the hate preachers, the indoctrinators and the urgers who encourage the antisemitism that saw the Islamic terrorist attack in Bondi occur.
We're taking firearms off lawful Australians, and I'm yet to see one deportation from Western Sydney.