Australian parliament passes gun reform and anti-hate bill after Bundy shooting

A month after two assailants gunned down 15 people at a Jewish festival on Bondi Beach, Australia’s parliament voted to overhaul gun laws and crack down on hate speech.

Both bills passed the House and Senate during special sessions Tuesday night. Gun reform measures include a national gun buyback scheme and new checks on gun license applications.

Interior Minister Tony Burke said the Bundy shooter would not have been able to legally obtain a gun if such a law had been enacted before the country’s worst mass shooting in decades.

Ruling Labor senators received support from Liberal MPs for the anti-hate bill, but the Liberal MPs’ coalition partners abstained from the vote.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is under intense pressure after last month’s mass shooting because he did not do enough to prevent the attacks amid growing concerns about anti-Semitism in the Jewish community.

Politicians were recalled two weeks early to discuss the legislation. In introducing the reforms, Burke said the Dec. 14 attack was carried out by individuals with “hate in their hearts and guns in their hands.”

The father of the duo is said to have legally owned six firearms, while his son was under surveillance by intelligence agencies.

The gun reform bill, which passed the House in a 96-45 vote, includes tighter controls on gun imports and provisions to improve information sharing between intelligence agencies on people trying to obtain firearms licenses.

Burke said the buyback program would target “surplus and newly restricted firearms,” ​​reducing the number of registered firearms in the country by 4 million.

Burke added that learning about the country was “shocking to most Australians” Have more guns than before the 1996 attack on Port Arthura gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania.

That attack was the country’s worst mass shooting prompting the government of the day to enact some of the strictest gun control measures in the world. The new laws will bring some of the most significant changes to Australia’s gun laws since then.

Hate speech reform was originally included in an omnibus bill along with gun reform, but the government split the bill last week after the Liberal-National opposition coalition and the Greens both said they would vote against it.

Although the Labor government has a majority in the House of Commons, it needs the support of other parties in the Senate.

Coalition MPs cited concerns about free speech and said the legislation was not clearly defined, while the Greens said they could not support the bill unless changes were made to protect all minorities and legitimate protest.

But on Tuesday, Liberal Leader Sussan Ley said last week the bill was “unsalvageable” and said her party had reached an agreement with the government on a watered-down version.

She said in a statement that the Liberals had “stepped up to fix” the government’s “mishandled” legislation, adding that the bill had been “narrowed, strengthened and appropriately focused on keeping Australians safe”.

The bill includes provisions banning groups deemed to be spreading hate and imposing tougher penalties for preachers who advocate violence. It is reviewed every two years by a joint parliamentary committee. The opposition will also be consulted on the listing and delisting of extremist organizations.

The bill passed the House of Commons by a vote of 38 to 22 in the Senate, with Nationals abstaining from the vote and Liberal coalition partners voting in favor. The Greens voted against it, saying it would have a “chilling effect” on political debate and protests.