Australia’s rapid move to introduce new gun and protest laws draws criticism

Civil rights groups and pro-gun advocates in Australia fear new fast-track laws will impose undue restrictions on guns and protests in the wake of the Bundy shooting.

Australia’s New South Wales state recalled parliament on Monday to debate a raft of new laws, such as banning the term “global uprising”, limiting the number of guns a person can own and giving police greater protest powers.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minings said some people may find the changes “going too far” but they are necessary to keep communities safe.

One pro-gun politician said the laws unfairly target law-abiding gun owners, while civil libertarians said restrictions on protests were an affront to democracy.

On banning the word “uprising”, Minns said its use at protests in Australia and around the world “is a call for a global uprising. That’s what it means. Not in the Middle East, not in Israel or Gaza, but in Sydney”.

“I do believe this can lead to a culture and environment of high levels of disunity,” he said, and “provoke violence.”

The term intifada became popular in 1987 during the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Some have described the term as a call for violence against Jews. Others said it was a call for peaceful resistance to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

after the incident Bundy attackIn the incident that left 15 people dead, the Jewish community accused the government of not doing enough to protect it from rising anti-Semitism.

The new protest law will also allow police to restrict demonstrations in places of worship and impose tougher penalties for violations.

NSW Civil Liberties Commission chairman Timothy Roberts said the new law ignored a recent ruling by the state’s Supreme Court that the so-called “devolution of powers” by places of worship breached the freedom of political communication implicit in the Australian constitution.

Roberts said religious institutions exercised significant and overt political power in Australian politics, making them legitimate sites of protest in a democratic society.

“The laws introduced today infringe on our rights to assemble and communicate with each other,” he said, adding that the laws “undermined our democracy”.

He said Minns wanted social cohesion, but he didn’t know what the word meant.

“He believes silence is peace and seems unaware that this may also reflect oppression. Passing laws that oppress certain parts of our community in the wake of the attacks we have seen does not bring us closer together – it drives us further apart and prevents us from healing well in this sad time.”

Police can also remove the face coverings of protesters suspected of committing crimes during protests, including minor crimes.

Previously, police could only do this if someone was arrested or suspected of committing an indictable offence.

On gun reform, new laws will mean license holders in NSW will be prohibited from owning more than four firearms, with farmers and shooting sports athletes allowed to possess up to ten firearms.

The move follows similar laws introduced in Western Australia earlier this year to limit gun ownership. The rest of the country has no restrictions.

Sajid Akram, one of the gunmen in the Bundy shooting, owned six registered firearms.

Other gun law changes include more regular renewals for gun license holders, from every five years to every two years, and a review of the types of firearms available to most gun owners.

Mark Banasiak of the Shooters, Fishermen and Farmers Party, which lobbies for looser gun laws, said the state’s 260,000 gun license holders were being “punished” and “made a scapegoat for institutional failures”.

“We are getting away from the real problem,” he said, referring to a “climate of hatred and division that has been festering for two and a half years because the government did not do enough to stop it.”

Walter Mikac was shot dead by a lone gunman in Tasmania in 1996, killing 35 people, including his wife and two young daughters. Australia’s worst mass shootingwelcome the reform.

He said the changes would “close critical gaps in our gun laws” and put community safety first.

The government also aims to crack down on hate speech and symbols and allowed police to ban protests for three months after a terror attack.

Palestine Action Group spokesman Josh Liss said the new law was “extremely harsh.”

“Australia is seen as a safe country,” he said, “where free speech is very important”, but the Bundy shooting “perhaps changed the dynamics of democracy and freedom”.

NSW Jewish House of Representatives chairman David Ossip said the move to ban the “uprising” slogan was a “watershed moment” in the fight against hatred and incitement.

He also welcomed greater police powers during protests.

“The right to protest is a core Australian value and a fundamental principle of a democratic society,” he said.

“But it never included the right to hide your face and shout slogans calling for violence against fellow Australians or wave the flags of groups committed to murder and destruction.”

Additional reporting by Katie Watson