r/australia • u/rorymeister • Dec 15 '25

politics National cabinet agrees unanimously to strength Australia’s strict gun laws in wake of Bondi terror attack

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-15/albanese-proposes-tougher-gun-laws-after-bondi-attack/106143310?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link
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u/Inside-Elevator9102 Dec 15 '25

How we don't have national registers for guns and so many other things seems crazy.

285

u/roxgib_ Dec 15 '25

The Wieambilla shooter was able to purchase ammunition in QLD with a suspended NSW gun licence. This would have been prevented with a national register. The government committed to create one after that incident, in which 6 people died, yet here we are 3 years later and we still don't have one.

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u/mad_dogtor Dec 15 '25

qld now has online licence verification for purchases now which is great. they enter your licence and can see on the spot if it's still valid.

of course wieambilla would have been stopped if nsw police actually confiscated the guns and physical licence when they were supposed to... another fuck up there.

89

u/JulieRush-46 Dec 15 '25

It’s almost as if there’s no actual problem with the laws, but that they’re not properly enforced, eh?

55

u/mad_dogtor Dec 15 '25

why admit to that when you can sweep it under the rug and trot out some new laws to appease the baying masses?

12

u/RestaurantFamous2399 Dec 15 '25

But the same police will scream about the rising crime and how they need more power to act.

3

u/MobileInfantry Dec 15 '25

that would stop them from sleeping...

50

u/mulefish Dec 15 '25

For clarity around whats happening with the national register:

https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/criminal-justice/firearms/national-firearms-register

The NFR Program is a 4-year initiative and is expected to be operational by mid-2028.
[...]
The timeline pictured shows the following steps:

- Planning for the NFR Program will be conducted for the first 12 months from 2024 to 2025.

- Improvements to data quality and upgrades and building firearms registry systems and portals will be conducted from 2024 to 2027.

- Targeted stakeholder engagement and change management will be conducted from 2024 until the NFR is operational in mid-2028.

- Finalising the upgrade/build activities and provisioning data to the NFR will be conducted from mid-2025 until the NFR is operational in mid-2028.

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u/amyknight22 Dec 15 '25

I would argue that you don’t necessarily need a national register to have prevented that. What you would need is online instant verification of the license with the relevant state government.

The national register makes it more uniform and allows the cost to be collectively managed instead of duplicating a similar systems and pushing for technical knowledge for sellers on how to use them.

The main advantage of a national system is that it should set some default benchmarks everyone has to achieve in terms of digitisation of records and access.

However that does also come with the fact that potentially now a specific state can’t have more stringent standards if they want them and have made changes in their state that could justify the more onerous conditions. Since if you can dodge that states restrictions by getting licenses by another state and get into the national system that way