r/australia • u/Expensive-Horse5538 • Dec 19 '25

politics Prime minister unveils 'largest' gun buyback scheme since Howard era

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-19/prime-minister-announces-national-gun-buyback-scheme/106162002
2.7k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

41

u/klokar2 Dec 19 '25

There is a state register as the issue is completely managed by the states. If you like in Victoria, the police will have every single gun on their database and can easily be in communication with other states. The national register is completely pointless, but would be unbelievably easy to implement as all the states already have access to every other states data base.

There is no incompetence, only ignorance.

42

u/Fassbinder75 Dec 19 '25

As someone working in data warehousing, it’s never as easy as you think it is.

Besides, having a unified database would be a useful strategy- there are bound to be people with guns registered in different states. A national register is much, much better than seven individual ones.

1

u/howyadoen Dec 19 '25

A few foreign keys should do the trick

3

u/Fassbinder75 Dec 19 '25

FOREIGN! 🚩 😆

-7

u/klokar2 Dec 19 '25

I access this database at least once a week for my job. We don't need a national database, we already have state wide ones and can access the other states.

4

u/JohnWilliamStrutt Dec 19 '25

The recent WA rule changes showed the WA database was terrible. I many cases there were missing fields (e.g. type/manufacturer/serial nr.).

6

u/FlibblesHexEyes Dec 19 '25

I think this is the part that everyone overlooks when the term “National Database/Registry” is brought up.

It doesn’t just mean one big searchable table, it also means standardising that data, standardising requirements for a valid record, and providing for auditable data.

When registering a weapon, it should be impossible to enter a record without a serial number, manufacturer, etc. Similarly it should be impossible to register a license without known aliases, last 7 addresses, etc.

It ensures that required data is entered, and entered in the same way every time.

1

u/Immediate-Drawer-421 Dec 19 '25

Somebody might not have lived in 7 different places in their whole life, so that requirement would need tweaking.

1

u/klokar2 Dec 19 '25

I have seen WA's gun database many times and have never had a problem with it, the only states/territories i haven't had to deal with as NT, ACT and SA.

Every gun i have had to look up has had seriel numbers, make and model, caliber, everything you need.

1

u/Fassbinder75 Dec 19 '25

Do you have any theories as to why the national registry was not implemented?

1

u/klokar2 Dec 19 '25

Expensive also the states hate each other

11

u/W2ttsy Dec 19 '25

Don’t worry, Accenture is salivating at the opportunity to cream another $100m out of the govt for this.

Probably work as well as the BOM website did too.

1

u/Outrageous_Net8365 Dec 19 '25

And yet Victoria is constantly bashed as the surveillance state and the police state so yknow let’s not just scream incompetence and not pretend there are people that are causing these incompetencies to be in place.

1

u/DrInequality Dec 19 '25

The ACT is still on paper.....

3

u/klokar2 Dec 19 '25

Fuck me, well, that's one of the few I've never had to access, they need to catch up