In a decisive response to a horrific mass shooting, the Australian parliament has enacted sweeping new gun control measures, including a national firearm buyback programme and significantly tighter licence laws.
Legislative Response to Tragedy
The new legislation was passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday, 20 January 2026, following the deadly attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney. Fifteen people were killed and dozens more wounded on 14 December when two gunmen opened fire at a Jewish festival.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke championed the reforms, arguing they would have prevented the Bondi attackers from legally acquiring their weapons. "A critical question I've often been asked... is, if this national reform package had already been in place, how many firearms would the Bondi gunmen have held?... The answer is zero," Mr Burke stated emphatically.
Details of the New Gun Control Package
The cornerstone of the government's action is a large-scale gun buyback scheme, the most significant since the programme introduced after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. The new law allows the government to purchase surplus, newly banned, and illegal firearms from the public, with costs shared equally with state governments. Authorities anticipate hundreds of thousands of weapons will be collected and destroyed.
Alongside the buyback, the cabinet has agreed to a series of stringent new controls which include:
- Limits on the number of firearms an individual can own.
- Tighter restrictions on open-ended firearms licences.
- Clearer limits on the types of guns that are legal.
- A new requirement that licence holders must be Australian citizens.
The legislation passed the lower house by a vote of 96 to 45 but faced strong opposition from the conservative Liberal-National coalition. Shadow Attorney General Andrew Wallace criticised the move, saying, "This bill reveals the contempt the government has for the million gun owners of Australia."
Context and Parallel Reforms
The government revealed on Sunday that there were a record 4.1 million firearms in Australia last year, with 1.1 million registered in New South Wales alone, the state where the Bondi attack occurred. The attackers themselves held a firearm licence and legally owned six guns.
The buyback bill is expected to pass smoothly through the Senate with the support of the Greens party. In a parallel move, the parliament also debated separate legislation aimed at lowering the threshold for prosecuting hate speech offences, signalling a broader legislative response to the motivations behind the attack.
