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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Friday that Australia will establish a national gun buyback scheme to remove hundreds of thousands of firearms from circulation, marking the largest such program since the landmark 1996 reforms following the Port Arthur massacre.
The buyback scheme, to be funded 50-50 by federal and state governments, targets surplus, newly banned and illegal firearms as part of the government’s response to Sunday’s terrorist attack at Bondi Beach that killed 15 people. The announcement came as the National Security Committee revealed new intelligence confirming the attack was ISIS-inspired through regular online video feeds accessed by the perpetrators.
“There are now more than four million firearms in Australia, more than at the time of the Port Arthur massacre nearly 30 years ago,” Albanese stated at a Friday press conference. “The terrible events at Bondi show we need to get more guns off our streets.”
One of the Bondi terrorists held a firearms license and possessed six guns despite living in Bondi, a dense Sydney suburb, according to the Prime Minister. “There’s no reason why someone in that situation needed that many guns,” Albanese said, highlighting systemic failures in firearms licensing that allowed the attack.
The buyback follows reforms agreed by National Cabinet on Monday that limit the number of firearms individuals can hold, restrict open-ended licensing, make Australian citizenship a condition of holding a license, and accelerate work on the National Firearms Register. Intelligence agencies will now contribute criminal intelligence assessments to firearms licensing decisions beyond simple background checks.
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