By Christine Chen
SYDNEY, Jan 20 (Reuters) – Australia’s lower house of parliament has passed new laws for a national gun buyback, tighter background checks for gun licences and a crackdown on hate crimes, in response to the country’s worst mass shooting in decades at a Jewish festival last month.
Two bills for stricter gun control and anti-hate measures passed on Tuesday by the House of Representatives in a special parliament session will now go to the upper house Senate for debate.
The gun control laws are expected to pass with the support of the Greens party despite opposition from the conservative Liberal-National coalition. The anti-hate laws are likely to pass with support from the Liberal party.
Introducing the gun reforms, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said individuals with “hate in their hearts and guns in their hands”, carried out the December 14 attack at Bondi Beach that killed 15 people.
“The tragic events at Bondi demand a comprehensive response from government,” Burke added. “As a government, we must do everything we can to counter both the motivation and the method.”
PARLIAMENT RECALLED EARLY FOR SPECIAL SESSION
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recalled parliament early from its summer break for this week’s special two-day session to toughen curbs after the shooting shocked the nation and prompted calls for more action on gun control and antisemitism.
The proposed gun control measures enable the largest national buyback scheme since a similar campaign after a 1996 massacre in Tasmania’s Port Arthur, in which a lone gunman killed 35 people.
They also toughen background checks for firearm licences issued by Australian states, making use of information from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
Australia had a record 4.1 million firearms last year, the government said on Sunday, with more than 1.1 million of those in New South Wales, its most populous state and the site of the Bondi attack.
“The sheer number of firearms currently circulating within the Australian community is unsustainable,” Burke said.
The bill passed by a vote of 96 to 45 without the support of the coalition.
“This bill reveals the contempt the government has for the million gun owners of Australia,” said Shadow Attorney-General Andrew Wallace of the Liberals.
“The prime minister has failed to recognise that guns are tools of trade for so many Australians.”
HATE CRIME PENALTIES STEPPED UP
A second bill steps up penalties for hate crimes, such as jail terms up to 12 years when a religious official or preacher is involved, and allows bans on groups deemed to spread hate.
The bill, which also provides new powers to cancel or refuse visas for those who spread hate, passed the lower house 116 to 7, with support from Liberal party lawmakers while the National party, their coalition partners, abstained.
“This bill targets those that support violence, in particular violence targeted at a person because of their immutable attributes,” said Attorney-General Michelle Rowland.
Such conduct was not only criminal but sowed the seed of extremism leading to terrorism, she added. Police say the alleged Bondi gunmen were inspired by the Islamic State militant group.
The measures were originally planned for a single bill, but backlash from both the coalition and the Greens forced the government to split the package and drop provisions for an offence of racial vilification.
In its own reforms, New South Wales limits individuals to possession of four guns, and beefs up the power of police to curb protests during designated terrorist attacks.
State police have extended by two weeks in some areas protest curbs enforced in Sydney late in December. While they do not ban protests outright, critics say they are undemocratic.
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Michael Perry and Clarence Fernandez)
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