Laws setting up a national gun buyback and stopping non-citizens from buying guns also passed earlier in the evening, with the Greens’ backing. The entire Coalition opposed those laws because, they argued, Albanese was cynically using gun laws to divert attention from extremism.
The prime minister displayed signs of pressure on Tuesday as he was forced to defend his record in the first question time since the Bondi attack. Albanese turned on the Coalition by claiming former prime minister Scott Morrison had been weak on antisemitism, before Morrison hit back hours later.
The Nationals’ senators, including Bridget McKenzie, Matt Canavan, and Susan McDonald leaving the chamber.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
But tensions were also flaring inside the Coalition in a week when polls showed the opposition’s support remained low, putting the spotlight back on Ley’s authority and leadership prospects as the Coalition again split on a key policy issue.
Nationals leader David Littleproud had agreed in principle to pass the hate crimes bill in a Sunday evening shadow cabinet meeting. But the Nationals position shifted on Monday afternoon, when outspoken senator Matt Canavan, in particular, aired concerns that the bill could lead to religious or political groups being outlawed. Canavan also led the Nationals’ opposition to net zero.
At the same time, Coalition MPs were being deluged with questionable information from advocacy groups outside parliament, including false screenshots of sections of the bill that claimed the laws were far more powerful than they actually were.
Nationals leader David Littleproud speaks on gun reform in the House of Representatives.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
In this context, Ley held several conversations with senior Nationals in which she made firm arguments that the Coalition needed to be on the right side of history in supporting reforms to protect Jews after the Bondi massacre. Sources familiar with the talks described them as “tense and charged”. Ley and Littleproud’s relationship has long been fraught, leading in part to a short-lived Coalition break-up earlier this term.
The opposition leader separately told colleagues that some of the proposed changes from the Nationals would water down the laws to such an extent that neo-Nazis and extremist Islamists would not be captured, and that the Nationals would be voting with the Greens, frequently accused of antisemitism, if they voted against the bill in the Senate.
The Nationals’ positioning on the bill ultimately did not matter because the Liberals’ support in the Senate was sufficient for the bills to pass late on Tuesday. But the internal drama puts a spotlight on the pressure facing the junior Coalition party, which held several party room meetings on Tuesday in a tortuous internal process to debate the bill.
In a statement released to the media less than 20 minutes before the vote, Littleproud said his party’s differing stance from the Liberals “does not reflect on the relationship within the Coalition”, arguing that “more time is required to fully examine and test the bill before it is finalised”.
One Nation is surging in the polls and former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce is aiming to steal votes off the party in the bush, creating a risk for the Nationals’ leadership in voting for the laws if Joyce and Canavan were to campaign against the policies.
Right-wing Liberal backbenchers Andrew Hastie and Tony Pasin voted for the amended hate crimes legislation earlier on Tuesday.
Ley said in a statement: “In the national interest, the Liberal party has today stepped up to fix legislation that the Albanese government badly mishandled.”
While Albanese ultimately shored up the hate crimes bill by working with the opposition, he worked with the Greens in the Senate to pass stricter gun laws, which were the second component of his legislative response to Bondi. The prime minister was forced to split the laws into two bills when it became clear there was no broad support across the parliament for both.
What are the new gun control and hate crime changes?
Gun laws
- Enhanced background checks for people with gun licenses, greater information sharing between security agencies.
- Tougher “fit and proper” tests for people applying for a gun licence.
- Imports of guns to be limited to Australian citizens, and greater restrictions on the type of guns able to be imported.
- The establishment of a national gun buyback scheme.
Hate crime laws
- Powers to designate organisations as “hate groups”, which would mean members and donors could be jailed. The government said the law was aimed at targeting neo-Nazi groups and radical Islamist groups.
- More powers for a minister to cancel or refuse a visa if a person has spread hateful or extremist views.
- Creating new aggravated offences for religious or spiritual leaders who advocate violence and penalising religious leaders who preach hate to children.
The gun laws tighten firearm controls with greater co-operation among security agencies for background checks of licensed gun owners, beef up restrictions on firearm imports and create the powers for the federal government to enact a national buyback scheme.
Albanese said the scheme was similar to the buyback enacted by the Howard government after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 and contained import measures to prevent dangerous individuals from owning guns. He rejected arguments from Nationals MPs that the laws unfairly focused on rural residents.
“This [legislation] is not about targeting farmers, it’s not about competitive shooters, it’s not about law-abiding firearm owners,” Albanese said.
Littleproud had argued the restrictions were an unnecessary distraction from tackling antisemitism.
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He told parliament on Tuesday that the gun bill was a “cheap political diversion.
“We do not have a gun problem, we have a radical Islam problem,” the Nationals leader said.
Littleproud had campaigned against tighter controls soon after the Bondi massacre and pre-empted his senior Coalition partners in the Liberal Party, as he did on the Voice to parliament referendum and Australia’s legislation of a net zero emissions target.
