Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I can speak for myself: I have not been asked—

Opposition members interjecting—

No—I have not been asked, and I am not aware of any minister being asked, to weaken the National Firearms Agreement. There has been an issue, as you know, about the import ban, and the import ban, as I said and as was said at the time it was imposed originally, is designed to prevent the importation of these Adler lever-action shotguns of more than five rounds which, under the National Firearms Agreement—John Howard's gun law, if you like—are categorised as category A. So that is what is happening. We are standing up to ensure that Australians are protected and are kept safe.

I just think honourable members should be very careful in their desperate efforts to distract from the criminality and thuggery of the CFMEU and to distract from the obligation this parliament has to reinstate the rule of law in the construction sector—to try to latch on to this issue when they know full well that not only do we stand by the National Firearms Agreement; our side of politics established it. This is what we did. This is our claim to this issue. John Howard established the National Firearms Agreement, and we stand by it.

But what the Labor Party does not do is to stand by the rule of law. It does not stand by the contractors. It does not stand by the thousands of electricians and carpenters and plumbers who have to knuckle down to the thuggery of the CFMEU. It does not stand for the young couples who cannot afford to buy a house because the costs are being pushed up by union thuggery or for taxpayers who have to pay more to build every type of infrastructure. (Time expired)

See this speech in context