Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

I think I just answered that in the last answer. I did. I answered exactly that. I answered exactly that question. I will go through it again for the benefit of the Leader of the Opposition, who clearly does not understand anything about firearms. He continues to ask questions that demonstrate his lack of knowledge about how this actually works. Let me explain it again. There was going to be a large import of lever-action shotguns with a magazine capacity of over five. We had many representations from our own law enforcement officials and from state governments that they were concerned about this import. At the time, and it is still the case, all lever-action shotguns, regardless of their capacity—two, six, eight—were classified in category A, the least restrictive category of licence that is available. When we were advised about the concern about this large-scale import we took action to restrict the import whilst we had a conversation with the states about where these guns were to be classified. That temporary ban will remain in place until we can conclude that conversation.

We had a conversation with Senator Leyonhjelm about the regulation that needed to pass the Senate for us to regulate this temporary import ban. As part of that conversation, we inserted a sunset clause in that regulation so it would expire after 12 months and, at the end of that 12 months, we would have seen where we were at. My hope was, of course, that the negotiation with the states would have been concluded. They were not, so it continues that that temporary import ban remains in place.

Mr Bowen interjecting—

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