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

I thank the honourable member for her question. The honourable member should recognise, and I am sure she does, that there are legitimate views about the way in which different weapons should be classified. And to try to demonise Australian gun owners and shooters because they have a particular view about the appropriate classification of a firearm is outrageous. It is the contempt that people in the Labor Party have for people in regional and rural Australia who need guns in order to sustain their livelihoods in terms of exterminating feral pests on their own properties and in terms of recreation.

We have a very good balance in Australia. We have a very well-regulated firearms sector. It is very well regulated. It was set in place by John Howard and Tim Fischer. It is one of the great prides of the coalition. What we are doing here is ensuring that the state and territory police ministers have the opportunity to consider and reclassify lever action shotguns. There is a difference of opinion in the community about the appropriate classification, but can I say, Mr Speaker, I am not aware of anybody that wants to leave the classification as it is. Every argument I have seen involves strengthening the classification, and the debate is as to how far it should go. That is a legitimate point of view on which there are differences of opinion.

Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—

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