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

Again I repeat that these amendments are important because the people on the government side of the House believe it's actually important that if you're involved in gun smuggling you spend a certain amount of time in prison. If the parliament were to come together to agree to these sensible amendments, what would happen is that parliament would send a very strong message that we believe that this is an extraordinary crime. We believe that gun running is a very serious crime; it's as severe as people smuggling, for example. We believe it's a very serious crime and, as a result, the parliament should come together and make sure that people who are engaged in it serve a minimum period in jail. That is what we're proposing here. That is what we have been proposing in relation to our crackdown on child sex offenders as well.

Labor, even though they introduced mandatory sentencing for people smuggling when in office, apparently now think that mandatory sentencing is a terrible thing in principle. Some of the members that spoke in this debate expressing that point of view actually spoke in 2010 expressing the opposite. But the point is that if mandatory sentencing is somehow evil in principle, then is Labor in office going to repeal the existing mandatory sentencing offences that we have for people smuggling and terrorism? Nobody on the Labor side has answered that question, which is a very reasonable question under the circumstances. Apparently they've had some road-to-Damascus conversion and now say how terrible mandatory sentencing is.

The government won't be changing its position, because we believe firmly that gun smuggling deserves a serious and appropriate sentence. That's what we on this side of the House believe. We believe it because smuggling just one gun can have enormous consequences for community safety and because you're not involved in gun smuggling unless you're doing it for the worst possible purpose. We know that guns are used by organised crime. They use them for standover tactics and violence. When guns fall into the wrong hands and they're moved about the community, they can do an enormous amount of damage.

We've been very concerned about the illegal firearms market since we arrived in office. Since 2013, we've taken very significant measures to crack down on the black market for guns. The National Anti-Gangs Squad, for example, is incredibly successful. We have strike teams based in every mainland state. We also have officers based in Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory as liaison officers. They work side by side with their state and territory police colleagues, and they have successfully taken about 5½ thousand firearms or firearm parts off the streets.

These are the sorts of measures that we've been taking since we arrived in office. But this legislation and the amendments that I've moved to it remain a very important piece of the puzzle. I am disappointed that the Labor Party continue in their apparently ideological opposition to mandatory sentencing. I had hoped that they could join us in making sure that people who engage in gun smuggling actually serve an appropriate amount of time in prison, but clearly they're not prepared to change their minds. I think that is unfortunate for the Australian people. It's going to have detrimental effects on community safety, and they deserve to be condemned for it.

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