Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the Greens to support this motion. This is an important motion on an important topic. We need to remember that currently no Australian state or territory has fully complied with the National Firearms Agreement—which is completely unacceptable. There have been more than 50 breaches of the NFA since it was first implemented. There are more than three million licensed firearms in Australia. That's a rise of almost a million guns since the gun buybacks in 1997. I'll say that again: a million guns. The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission estimates that there are more than 260,000 firearms in the illicit firearms market. We need to rekindle the kind of political courage we saw after the Port Arthur massacre and push back against any move to weaken our gun laws. Complacency is not an option. We have to remain vigilant and actively work to make sure our gun control laws remain strong and are keeping pace with the latest changes in firearms technologies.

I'm sure most people here have seen the Al Jazeera investigation that exposed Pauline Hanson's One Nation party attempting to solicit donations from the American gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, with a promise to try to weaken our gun laws. This should be extraordinarily alarming for each and every one of us. We know the gun lobby is becoming increasingly active in Australia in its push to weaken gun laws. A recent report from the Australia Institute found that Australia's gun lobby spent more per capita on political donations in one year than America's National Rifle Association did, in 2018. Various Australian gun groups have donated $1.7 million to political parties since 2011. All political entities, I think, that have taken donations from the gun lobby should immediately return that money. The Greens will ban all political donations from gun lobbies.