A national firearms register, which would track weapons across the country in real time, was a priority for law enforcement and gun control advocates after the 1996 Port Athur massacre.
But almost 30 years later, it remains unfinished.
The Australian Federal Police Association president Alex Caruana told Guardian Australia this week that a robust national firearms database would have allowed New South Wales police to better assess the risk posed by the accused Bondi gunmen ahead of Sunday’s terror attack.
Sajid Akram, who was shot dead by police, held a firearm licence and owned six guns, which he and his son Naveed allegedly used to open fire on Jewish families celebrating Hanukah at Bondi beach.
It was disclosed on Monday that Naveed, who has now been charged with 59 offences including 15 counts of murder, came to the attention of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) in October 2019 “on the basis of being associated with others”.
“The assessment was made that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence,” the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said.
It is not clear whether the NSW firearms registry was aware of this association.
“If there was a national firearms database that Asio also had access to in real time … they might have been able to make a dynamic assessment and change the risk level of that person,” Caruana said. “They would have the ability to do that.”
Caruana criticised the slow progress on the register and said there was also a need for it to track ammunition sales.
Milestones missed
A plan for a national register was finally signed off on by states and territories in 2023 after the 2022 shooting of two police officers and a neighbour in Wieambilla, Queensland.
“Until the NFR is delivered, existing risks to police officers and community members will remain due to information gaps, delaying in locating firearms, sharing information on risks posed by owners and diversion of firearms to the illicit market,” a national cabinet document on the NFR released under freedom of information law states.
The register, which will provide a real-time “life-cycle view” of registered firearms and licences, is meant to be up and running by mid-2028, but a Guardian Australia investigation found that the rollout has missed key milestones.
The process has also been hampered by poor resourcing and record-keeping at some state registries. In the ACT, for example, the register is still paper-based. Queensland licensing also remains largely on paper, although a digital transition is in the works.
After the attack in Bondi, Albanese said that work would be “accelerating”.
Speaking on the ABC on Tuesday, the prime minister outlined the challenges. “Some state governments still have paper processes for the registration of firearms, so it’s impossible to check if you don’t have a digitised system,” he said.
“More than $100m has been provided to states and territories, which is where guns are registered, to enable them to digitise their system.”
The Victorian police minister, Anthony Carbines, said the government would do “everything we can to meet earlier timelines”.
“Different states and territories have different arrangements and also have different levels of capacity,” he said. “But the goal here is to have a coordinated, harmonised register.”
After a national cabinet meeting on Monday, the government detailed a range of potential changes to gun laws. Options included limiting the number of firearms that individuals can own and issuing licences only to citizens. On Friday, the prime minister announced a national gun buyback scheme – the largest since the one initiated by the Howard government in 1996.
Appeal rights removed
One federal law enforcement source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the current licensing laws made it difficult to rely on Asio intelligence as the basis for refusing a person’s application for a firearm.
That was partly because there are not adequate protections to keep such intelligence safe from disclosure, should the applicant turn to state tribunals to challenge a decision to deny them a gun.
On Wednesday, the NSW premier, Chris Minns, proposed that the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (Ncat) would be removed as an appeal mechanism as part of gun reforms in that state.
“New South Wales police routinely yank licences from gun holders and licence holders they suspect or fear are a threat to the community, those appeals are heard in Ncat, and often police’s objections are overturned,” he said. “We’ll extinguish that appeal pathway.”
“There needs to be changes to legislation to allow for licensing decisions to be made on non-disclosable information,” the source said. “This incident should be a catalyst for that to occur.”
On Tuesday, police disclosed that Sajid Akram was granted a licence in 2023 – after Asio became aware of his son – raising questions about whether there was a failure of information sharing between intelligence services and NSW police.
It is “essential” for police to use criminal intelligence, not just a criminal record, in determining gun licences, Minns said earlier this week.
“That is the kind of legislation we want to see in New South Wales,” he said.
Minns announced on Friday that his government would introduce a bill “to impose a cap of four firearms per individual with strict exemptions for primary producers and sporting shooters”.
NSW will have “toughest gun laws in the country”, he said.
