Malcolm Turnbull is dealing with a breakout within his own ranks on gun regulation as another crossbench player, the One Nation senator Rod Culleton, says he wants a “softening” of firearm control.
Nationals members on Tuesday, backed by Liberal backbencher Ian Goodenough, argued in favour of lifting a ban on importing the Adler shotgun, saying it should be classified as category B under national gun laws.
I endorse @senbmckenzie and @MarkCoultonMP calls for the Adler shotgun to be classified as Category "B" on technical grounds.
— Ian Goodenough (@IanGoodenoughMP) October 18, 2016
Culleton, one of the new One Nation bloc in the Senate, meanwhile told Guardian Australia he wanted “good common sense on gun laws”, and said he intended to catch up with the Liberal Democratic party senator David Leyonhjelm about the issue.
Culleton said he wouldn’t get into whether or not he’d trade his vote on various pieces of government legislation in return for an overhaul of gun control. “I’m keeping my gunpowder dry,” he said.
He said he wasn’t going to hold the government to “ransom” on any policy issue but he said on gun regulation: “I’m going to get right into it. I’m going to put the Culleton forensic spyglass over it.”
Culleton pointed to what he described as a “surge for One Nation at the moment”, which he attributed to the party’s commitment to looking after people in the regions.
The positioning comes as the prime minister spent much of Tuesday on the back foot over gun regulation after Leyonhjelm linked firearms regulation with his vote on a signature government bill, the restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
Police ministers will meet on Friday and ahead of that meeting the NSW deputy premier and police minister, Troy Grant, told the ABC he wanted the weapon reclassified so they could be used by farmers to shoot feral animals.
Grant, backed by Nationals in Canberra, is backing a push to allow importation of a seven-shot version of the Adler lever-action shotgun.
Given the internal divisions, and the NSW position, on Tuesday the prime minister first appeared to leave open the option of cutting a deal with Leyonhjelm on gun regulation – which is a pet subject of the libertarian senator – in return for a positive vote on the ABCC.
He later toughened his stance, saying “there was no prospect, no chance of my government … weakening, watering down John Howard’s gun laws. And I might say there is no proposal being made to do so”.
But thus far Turnbull has only committed to maintaining a ban on importing the Adler until the states determine how they will regulate the weapon. The states have been in dispute about that for some period of time.
The prime minister repeated that position on Wednesday on Gold 92.5FM.
“What has been proposed by police ministers and justice ministers is that this classification be changed so its availability be more restricted,” Turnbull said Wednesday.
“The police ministers have not been able to reach agreement on that ... which is why a year ago we stepped in and said right, until you agree on the reclassification of this particular weapon, there will be an import ban on it, and that import ban will remain until such time as the state ministers come to a landing on the reclassification.”
In an interview with Guardian Australia on Tuesday, former prime minister Tony Abbott said he had moved in 2015 to ban the weapons when he heard the guns were being imported, detecting the “anxiety” of police and security agencies.
Leyonhjelm claims the import ban was subsequently subjected to a sunset clause because of a deal with the government to support unrelated legislation on immigration – but Abbott rejects this characterisation.
He said the sunset clause was imposed because of what he termed “pushback in the Coalition” – not because of any agreement with Leyonhjelm.
Government sources say if agreement can’t be reached between police ministers on Friday, then the issue will be kicked into a leaders meeting of the council of Australian governments before the end of this year for decision.
