Senator David Leyonhjelm has claimed the onus is on the government to justify the importation ban on the Adler shotgun despite admitting few people would want or need the weapon.
The Liberal Democrat senator has maintained an email from a staffer to the justice minister proves there was a deal with the Abbott government to trade his vote on a building regulator for a sunset clause on the Adler importation ban.
On Wednesday former prime minister Tony Abbott told ABC’s 7.30 that laws limiting availability of guns had prevented massacres and denied a “deal” with Leyonhjelm to lift the Adler importation ban.
The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and the treasurer, Scott Morrison, have both refused to rule out lifting the importation ban after the states agree on the classification of the Adler.
On ABC’s AM, Leyonhjelm denied playing “games” on gun control, noting that lever-action shotguns are allowed under the national firearms agreement.
He said he was not attempting to water down gun laws, just asking the government not to “make the gun laws any worse” by lifting the classification of shotguns from the lowest, category A, to a higher category.
Asked why anyone would want an Adler, Leyonhjelm agreed it was not “vital” for people on the land and he didn’t use a lever-action shotgun for pest control.
“Not that many people would want one,” he said. “But it’s the wrong question – you don’t have to justify why you want something, the government has to justify why it wants to take something away from you.”
He said in a free society people don’t need to justify why you need something, likening it to banning cars that can reach 200km an hour.
Leyonhjelm said the government had not made the case for the ban of the Adler seven-shot gun. He noted five-shot Adlers could be legally modified to give them a higher capacity anyway and 10-shot rifles are also allowed.
On Wednesday Abbott laid down the gauntlet to Turnbull in a media conference just before question time, declaring the federal government should do “whatever it needs to do to ensure rapid-fire guns are not readily available in this country”.
Nationals members, backed by Liberal backbencher Ian Goodenough, have argued in favour of lifting the Adler importation ban, saying it should be classified as category B under national gun laws.
In question time Turnbull refused to offer a view on whether the ban should be permanent, and suggested the commonwealth’s position was that the states needed to make a decision on its classification.
Asked on Radio National on Thursday if it would lift the ban, Morrison said it was a matter for the government after the states and territories had made a decision on classification.
He noted the Adler was currently classified at the lowest rating, so any reclassification “will see the protections improved, strengthened, not weakened”.
On ABC’s AM Leyonhjelm refuted Abbott’s claim that his government always intended to put in a sunset clause, and justice minister Michael Keenan’s staffer was simply explaining what the government already intended to do.
Leyonhjelm said sunset clauses were not automatically put into regulations and it was put in specifically to implement the deal, he said.
Leyonhjelm conceded he did not have personal communication with Abbott or Keenan about the deal.
He said the deal referred to in the email from Keenan’s staffer could have occurred “without the prime minister’s personal knowledge”.
“There is an awful lot of regulations that are done but it is inconceivable that his office wouldn’t have known about it.”
When Keenan informed him the government would reimpose the importation ban in August, Leyonhjelm said “we had a deal”. He said the justice minister replied “we never intended to allow it in anyway”.
“In other words they were intending to do me over.”
Leyonhjelm said he was still “50/50” on supporting the Australian Building and Construction Commission bill.
He said he was prepared to vote against the bill, but declined to say what sort of concession could win his vote or whether his demands would relate to gun control.
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