It is understandable that the Minns Labor government wants to rush new restrictions about guns and protests into law. A tragedy like the Bondi massacre demands action – the unpredictable political wave of public feeling after a disaster can either wipe you out or see you riding high.
The risks are obvious in Anthony Albanese’s plummeting poll numbers.
Chris Minns, by contrast, is a master at keeping on top of the politics, though as recent history shows, he’s not always on the money. The Dural caravan fiasco comes to mind. So do this year’s rushed laws about protesting near places of worship, which were overturned by the courts.
NSW’s lower house approved the laws on Monday night and the upper house is expected to debate the legislation on Tuesday. But when emotions are running high, a pause and clear thinking might be wiser.
Drafting laws that significantly curtail rights – such as the right to express your view on political matters by peaceful protest, or even as some would have it, the “right” to own guns – need to be approached with careful and forensic clarity.
Gun law reform
Minns wants to cut the number of guns to four for recreational hunters and 10 for professional shooters and farmers who need them for pest control.
At the moment there are 1.1m guns in NSW and about 250,000 registered gun owners. That’s about four per person on average, though some individuals have well north of 100 firearms. Guns can accumulate as relatives die and leave their gun collections to their children.
Minns’s explanation for why he came up with four was flimsy: Western Australia was leading with a maximum of five so he thought, after consultation with farmers and sporting shooter organisations, four would be “in the ballpark”.
Minns also has said he will ban multi-shot guns such as lever action rifles and straight pull firearms, as well as magazine belts that allow even more rounds without re-loading.
Accompanied by a well-funded and well-publicised buy-back – Minns says he has $300m on hand – this could lead to a genuine reduction in gun numbers and fewer high-powered guns in the community.
But four is still a lot, and according to Stephen Bendle of the Gun Control Alliance, about 45% of licensed firearms are in the cities and suburbs.
The two alleged Bondi gunmen fall within this cohort. One had a licence as a recreational hunter and as a member of a gun club. He had six firearms.
Given the clear risks and countervailing community concerns about guns in the city, is occasionally going hunting with mates on a weekend, or enjoying a bit of fun at the shooting range, really a genuine reason to own one? This is the debate we should be having.
Minns’s legislation also proposes to tighten up on gun storage and gun licensing by requiring licence renewals every two years.
But as the terrible events at Bondi show, these measures will only be as effective as the resourcing and intelligence available to conduct meaningful checks.
Demonstrating the perils of kneejerk legislation, the bill proposes another informal kind of supervision, by requiring all gun owners to be part of a shooting association.
Aside from how this would work in rural Australia, gun control advocatesworry mandatory gun club membership could give birth to a US National Rifle Association-style body or bodies, which would be engorged with new member fees and serve as a powerful voice for the gun lobby, as the NRA has in the US.
Minns’s strategy is hopefully just a first step and he has indicated he is open to more evidence-based controls if required.
It’s a welcome about-face from his dallying with the Shooters and Fishers party only a few months ago.
Protest laws
The changes to the protest laws are far more problematic because they curtail the right to free political speech in the form of peaceful protest.
The laws allow the NSW police chief, in consultation with the state government, to ban protests for 14 days after a terrorism incident, with powers to extend the ban for up to three months. The legislation does not specify how proximate to the terrorist event the protest ban needs to be.
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties has warned the law is almost certainly unconstitutional because it offends against the implied constitutional right of free speech and will probably face a legal challenge.
Josh Lees of the Palestine Action group, which has organised the weekly protests in Sydney against the killing of civilians in Gaza by the Israeli forces, has implored critics of his movement to explain how the protests were linked to the events at Bondi.
No evidence has emerged that the alleged gunmen ever participated in a protest march or were engaged with any of the organising groups.
There are no plans for protests in the coming weeks.
Minns said: “I think in some cases, ratchetting up the pressure, ratchetting up the rhetoric and language can unleash forces that you can’t control, and it’s not necessarily their job to control – but it is mine.”
“It is my responsibility, because we can’t have a repeat of what happened on Sunday or any variation of it. Things are tense at the moment.”
In the new year the NSW government will be addressing laws to prevent symbols of hate and chants at rallies. He’s given the example of “globalise the intifada” as a phrase he thinks should be banned. Symbols such as swastikas are banned under federal laws, but Minns wants a parliamentary committee to consider state bans to assist NSW police in taking action.
Critics such as the Greens are asking what other protests will be restricted by the ban. Will it stop Indigenous protests on Australia Day, where the number of aboriginal deaths in custody will be a theme?
A spokesperson for Minns said the bans would apply to protests on public roads that require a form 1 to allow the protest to legally proceed. They would not apply to gatherings in parks or this week’s Bondi beach paddle out, when 700 people gathered to remember the Bondi victims.
It might also mean a march by rightwing groups to mark 20 years since the Cronulla riots might still be permitted.
Minns’ increasingly strident attempts to quash protests are not sitting well with his own side of politics.
NSW south coast Labor Council secretary, Arthur Rorris, wrote to members on Sunday saying: “The suspension of democratic rights of the people to demonstrate against their government or, for example, against massacres here and abroad does not sit well with the Australia that we all know and love.
“There are only two winners by suspending democratic rights like these, political leaders who want to shield themselves from the voices of the people and the terrorists who want to attack our freedoms,” he said.
