Wednesday, 1 April 2026

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (17:54): I move:

That the petition be taken into consideration.

I rise this evening on behalf of law-abiding firearm owners and the more than 12,500 people who contributed their signatures – a voice in Parliament. To everyone who took the time to sign the petition and to those present in the gallery tonight, your commitment to fairness, to evidence and to common sense deserves to be heard. Those behind this petition represent a broad cross-section of our community, from farmers to pest controllers to sporting shooters to hunter conservationists to volunteers and to families, both in regional Victoria and in Melbourne, who comply with some of the strictest rules and regulations in the world. They are not asking for special treatment. They are not asking for anything out of the ordinary. They are asking to be treated fairly and not as suspects. They have told me this is the truth. They are concerned about the direction the Allan Labor government is taking with firearms in Victoria, not because they are opposed to public safety – far from it – but because they are worried that so-called reform may drift into overreach and they are being targeted when the wrong people are not being addressed.

Every Victorian supports community safety. Licensed firearm owners, who are arguably some of the most scrutinised in this state, support it strongly. I acknowledge former police chief commissioner Ken Lay, who said to me that he is committed to evidence-based reform. That has to be the fact; it must be evidence based. This is the pillar, because genuine public safety is not achieved through symbolism, it is achieved by targeting criminals, targeting criminal access, strengthening enforcement and disrupting traffic. The evidence is clear: illegal firearms are overwhelmingly sourced through theft, through trafficking, through importation, not through licensed, compliant owners.

When proposals emerge, such as what we have seen New South Wales adopt, such as arbitrary ownership caps, shorter licence terms or restrictions unrelated to actual risk, people rightly ask, ‘How does this stop criminals?’ Well, it does not. The wrong approach risks placing additional burden on those who already do the right thing while diverting attention away from resources and the criminal market that is the issue here. This is where principles of proportionality matter. In a free and democratic society regulation should be based on risk, not on assumption. It should respect the rights of law-abiding Victorians who demonstrate time and again their compliance and their responsibility. As one stakeholder said, ‘One firearm in the wrong hands is one too many, but multiple firearms in the hands of safe, compliant Victorians do not create a risk.’ That is a commonsense principle.

The petition does not call for weaker laws, it calls for smarter ones. It calls for real-time, effective national registration systems that support policing, stronger enforcement against traffickers and organised crime, continuous monitoring of licence eligibility so risks can be addressed as they emerge and proportionate security requirements based on actual risk, not arbitrary limits. These are practical and responsible measures that enhance our safety, not undermine the rights of those who follow the law. This is because the petition is not just about regulation, it is about rights and responsibility. The government should not and cannot default to overreach. The lawful Victorians should not be treated as a problem. Policy should be guided by evidence, not assumption. Law-abiding firearm owners are part of our communities – the very fabric of our good communities. They contribute to regional economies. They contribute to conservation. They contribute to food security and hunting and sporting tradition. We on this side of Parliament respect them enormously, and they deserve our respect. They deserve a government that distinguishes clearly between them and those that operate outside the law.

I say to the Allan government: do not take the easy path of symbolism. Focus on what actually works: intelligence, enforcement, targeting criminal access and protecting community safety without eroding the rights of those who are really doing the right thing already, because the imbalance is not about good policy, it is about maintaining public trust. These people are part of our community. They deserve our trust. The Liberals and Nationals support our law-abiding firearm owners.

Interjections from gallery.

The PRESIDENT: Can I indicate to the gallery that that is your one round of applause – good for you. The gallery does not contribute to the debate, so if you do it again or you yell out something, I will just leave and the day will be finished, but thank you. It is great that you are here and it is great that you are interested, so you are welcome.

 Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (18:00): I want to start by saying thank you to my colleague Ms Bath for tabling this petition and thank you to all of the people who signed the petition. In keeping with the President’s comments but also the rules of this chamber, I am, as a member of this chamber, not meant to interact with the gallery, but I thank you for being here. It gives a good opportunity for the government to provide some clarity about where we are at with this process and some context as well.

The first thing I want to say is no decisions have been made. There has been no decision made on anything in relation to firearms at all at this point. Just to give you some information firstly, I am a Western District Warrnambool resident who grew up on a farm. There were plenty of firearms at our place, although none of us had much faith in my father’s shot – this is going to sound un-PC – so we used to prefer him to kill a snake with a stick rather than a gun, because we were worried about where the shot would go. So I know the importance of the use of firearms in farming, and I would also be incredibly supportive, as most of us here would be supportive, of the retention of responsible use and possession of firearms for agricultural and other professional purposes and for sporting and recreational activities.

Just to give you a bit of background on this matter, after leading the world for three decades, Australia cannot become complacent on guns. We are backing the work of the national cabinet and further strengthening our gun laws in partnership with the federal government. Ken Lay undertook an important review of how we can do that, and we will share our next steps once his recommendations have been considered by the government. Mr Lay looked at Victoria’s current laws and New South Wales’s recent legislation and consulted with Victorian police and community groups to support the national approach and develop recommendations to bring our gun laws up to date to reflect the risks today. The government will release the final report into Victoria’s firearm laws alongside our response.

First ministers agreed to strengthen gun laws across the nation and have commissioned their police ministers and attorneys-general to develop options including some of the things mentioned in the petition, so there is some alignment with what is expressed in the petition: accelerating work on the national firearms register; making sure administrations can be aligned; ensuring that criminal intelligence to underpin firearms licensing can be used – and that is consistent I think with the petition’s mention of that; limiting the number of firearms to be held by one individual; limiting open-ended firearms licences; and making it a condition of a firearm licence that someone must be an Australian citizen.

As I am closing in on my time limit, the important issue here is that the act of terror that prompted this review shows us that regular review and a check that our gun laws are fit for purpose is the responsible thing to do, and that does not mean that any babies are going to be thrown out with the bathwater. We are continuing to work with the Commonwealth and our state and territory colleagues to strengthen the National Firearms Agreement and deliver, where possible, nationally consistent approaches to firearms reform. This act of terror reinforces the need for a consistency of approach on who has access to firearms in that context. That is really the focus and the trigger point, pardon the pun, for the review that Mr Lay conducted for us; that is what sits behind the whole process. In closing I would just like to say a big thankyou for asking the question and raising it in this chamber. I was very pleased to give an update.

 Jeff BOURMAN (Eastern Victoria) (18:05): In the short time I have got available to me I will talk about Ms Bath’s petition, signed by 12,570 people. It says to ‘reject changes without consultation’. I might mention a little thing that I would have changed it to: ‘reject changes’. There is absolutely no reason to be changing any laws at the moment. They would have worked if the government in New South Wales and the federal government had done their job. There are 220,000 or so licensed shooters in Victoria and nearly a million Australia-wide. One licensed person did that, and that person should not have had a licence. The events of Bondi were a failure of government, both the New South Wales government and the federal government. A firearms prohibition order would have gone a long way to fixing this, if not fixing it, but we do not know, and we may never know who forgot and who did not tell who or whatever. But the punishing of New South Wales shooters within eight days of that event was morally corrupt. It was an absolute demonstration of the inability to discern right from wrong by the government, and it was copied from Roger the cabin boy in WA, who just decided one day he was going to put all these laws on WA shooters with no reason.

We are moving down to some of the stuff that they wanted to do. My favourite will always be, until the day I die, that belt-fed magazines would suddenly become belt-fed shotguns. They do not exist. There are belt-fed firearms, but there is no such thing as a belt-fed magazine. And belt-fed shotguns? I am not aware of one, though you could probably make one. Perpetual licences – absolutely. Can I have one of them before they grandfather them so that I do not have to do that pesky paperwork every three to five years, depending on which licence I have got? Because at the moment Victoria Police every few years goes through everything I have got. I have got to have a genuine reason. I have got to do all this. I have got to do all that. They check to make sure I am a fit and proper person. As far as I am aware, there is no state in this country that gives a perpetual licence. It was more just rubbish designed to get people to think what they were doing was legitimate.

The national firearms register – we already had CrimTrac, which did not work properly. If they want to waste $150 million to God knows what it will actually end up being millions of dollars on a national firearms register, which still will not fix the problem, then happy days, but it is our tax money they are wasting. Real-time monitoring: every time you run I believe it is still the LEAP – law enforcement assistance program – database and every time you have an interaction with the police, they should run it through and give you an MNI number, a master name index number. This is stuff I remember from 26 years ago. That is connected to everything you have. It is like a key for a database. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that as you put it in there it asks if you have got a firearms interest. So you go and have a look, and that interest may be a criminal or a law-abiding person. They go in and they check, and if you have got a shooters licence and you have done something bad, I am going to be getting the idea that the first call will be to the Licensing and Regulation Division – on Wednesday when they answer the phones – to have someone go out there and take your licence from you.

There is nothing new under the sun with what they want. We already have it. We already do what they want. Every time I want a firearm, Victoria Police check that I have a reason for it. It is part of my genuine reason and genuine need and all those sorts of things. They already control how many firearms I have. Nothing which has been proposed by or done in New South Wales and WA and may end up being done here – we still do not know – is new. But as Ms Ermacora said, the report has not been published, and the reply will be published with it, come what may. I do not accept any changes. There is absolutely no reason for them.

For those that feel I am feathering my own nest out there – for the five people that may be watching – tonight is the first night of Passover. I am giving up time with my family for a celebration, and it was my family’s people that were targeted by this. If I thought for one second that there was a public safety outcome in any of the stuff that happened in WA and New South Wales, I would be all over it, but there is not. I am going to finish this off with a saying that I am getting fond of now: ‘We didn’t do it. We aren’t the problem. Leave us alone.’

 Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (18:10): I do want to thank the over 12,500 people that signed this petition sponsored by my colleague Melina Bath, because this petition does raise serious concerns about rushed reform. It is a petition that seeks fairness rather than rushed decisions that are not based on evidence. The Nationals at both the state and federal level have highlighted that Australia already has some of the toughest gun laws in the world, and we need to ensure that law-abiding firearm owners are not penalised unnecessarily. We are open to sensible and proportionate changes like a national firearms register and ensuring firearm licences are limited to Australian citizens, but not legal changes that will impact law-abiding firearm owners without making any difference to terrorists and criminals.

I am not a gun owner. I am not a shooter. I have attended days where you can participate, and I really enjoyed it. I can see that people do enjoy participating as a sport, and we are fortunate in Australia to have people that are competing on the world stage who do us proud because of their skills and abilities in shooting.

The attack at Bondi was absolutely horrific, and the federal government in response flagged legislative reforms, and that triggered a number of emails to my office. I think it is important to reflect the sentiments that I received from people. One was just referring to it being like golf for them – you need different clubs for different purposes, and they were pointing out that it is the same with shooting. They also mentioned guns owned by their ancestors and the heritage value of that and how important it is, and they talked about all the restrictions and requirements that are on them as a responsible firearm shooter. There was another letter that I received, from a resident near Bendigo, that talked about the different purposes that guns are used for, so using the appropriate tool for the intended purpose improves safety. In some contexts higher capacity reduces the need for repeated reloading, lowers the risk of mishandling under stress and supports humane outcomes in pest control and animal welfare. Arbitrary limits do not improve safety and may create unintended risks. I received another email that highlighted the extreme ideology that we have seen, and they referred to the government permitting weekly pro-Palestine protests in Melbourne’s CBD – despite creating fear and loss of business, nothing was done. I received another email from a former Australian Defence Force member with over two decades of service, and he talked about the existing firearm laws that are already highly restrictive and the failures that have occurred in laws that already exist. I received another that referred to the importance of controlling feral animal populations and the impact of that. They have been a responsible firearm owner for 60 years.

I could go on, but I will keep my comments short. I think it is important for the Premier and the Prime Minister to consider all the facts that contributed to the horrific attack at Bondi instead of targeting responsible firearm owners. Strong leadership is needed to keep our community safe and to honour the 15 innocent victims who lost their lives at Bondi. We need to stop the spread of hateful ideology and hold fast to Australian values that ensure freedom for all.

 David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:14): I am also pleased to rise, on behalf of the Libertarian Party, to talk about this petition. Firstly I would like to congratulate all of the petitioners for putting this forward and thank Ms Bath for sponsoring this petition. The Libertarian Party has a long history of supporting law-abiding firearms owners. In fact our previous senator Senator Leyonhjelm literally wrote the book on Australian firearm laws. Also the Libertarian Party recently put in a submission to the Lay review, and I take the government’s point that no decisions have been made yet.

I think law-abiding firearms owners in Australia have been demonised for far too long. Every time that there is some sort of incident like the terrible tragedy that happened at Bondi, people are looking at the tool rather than the ideology – the ideas, which are actually the problem, not firearms owners. Law-abiding firearms owners are model citizens. You have to be in order to have a firearms licence. You do the slightest thing – you raise your voice too loud in a pub – and you can get into trouble.

I remember during the pandemic my office was contacted by many firearms owners who were concerned about exercising their right to peaceful assembly, to protest, because they were concerned about losing their firearms licences. They are treated so badly by many in the community, and I just think it is wrong. They have legitimate uses, and the way that they have these irrational laws all the time restricting their rights and trying to take their rights away is wrong. I concur with Mr Bourman: we should not be looking at more restrictions. There probably are changes that should be made to the laws, things like looking at allowing suppressors and getting rid of appearance laws and other things that are part of our policy. I am open minded about the idea of better sharing intelligence between federal and state agencies to identify people that should not have a firearm, because they are criminals or potentially terrorists, but I do not think that we should be putting more restrictions on law-abiding firearms owners.

If the government did do a buyback, they would not have the money for it. We are broke anyway. It is going to cost billions if they do something like this. It is not financially feasible, it is not right and it is not protecting the rights of Victorians. Similarly to Mr Bourman’s point, if I believed that it would prevent another Bondi or if I believed it would prevent harm to the Jewish community, who were targeted in this particular attack, I would be very open minded about it. But it will not. It will not protect anyone from anything. All it will do is take away Victorians’ rights, which is the last thing that we want to do. When we are confronted by hateful ideologies that hate the west, that hate everything about us, the thing that we need to do is double down on defending our rights, not give them away.

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:17): By the standards of parliamentary petitions Ms Bath’s petition today has been signed by a huge number of Victorians – 12,570 to be precise. I thank all those petitioners, and I also thank Ms Bath for being the supporter of the petition, the sponsor. Those 12,570 people and many more are sick of being treated as though they are the problem when they are not. They are sick of governments that cannot tell the difference between a law-abiding farmer, hunter or sporting shooter and a violent criminal or extremist. I am not saying firearms laws do not matter. Of course they do. But Victoria already has some of the strictest firearms laws in the country, and the overwhelming majority of licensed shooters comply with them. They comply because they understand the seriousness of firearms ownership and believe in doing the right thing.

The petition is about something simpler. It asks: will the government consult honestly with those affected before making changes, or will it once again arrive at a predetermined conclusion and then dress it up as consultation? It is a reasonable worry. Too often in this state, reviews begin with the answers already written. Country Victorians are summoned for so-called consultation only to find the decision has already been made by people inside the tram tracks of Melbourne who do not understand their lives, their work or their communities. The truth is that lawful firearms users are not the threat. The failures of recent years prove this. It was not some farmer in Western Victoria with a registered firearm locked in a safe. It was not a licensed duck hunter complying with the law. It was not a legitimate gun owner following every rule and renewing every permit on time. When governments fail it is always easier to make a scapegoat of the people who do the right thing – the people who are visible, licensed, compliant and easy to regulate. For many in my electorate, outside the political bubble, firearms are not some abstract, alien, scary item. They are the tools of trade and part of everyday life. Farmers use them for pest control and stock protection. Professional kangaroo harvesters use them as part of humane and necessary wildlife management.

Recreational hunters contribute to local economies, regional tourism and conservation outcomes. Duck hunters in particular have every right to be angry at the way they have been smeared in recent years, despite the enormous work groups like Field & Game have done in wetland protection, habitat restoration and research. This government too often ignores those realities. It ignores the economic contribution, the conservation contribution and the cultural tradition. Above all it ignores the basic fact that those involved are overwhelmingly decent, responsible citizens. There is no gun bill before the Parliament at this stage. We do not know what the Labor government is planning, but our starting position is crystal clear: any changes to firearm laws must be practical, proportionate and based on genuine consultation, not ideology. They must recognise the legitimate needs of lawful firearms users, especially in regional Victoria, and not impose one-size-fits-all rules designed by people with no idea how firearms are actually used outside the tram tracks.

The biggest failure of government in this space, state and federal, has been its inability to confront the cancer in our society: the growth and importation of hate, extremism and radical ideology. That is the real driver of terror and violence, not lawful gun ownership. Those 12,570 petitioners are asking for something very reasonable. They are asking to be heard. They are asking this government not to make them pay for failures that are not theirs. We need a government with the courage to go after the real problem in our society: the hatred, extremism and radicalisation that fester while ministers chase headlines at the expense of people who have done nothing wrong. These 12,570 petitioners are not asking for special treatment, they are asking to be heard. I commend the petition to the house.

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:22): I thank Ms Ermacora, Mr Bourman, Mrs Broad, Mr Limbrick and Mrs McArthur for contributing to this very important debate. I want to hold Ms Ermacora to her word when she said, ‘We’re not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater.’ Let us see that that is the case, because any change to gun laws by this government will be seen as an indictment of the government. There are far more than 12,000 people; I just kept it short to get the debate in so that we could debate this before the review came back to government and government brought laws into this house and into this Parliament. So no changes, and the baby and the bathwater had better be still in the bath in a month or two’s time.

I want to thank Ryan Weeratunge. He is a most amazing person. He is a Field & Game person. He is the actual writer of this petition today. He lives in Brunswick. He lives in Melbourne. He is a Melbournite. He hunts. He harvests his food. He hunts for his food. He hunts for deer. He hunts for duck. He is like very many other people – thousands and thousands of people. He cares about his community, he cares about feeding his family and he cares about being law-abiding while being there but also enjoying the harvest that is millennia old – as long as we have had humans in this world. I want to thank the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia, I want to thank the Australian Deer Association and the Victorian Deer Association, and I particularly want to thank Field & Game because I have been out with these hunter conservationists and I have seen the work that they do out in our communities restoring habitat like you have not seen for all wildlife – all flora and all fauna. We should be thanking these people for their conservation, not ridiculing them or creating uncertainty. Let this be a strong message to government: no changes. Respect our law-abiding firearm owners.

Motion agreed to.