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Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese Wednesday welcomed the passage in parliament Tougher anti-hate speech and gun laws in response to last month’s fatal shooting at Bondi Beach.
The House of Representatives (lower house) and Senate (upper house) passed the two bills at the end of a two-day special session on Tuesday night.
gun laws passed Create new restrictions exist gun ownership and ensuring that people forced to hand over their guns are compensated under a new government-funded buyback program.
Anti-hate speech law passed, outlawing unsuitable illegal groups AustraliaDefinition of a terrorist organization, such as an Islamic group liberation partyand impose harsher penalties on preachers who advocate violence.
Albanese said the country had acted with “urgency and solidarity”.
“In Bondi, the terrorists have hatred in their hearts, but they have guns in their hands,” Mr Albanese told reporters, referring to the gunman accused of attacking Jewish worshipers during Hanukkah celebrations at Bondi Beach on December 14.
Mr Albanese added: “We said we wanted to address this issue urgently and unitedly, and we acted to achieve both.”
The government initially planned to create one bill but split the hate speech and gun laws into two pieces of legislation, which were tabled in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. The Liberal-National opposition coalition and the left-wing Greens have both said they would vote against the bill.
fifteen Many people died and dozens were injured On December 14, two gunmen opened fire at a Jewish holiday on Sydney’s Bondi Beach. The two gunmen, 50-year-old Sajid Akram and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram, were identified as a father-son duo inspired by the Islamic State group.
While the father was shot dead by police during the attack, his son was injured and charged with dozens of crimes, including 15 counts of murder and one count of committing a terrorist act in connection with the attack.
Home Affairs Secretary Tony Burke said earlier on Tuesday that the buyback program was designed to target “surplus and new restrictions on firearms.”
he claimed bundy raider If such a law had been in place before the shooting, people wouldn’t be able to legally buy guns.
“One of the key questions I’m often asked in this debate is how many guns would the Bundy shooter have had if the national reform package had been in place? Would it have been six? Would it have been five? Would it have been four? The answer is zero,” Mr Burke said.
The new gun buyback scheme is the largest since a similar program was instituted after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, in which a gunman killed 35 people.
The bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 96 to 45. The bill was opposed by a coalition of conservative opposition parties including the Liberal and National parties. “This bill exposes the government’s contempt for Australia’s millions of gun owners,” Shadow Attorney-General Andrew Wallace said. “The Prime Minister fails to recognize that firearms are a tool of trade for many Australians.”
The Albanian government revealed on Sunday that Australia had a record 4.1 million firearms last year. New South Wales, the most populous state and the site of the Bundy attack, has about 1.1 million registered people.
The Bundy attacker had a firearms license and owned six guns.
The new program allows the government to purchase surplus, newly banned and illegal guns, with the cost shared evenly with states. The government expects to seize and destroy hundreds of thousands of weapons.
Cabinet also agreed to a series of new controls, including limits on the number of firearms an individual can possess, tighter restrictions on open firearms licenses, clearer restrictions on the types of firearms allowed and a requirement that license holders be Australian citizens.
Hate speech laws have divided the coalition, with the opposition National Party breaking away from its Liberal partners to oppose the laws, arguing they could infringe on free speech.
“This legislation needs to be changed to guarantee better protection from the unintended consequences of restricting the rights and freedom of expression of Australians and the Jewish community,” National Party leader David Littleproud said on Tuesday night.
The bill subsequently passed by a vote of 38 to 22.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) will decide which hate groups should be banned. The neo-Nazi group National Socialist Network has announced plans to disband rather than subject its members to legal sanctions.