A bipartisan parliamentary committee has recommended a national ban on the domestic trade of elephant ivory and rhino horn.

Australia’s environment minister, Melissa Price, is considering the recommendations from a Senate inquiry examining the trade before she attends an international wildlife trade conference in London next month.

The 120-page report, tabled in the parliament on Wednesday, has found Australia is lagging behind countries including China, the United States and the UK in moving to introduce national bans on the trade of ivory and rhino horn products.

Currently, products from before 1975 can be traded domestically without any requirement for identification of the item’s provenance.

Products after 1975 are restricted by the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora, known as Cites.

The report, tabled by committee chair MP Craig Kelly, comes after public hearings in capital cities “heard overwhelming support for the implementation of a domestic trade ban for both elephant ivory and rhino horn”.

“The individual traders and industry representatives that would be adversely impacted by a ban also recognised that action is needed,” the report stated.

It said illegal wildlife trade was having a “devastating” impact on natural environments globally and was facilitated, in part, by transnational criminal organisations.

The committee wrote that evidence to the inquiry had revealed weaknesses in Australia’s wildlife trade control framework, particularly due to the absence of regulations for the domestic market.

“For example, there is no legal requirement for any ivory or rhino horn item to be identified as a pre-Cites item before it is traded within Australia,” the report states.

The report recommends that federal, state and territory governments develop and implement a national ban, with some exemptions, including for musical instruments with ivory content of less than 20%.

“There are some very, very good recommendations in there but we need to look at the fine detail, and that’s what we’re doing,” Price said on Wednesday.

Kelly said he supported a ban “because you’ve got to attack the demand”.

Labor said it was also developing a policy to take to its national conference in December to work with the states and territories on a ban.

Tasmanian senator Lisa Singh, who initiated the inquiry, said not having a ban in place was exposing Australia as a “market for poachers”.

“There is no doubt that the existence of legal domestic markets around the world in ivory and rhino horn is continuing to fuel the poaching crisis,” she said.

“Australia is not immune from contributing to that poaching crisis as a consumer market and as a transit route to Asia.”

The International Fund for Animal Welfare welcomed the report’s recommendations.

“For nearly five years, we have been urging the federal government to implement a strong domestic ban; and for the past eight months, IFAW has been liaising with state and territory governments to also come on board,” Rebecca Keeble, the regional director of IFAW Oceania said.

“We know that there is an overwhelming political desire to shut down Australia’s domestic ivory market, and the recommendations by this joint parliamentary inquiry only further reinforces the fact that there is bipartisan support for such action.”