New polling shows support for stricter gun control, as Shooters hope for balance of power after NSW election

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

New polling suggests a rise in the number of voters who believe Australia’s gun laws need tightening in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack.

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced sweeping and immediate changes to the country’s gun laws on Thursday, including a ban on firearms used in the deadly Christchurch shooting and the introduction of a buyback scheme.

The ban includes “military style semi-automatic” rifles and shotguns capable of being used with a detachable magazine holding more than five cartridges.

The reforms bring New Zealand closer into line with Australia, often held up as an international benchmark for gun policy since former prime minister John Howard reshaped the laws in the wake of the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania.

But on the eve of the state election in New South Wales, which could deliver the balance of power to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party, polling suggests many believe Australia’s laws need strengthening.

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An Essential poll of 550 voters in Sydney carried out immediately following the Christchurch attack found that 37% of respondents thought Australia’s gun laws were too weak, a jump from 26% in 2018.

The proportion of people who thought Australia’s firearm laws were “about right” fell from 64% to 52%.

The figures will be used by gun control advocates concerned the category system put in place in the national firearms agreement in 1996 has not been updated to keep pace with rapidly changing technology.

A new fast-lever action rifle, the Speedline, from the French manufacturer Verney-Carron, has been available for purchase in Australia as a category B firearm since 2017. The gun lobby has pushed for legalisation of imports of Adler lever-action shotguns and a second Verney-Carron gun, the Veloce shotgun, which has a fast fire and reload mechanism.

Former justice minister Michael Keenan was subjected to intense face-to-face lobbying from gun advocates during a review of the national firearms agreement, and the well-resourced Australian gun lobby groups have increasingly flexed their muscle at recent elections.

At the 2017 Queensland state election, gun groups pumped more than $500,000 into helping minor political parties win seats and were active in campaigning during the Victorian state election, launching an advertising blitz about crime rates under the Andrews Labor government.

In NSW, the increased likelihood of right-wing minor parties – including the Shooters – holding the balance of power after Saturday’s election has turned the state’s attention to attempts to alter gun laws.

The Coalition has criticised Labor for directing preferences to the Shooters, which the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, on Friday called a “fringe” party whose policies were “unacceptable”.

The opposition leader, Michael Daley, has said he would “resign” from the parliament if the state’s gun laws were weakened.

But the government hasn’t always been so reluctant to discuss changes to gun laws.

In November 2017 the now deputy premier, John Barilaro, was accused of seeking to foster “an American-style guns culture” after he called for an inquiry into the state’s Firearms Act “in relation to persons who believe they are reasonably and proportionately responding to a threat imposed on themselves of their family”.

Samantha Lee from Gun Control Australia has called for both parties to rule out any changes.

“Voters deserve confidence that the temptation of a parliamentary deal with the Shooters won’t result in a weakening of our gun laws,” she said.

“Both major parties must give voters confidence that they won’t be tempted by backroom deals with pro-gun advocates.”

New Zealand changes ‘a very bold move’

University of Sydney associate professor Philip Alpers, who founded a website that tracks gun policy country by country, said New Zealand’s announcement had brought it much closer to the Australian model of gun control.

“Australia has the most comprehensive and most likely-to-succeed suite of gun laws in the world, and New Zealand has almost reached that same level,” he told Guardian Australia.

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“It’s a very bold move and has a very good chance of having the same public health benefit as the Australian gun laws.”

In 1996 Howard worked with states and territories to establish the national firearms agreement, which banned rapid-fire guns from civilian ownership except under restricted licences.

He also established a government buyback of semi-automatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns.

The laws reduced firearm numbers in Australia by about one-fifth, with more than 700,000 guns removed and destroyed. Studies have suggested the agreement had an impact on firearm-related deaths in Australia.

Alpers said he believed Ardern faced an easier task in changing New Zealand laws. New Zealand is a single jurisdiction with a unicameral parliament, while Howard’s agreement required the support of every Australian state and territory government as well as the Senate.

But, he said, the lack of a firearms registry meant New Zealand authorities might have little idea where guns were.

“A gun that they know left a dealer 15 years ago may have changed hands 20 times, so they have no idea because they haven’t kept a record,” he said.

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He said there would be no easy way for gun manufacturers to adapt their weapons under NZ’s proposed laws because the wording of the buyback scheme was broad.

In the United States, state legislation often names specific models to be banned. Manufacturers can slightly tweak weapons and call them something different, thus finding a loophole.

“They [New Zealand] don’t fall into the dreadful trap the Americans fell into,” Alpers said. “In some cynical cases [manufacturers] would call the AD16 an AB16, which stood for after ban.”

Alpers said New Zealand’s laws now brought them into the “mainstream of gun control around the world”.

“Europe and Asian countries in many cases had tougher gun laws than New Zealand, that was almost exclusively because of the lack of registration,” he said.

Japan has very few guns, China’s are state controlled, Singapore has the death penalty for illegal ownership of firearms and Thailand is awash with guns but has strong laws, Alpers said.

New Zealand, the US and to some degree Canada are the only countries without a universal registration system.

“Registration is a pillar of gun control and has been in 150 countries for a century and a half,” he said.

“The first pillar is licensing … then you register the object ... and then you make it clear that ownership of a firearm is a conditional privilege, which can be taken away.”

He said all three pillars were absent in the US, in NZ two pillars existed – strong licensing and a definite rejection of the right to bear arms.

“The middle pillar, the third leg on the stool if you like – registration – simply doesn’t exist in New Zealand … so like a two legged stool it’s an unreliable object.”