By Kirsty Needham
SYDNEY, Dec 19 (Reuters) - When a gunman murdered 35 people in Tasmania in 1996, Australia's political leaders united to implement some of the West's toughest gun laws. Nearly three decades later, after 15 people were killed at a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach, consensus is more elusive.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's call for tighter gun controls is meeting resistance from ascendant right-wing populists and some mainstream conservatives, revealing a more-polarised landscape that contrasts with Australia's response to its deadliest mass shooting.
Rather than a "rally around the flag moment of national unity", Albanese faces "distrust and unhappiness," said Simon Jackman, a political scientist at the University of Sydney.
Since Sunday's attack, conservative figures and some Jewish leaders have accused Albanese of failing to adequately address rising antisemitism, posing a defining test for his leadership. Albanese, whose centre-left Labor party enjoys a commanding parliamentary majority, has defended his record on antisemitism and announced additional measures targeting hate speech.
The mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration occurred as right-wing populists have surged in polls by exploiting public concern about immigration and crime. Authorities have said the attack was inspired by Islamic State.
One of the assailants, Sajid Akram, who was shot dead by police, was the legal owner of six guns, officials have said. Akram obtained a firearms license in 2023, even though his son and alleged accomplice, Naveed Akram, had been scrutinised by intelligence officials in 2019 for his alleged associations with individuals convicted for terrorism offences.
The case has exposed gaps in licensing assessments and information-sharing between agencies that policymakers have said they want to plug.
On Friday, Albanese said his government plans to limit the number of guns an individual can own and the types of guns that are legal; implement a national firearms register; expand background checks using intelligence data; periodically review licenses; and require Australian citizenship for gun ownership.
He also said the government will buy back surplus and newly banned firearms from individuals, which he expected would take hundreds of thousands of weapons out of circulation.
POPULISTS MOBILISE AGAINST CHANGES
Battle lines are now being drawn for a fight over gun control, one complicated by the attack's antisemitic dimensions absent in the 1996 Port Arthur shooting.
The debate is being closely watched in the United States, where Australia's existing laws have long been held up by gun-control advocates as a model and the American gun lobby has said such restrictions don't work.
"In Australia there has never really been that bedrock of gun ownership as a right of citizenship, it's never been there legally or culturally," said Jackman. "There is way more acceptance in Australia of the government's right and indeed obligation to regulate gun ownership."
But some conservatives in Australia are now pushing back on gun reform with lines heard in the United States, Jackman said, in a stark departure from 1996.
The populist One Nation party has ruled out supporting more-stringent firearms laws. Party founder Pauline Hanson visited Bondi this week with her new recruit, Barnaby Joyce, who recently defected from the rural-based National party.
"It is not about the guns. It's the person behind the guns," Hanson said.
One Nation, which holds four seats in parliament's upper house, has rocketed up opinion polls in recent months, largely at the expense of the conservative Liberal-National coalition.
Liberal leader Sussan Ley said earlier this week that tighter gun laws "should be on the table" and she would consider "sensible" proposals, without committing to a formal position. Instead, Ley has focused on confronting antisemitism.
Some of her coalition partners in the National party have little appetite for new restrictions.
"This was an act of evil by Islamic terrorists and that is who the investigation needs to be focused on, not law-abiding gun owners," Bridget McKenzie, the Nationals' Senate leader, told Reuters.
Andrew Willcox, a conservative coalition lawmaker in Queensland, said the government shouldn't punish farmers and sporting shooters.
"This is not a gun control issue; it is a leadership and security failure," he told Reuters.
On national broadcaster ABC, the "Country Hour" radio program has rung out with concern from farmers and hunters.
Grant Roberts estimates thousands of pigs and rabbits, hundreds of donkeys and dozens of dingoes roam his 186,000-acre cattle property in outback New South Wales. He keeps three guns locked up.
"We need our guns, no question – will the government listen? How dramatic will the change be?" he told Reuters.
Liberal lawmaker Andrew Hastie, a gun-club member and former soldier, told local media this week he wouldn't be drawn on whether he supports tighter gun control, calling it "a massive deflection from the prime minister".
John Howard, who as prime minister in 1996 implemented sweeping changes — including mandatory background checks, a ban on semiautomatic weapons, and a government buyback of guns — said this week that gun control should not be "a diversion" from tackling antisemitism.
But Albanese on Friday said the government would address both the motivation and the method of the Bondi attack.
"There's something wrong with the licensing laws when this guy can have six high powered rifles," he said at a news conference, referring to Sajid Akram.
GROWING POLARISATION
The divisions reflect a global shift in which populist movements have increasingly challenged established policy consensus, from immigration to gun control.
Arthur Sinodinos, a former Australian ambassador to Washington and adviser to Howard, said he doesn't think bipartisanship on changes to firearms laws will be possible in 2025.
"What is different today is One Nation is there, it is much stronger, it will capitalize on this issue," he said. "We already have seen Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce out there and touting that they won't support this – they see a constituency in the bush."
Yet for the opposition Liberals, opposing tighter gun control could compound their setbacks in Sydney and Melbourne, where the party has lost heartland seats to centrist independents.
Most Australians appear to favour tighter firearms rules. A January poll by the Australia Institute think tank found 64% of respondents supported tougher gun laws, while a quarter wanted no change and 6% wanted restrictions wound back. Support for tighter restrictions was lowest among One Nation voters.
In the United States, President Donald Trump said the Bondi attack showed the world needed to "stand together against the evil forces of radical Islamic terrorism". Nikki Haley, the former Republican presidential contender, wrote on X that "Australia doesn't need to tighten gun control laws".
Australia traditionally switches off from politics over the southern hemisphere's summer. The hiatus could provide a circuit-breaker for Albanese, said Jackman.
But watch for pressure on Ley from right-wing Liberal leadership challengers, he added. Hastie, for one, is seen as a potential contender.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; editing by David Crawshaw.)
