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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2060 ..

MS TUCKER (12.19): The Greens are also very supportive, obviously, of the agreement reached at the Ministers meeting. As members are well aware, we believe that there should be stronger measures taken in gun law reform. It has been interesting, as other members have observed, to see the arguments that have come out in recent weeks about why people need to have a weapon or a firearm. One thing which other members probably have not mentioned and which I will mention is that I think there is a genuine element of fear in some people's minds when they claim the right to own a gun of some kind. Obviously, a sense of security would not justify ownership of those sorts of automatic weapons, although some people have tried to argue that, but I think it is something that we need to address as well.

In these discussions about firearms and weapons generally and the need to defend oneself, we cannot isolate the debate from the societal causes which make people feel that there is a growing threat to ordinary citizens' lives and safety in urban environments particularly. That is very clear in the United States where that right to defend oneself means that every 20 seconds, I think, someone is at the receiving end of a bullet. In Australia now we have a growing gap between rich and poor. We do see classes becoming more obvious and socially disadvantaged people. There are links between socially disadvantaged people and violence. That came out in our inquiry into violence in schools as well. That is why we have lobbied so strongly, and will continue to lobby so strongly, for very strong equity measures in our education system, because if we have any hope of equalising how people experience life in 1996 in Canberra it is going to be through schools and through other supportive mechanisms for parents and families as well. I would like to acknowledge that we must continue this debate. We must continue to look at why people feel violence occurs and why other people may feel it is necessary to own a weapon to protect themselves.

I raise again a matter that I raise whenever we discuss this issue. It is clear that people in Australia think the incident at Port Arthur was intolerable, and that is why we have had this very strong reaction, even though it has been watered down a little bit, or attempts are being made by a certain minority group, I believe, in Australia, the gun lobby, to water it down. There is a lot of violence occurring in homes in Australia regularly, and innocent people are being killed. That is why the Greens also always want to link this debate with the issue of the silent deaths which are occurring and which do not get that media coverage but are equally tragic. That is why, in the Social Policy Committee, we will be looking at how to make the availability of a lethal weapon a strong issue in this discussion. Of course, that can lead to questions about where people keep weapons of death, and whether or not it is appropriate to have a central storage location.

The statistics show quite clearly that availability of a lethal weapon is obviously a strong factor in a successful suicide or a murder; so it is an issue worth looking at. We also know that 80 per cent of gun deaths are suicides and the gap between the impulse to kill, if there is a gap - in other words, if you have to go and get the gun from somewhere - and the act could prevent some of those deaths. Equally, murders within

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