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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 4444 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

then they will not be permitted. That is my view, and I am quite sure that it is a view shared by this Assembly. The control of weapons is part of a broader objective, again which I believe would be shared by everyone in this Assembly, and that is the reduction of violence in our community.

Mr Speaker, for those reasons, the Opposition will be supporting the legislation. I would like to commend everybody who took part in negotiations on the various amendments. I think that was a useful exercise. Obviously, amendments will be spoken on as they are moved and so on. But, again, Mr Speaker, there was a spirit of multipartisanship in that exercise, which I think is appropriate on an issue such as this.

MS TUCKER (12.01): The Greens also will be supporting this Bill, which puts in place the new regulatory regime for firearms following the resolutions of the Australian Police Ministers Council. Coming to these resolutions was quite a landmark for many States. Unfortunately, it came about only as a result of the very tragic events at Port Arthur. Needless to say, it is a great relief to the majority of people in this country that Australia has chosen not to go down the path of the United States. The danger was, though, that after initial strong statements after Port Arthur there could have been a gradual watering down and loopholes could have emerged in the various parliaments' legislative responses.

Mr Speaker, I fully concur with the Minister's comments that firearms ownership is a privilege, not a right. Already thousands of guns around Australia have been handed in as a result of the new laws. Fewer guns can only mean a safer community, and I am very pleased to hear that already about 1,500 weapons have been handed in here. That is a great achievement, and I congratulate the Government for acting so quickly to enforce the new laws banning certain types of firearms. We were certainly one of the quickest of the Territories and States off the mark. Accordingly, earlier, the ACT received one of the highest ratings from the National Coalition for Gun Control - that was an A-minus - for our relatively tough stance on guns up to date. They did a report card for all of the States and Territories, and gave them a rating according to their response. We hope that that high rating will continue after this Bill has been debated today.

After a further careful reading of the Act over the weekend, we realised that the Bill did not enforce the five-year minimum exclusion period for domestic violence offenders agreed to by the Australian Police Ministers. One of my staff members alerted other members and the National Coalition for Gun Control to this fact. I am very pleased that we have reached agreement that there should be a prohibition on domestic violence offenders obtaining a firearms licence for 10 years. This is in line with New South Wales. I will be moving amendments to this effect. It is very important because, although these resolutions arose out of the events at Port Arthur, the Police Ministers, in their deliberations, say that not only will Australians not tolerate massacres such as occurred in Port Arthur but also they will not tolerate the continual violence towards women and children in domestic situations. Of course, we also have the very serious incidence of suicide and the relationship between successful suicide and the use of a firearm for that purpose.

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