CANBERRA (Realist English). Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday welcomed Parliament’s approval of new anti-hate speech and gun control laws following a deadly attack at a Jewish festival in Sydney that left 15 people dead.
Authorities say the December 14 shooting during Hanukkah celebrations at Bondi Beach was inspired by the Islamic State group and carried out by a father and son.
“At Bondi, the terrorists had hate in their hearts, but they had guns in their hands,” Albanese told reporters. “We said we wanted to deal with that with urgency and with unity, and we acted to deliver both.”
The government had initially proposed a single legislative package but split it into two separate bills — one targeting hate speech and extremist groups, the other tightening gun ownership rules. Both bills were introduced to the House of Representatives on Tuesday and passed through the Senate late the same day.
The minor Australian Greens party backed the gun reforms, while the conservative Liberal Party of Australia supported the anti-hate legislation. Albanese’s centre-left Australian Labor Party holds a majority in the lower house but not in the Senate.
Albanese said he would have preferred tougher hate speech provisions but acknowledged the limits imposed by the upper chamber. “If you can’t get laws passed in the wake of a massacre, then it’s difficult to see people changing their minds,” he said.
The gun legislation introduces new restrictions on firearm ownership and establishes a government-funded buyback scheme to compensate owners required to surrender weapons. The anti-hate speech law expands the government’s ability to outlaw extremist groups that do not meet Australia’s formal definition of a terrorist organisation, including Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told Parliament that neither alleged gunman — Sajid Akram, 50, and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram — would have been permitted to own firearms under the new rules. The father, who was shot dead by police during the attack, legally owned the weapons used. His son, who survived, has been charged with dozens of offences, including 15 counts of murder and one count of committing a terrorist act.
Burke said Sajid Akram, who was born in India, would have been barred from gun ownership under the proposed rules because he was not an Australian citizen. His Australian-born son would also have been prohibited, having come under surveillance in 2019 by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation over alleged links to extremists.
ASIO will also play a role under the new anti-hate laws in advising which groups should be banned. The neo-Nazi National Socialist Network has already announced plans to disband rather than face enforcement under the legislation.
The conservative National Party of Australia opposed the anti-hate bill, breaking with its Liberal allies. Party leader David Littleproud warned the law could infringe on free speech and called for amendments to prevent “unintended consequences.”
Parliament had been due to resume in February but was recalled early in response to the attack, Australia’s deadliest mass shooting since 1996, when a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania. That massacre led to sweeping gun reforms and a national buyback of nearly 700,000 firearms.
However, the states of Tasmania and Queensland, along with the Northern Territory, have resisted the federal government’s push for a new buyback scheme, under which states and territories would be expected to fund half the cost. Burke said negotiations with regional governments would continue.