The PM has announced the ‘largest’ gun buyback since the Port Arthur massacre. Here’s what we know

A new national gun buyback scheme has been announced in the wake of the deadly Bondi terror attack.

The scheme, unveiled by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday, will be similar to the policy brought by the former Howard government in response to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.

Accelerating the launch of a national firearms register, limiting the number of guns a single person can own, making Australian citizenship a condition of holding a gun licence, and further restricting the types of weapons that are legal are among the options being explored.

The push to strengthen Australia’s gun laws was the first commitment made by the Commonwealth following the deadly terror attack on Sydney’s Jewish community, in which 15 people, including a 10-year-old girl, were killed.

The announcement came following a national cabinet meeting where state and territory leaders alongside the prime minister unanimously agreed to look at ways to bolster gun laws.

The ‘largest’ buyback since the Port Arthur massacre

There were an estimated 3.2 million firearms nationwide when the last buyback scheme was announced in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre.

That attack, on April 28, 1996, was carried out by a lone gunman and left 35 people dead at the historic Tasmanian tourist precinct, horrifying the nation.

In the aftermath, authorities enacted sweeping gun laws, including the creation of a National Firearms Agreement.

The buyback scheme lasted from October 1996 to September 1997, and saw the destruction of more than 650,000 firearms.

Gun owners were asked to surrender their weapons in return for monetary compensation.

The program ultimately cost $304 million in compensation, around $57 million in administration, and $4 million for a national public education campaign.

As of January, there were more than 4 million registered firearms or guns across the country, according to a report released by research organisation The Australia Institute.

More than 600 of those were registered to just two people in inner-city Sydney. NSW had more than 1.12 million registered firearms as of 2024, according a report by the institute.

Its report also found there was at least one registered firearm for every seven Australians, and one in 30 Australians now has a firearms licence.

AFP to be responsible for destroying ‘thousands of firearms’

Mr Albanese told reporters in Canberra the legislation will soon be introduced to fund the buyback scheme, on a 50-50 basis with the states and territories.

Matching the 1996 buyback scheme, states and territories will be responsible for collecting and processing surrendered firearms, as well as issuing payments to individuals, Mr Albanese said.

The Australian Federal Police will be tasked with destroying surrendered firearms.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the new scheme builds on the gun reform measures announced by national cabinet on Monday and said it would “be a piece of that puzzle”.

The National Cabinet reform measures include:

• An acceleration on the development of a National Firearms Register.
• An expansion of the use of criminal intelligence to inform a person’s firearms licencing eligibility.
• Limits on the number of firearms that one person can legally be licenced to hold.
• Limits on open-ended firearms licences.
• Limits on the types of guns and firearms modifications that are deemed legal in Australia.
• A mandatory condition for firearm licencing that requires an applicant to be an Australian citizen.

Mr Burke said the details of the buyback scheme — including whether any exceptions will be made for sport shooting clubs — will be determined by a “seniors officials group” of state and territory police ministers who will meet for the first time on Monday.

He did not say whether the scheme will be mandatory or voluntary.

Mr Burke said that if the proposed National Cabinet reforms become law, anyone who owned more firearms than they were legally licensed to hold would be expected to surrender them.

When asked whether the buyback scheme could concern sport shooters or pro-gun groups, Mr Albanese said: “In 1996, the then-Howard government did the right thing … We need to go further.

“I think that Australians can see that.”