Good morning. Can I begin by passing on the thoughts of the Australian government to our close friends and partners in Indonesia, and all those who’ve been affected by the very significant earthquake that struck there yesterday morning. I extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who have lost their lives. Australian officials in Indonesia continue to make inquiries with Indonesian authorities to determine whether any Australians have been impacted. At this stage, there are no indications that Australians have been affected. Australians in these areas should closely follow the advice of Indonesian authorities. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade stands ready to provide consular assistance as always, and Australians in need of emergency consular assistance should contact DFAT’s 24-hour Consular Emergency Centre on 1300 555 135. 1300 555 135. Or if calling from overseas +61 2621 3305. +61 2621 3305. Thank you for joining us, and I’m very pleased to be joined by the Premier of New South Wales, his Police Minister, Yaz Catley, and Tony Burke, my Minister for Home Affairs. Following the deeply Antisemitic terrorist attack on Bondi Beach on the 14th of December 2025, National Cabinet stood in solidarity and met the next day. We agreed to action to eradicate Antisemitism and to strengthen gun laws across the nation. We chose to do both to address both the motivation and the method of the attack. While we continue to act on addressing Antisemitism, today we’re taking the next step to deal with the method of the attack. Today, the Commonwealth and New South Wales Governments are acting to take guns off our streets. Our governments are progressing with the National Gun Buyback Scheme, with New South Wales the first state to open a scheme on the 2nd of November 2026. Both governments will split the costs of the scheme 50/50 to ensure the buyback of newly reclassified firearms and those above the imposed limit, modular add-ons for parts and ammunition for newly reclassified firearms, and those above the imposed limit, dealer stock affected by reform and limited financial assistance to industry impacted by the changes. In addition, the Commonwealth will contribute 50 per cent for administration costs and fully fund the destruction costs for surrendered firearms, parts and administration. A fixed price schedule will be in place for the scheme, which will offer gunholders fair and reasonable compensation during the buyback. In addition, a valuations exceptions pathway will be available to reimburse eligible firearms owners with higher value firearms in lieu of the fixed price schedule. This pathway will commence in early 2027. Australians are quite rightly proud of our gun laws, but the fact is there are more guns in Australia today, than there were at the time of dealing with the Port Arthur Gun Buyback that occurred under the Howard government. This is about strengthening Australia’s gun laws and keeping our communities safer. And I want to thank the Premier of New South Wales for once again, working so closely with the Commonwealth to get the right result.
CHRIS MINNS, PREMIER OF NEW SOUTH WALES: Thanks so much Prime Minister. It’s good to be here with you, Minister Burke, and my colleague Yasmin Catley, for an important announcement for New South Wales and hopefully for Australia as well. And that is the commencement of a gun buyback program in Australia’s largest state. After the horrifying terrorism event on Bondi Beach on the 14th of December last year, the New South Wales Government announced a series of changes and reforms to keep the public safe and to do everything we possibly could to prevent this horrible crime from happening again. One of the largest measures that we instituted in this state was to restrict certain types of guns and the amount of guns being held by individual gun owners in our community. We also extinguished the right of appeal if the authorities deem the person applying for a gun licence shouldn’t have one. Those laws were passed in our parliament at the end of last year. But this is the next measure to ensure that we get those guns out of circulation in New South Wales. To put this in perspective, the Howard era gun buyback took around 160,000 guns out of circulation in New South Wales. This program alone will take 274,000 guns out of circulation in New South Wales. It’s far bigger in scope, it is putting serious restrictions on gun owners in New South Wales. We believe this will be. Sorry, I’ll start that again. We believe New South Wales will, as a result, have the toughest gun laws of any state in Australia, some of the toughest gun laws of any place in the world, and we are doing this deliberately to get guns out of circulation in our community to ensure that we don’t have another terrorism event, or do everything we possibly can to ensure we don’t have another terrorism event in our state, and also to help police battle crime in our community. We’ve seen an enormous amount of guns withdraw from circulation in Western Australia as a result of similar legislation and reform passed in their jurisdiction, and we want the same positive benefits in our state. We know this isn’t universally supported. In some quarters, this is controversial and it will be opposed. But we’ve made a decision this is absolutely essential to keep the people of New South Wales safe. And notwithstanding that public opposition, notwithstanding those who have criticised the government for these reforms, this is what this state needs to keep people safe.
TONY BURKE, MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS: Thanks, Premier, and thanks, Prime Minister. After the horrific Antisemitic attack in Bondi, it was made clear that we needed to do two things: we needed to act on the motive, and we needed to act on the method. The killers that day had Antisemitic bigotry in their minds and guns in their hands. And what we are doing today is making sure that we act on the method. The cooperation with New South Wales in developing this has been fantastic, and it allows us to deal with both the issue of how many firearms people have, but also being able to deal directly with the sort of firearms people have. Australians expect us all to act together and do everything we can to try to prevent anything like that horrific day in Bondi happening again, and this is part of that process.
YASMIN CATLEY, NEW SOUTH WALES MINISTER FOR POLICE AND COUNTER-TERRORISM: Thank you very much, Minister. On the 14th of December, this city changed forever, as did our state and indeed the country. We believe that by removing guns from our streets will make us safer. Our community has a large number of guns, 1.2 million here in New South Wales, and this gun buyback, as the Premier has said, will go towards moving approximately about a quarter of those. New South Wales Police have done an enormous amount of work for us to be at this stage. As has been said, the gun buyback will begin on the 2nd of November. New South Wales Police Gun Registry is the mechanism of which we’ll administer the program through the Gun Safe Portal. We’ve had to make significant uplift changes to that, and can I say I really don’t want to understate that it has been a significant change. And I just ask people to be patient. It will take some time, but New South Wales Police have assured me that they will be ready to begin the program on the 2nd of November, and that’s when we will start receiving those guns that people are going to be bringing back to New South Wales Police. Look, this is a massive change, there’s no doubt about that. But it’s one that we believe, as I say, on the back of the worst terrorist attack that we’ve seen in this state is necessary. Our community will be safer, and we are definitely going to be making sure that we have people right across the state have the capability of being able to return their guns.
PRIME MINISTER: We’re all happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, I’m sure you’re happy that this is signing in your home state, but Queensland, Northern Territory, and Victoria are yet to make any agreement or something similar. Are you disappointed in that? Or are you speaking to your counterparts? And I guess a question to the state minister and Premier: Are you speaking to your state colleagues about that to bring them on board?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, can I say that these arrangements are available to every state and territory, and this reform comes on top of previous reforms that’s been undertaken by my government in partnership with states and territories. In particular, the first ever development of a National Firearms Register. That’s absolutely critical. It is, I think, somewhat farcical that some states were still, in terms of firearm licences, having paper licences that therefore couldn’t be traced. That damages the work and the capacity of our police and security agencies, whose job it is to keep Australians safe, to do their work. And so this is the next element, but it’s an important element. I’ll continue to work constructively with states and territories. They will make their own decisions, under our federation system they are responsible. But what I would say and reiterate is that in the Commonwealth they have a willing partner.
PREMIER MINNS: It would be better if every state was on board, but we’re responsible for New South Wales here, and I’m not going to let perfection be the enemy of the good here. And we’re also not going to wait for every state to come on board. We feel this is necessary for our state today, and if it means we’re the first mover, or even the only mover, that’s what we need to do.
JOURNALIST: So, how’s it going to work? Are people going to go to police stations or locations and hand the guns in? Or police presumably know where these licences are granted? Are they going to go and seize the weapons?
PREMIER MINNS: In the first instance, we’ll be inviting people to come in. Those registries will be open from the 2nd of November, and it will extend for a year. So we will nominate the locations by which people will go to a registry office, largely police stations, and there’ll be some police operations which I won’t go into now for certain category holders and certain licence holders. But we anticipate that the vast, vast majority of lawful gun owning licence holders in New South Wales will do the right thing. They’ll comply with the law, even if they don’t agree with the law. They’ll comply with the law. That’s been history in the past when there’s been similar operations.
JOURNALIST: Premier, how much do you think it’s going to cost? And this is a question for the federal government as well, and how long exactly do you think all these firearms will take to come back into your possession?
PREMIER MINNS: What we’re hoping is it takes the 12-month period by which the buyback’s in place. It’s not going to, we don’t have plans to extend it beyond November 2027. So it’ll be, and that’s when the law changes as well. So we anticipate the vast majority will be in government hands, registry hands, police hands, by the end of next year.
JOURNALIST: How much is it going to cost both the state and federal government?
PREMIER MINNS: It’s largely demand driven. The costs are split 50/50, so we don’t have an exact cost today, but it’s hundreds of millions of dollars on it. I’m not going to skirt it. It’s expensive, but it’s a price worth paying.
PRIME MINISTER: I just make this point for costs. We know what the cost of inaction is. We’ve seen it, tragically, and that is why we’re determined to act. In Western Australia they had a system prior to this. It was a very successful gun buyback implemented by the Cook Government in WA.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, David Ossip went to the Royal Commission to give evidence on Antisemitic experiences in New South Wales, only to be cross-examined on Middle Eastern military timelines. Was it your intent when establishing this inquiry that Jewish Australians would be forced to testify about foreign wars? And do you agree with criticism from Jewish leaders and the New South Wales Premier that the line of questioning diverted the inquiry from its core mandate of investigating local Antisemitism?
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PRIME MINISTER: My intent was to have a Royal Commission that was independent of government, and to allow the royal commission to undertake its work.
JOURNALIST: Respectfully on the specifics, do you agree with the critics that it diverted the focus?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, respectfully on the specifics, the specifics of the Royal Commission is absolutely critical that it be allowed to do its work independently, and that the Royal Commissioner, Virginia Bell, a former High Court judge, be allowed to undertake her work. If you want to ask me in general, not referring to the work of the Royal Commission, is it appropriate that Jewish Australians be held to account for actions of the Israeli government regardless of views? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And that is one of the issues that has occurred with the rise of Antisemitism. Is, you know, kids going to their local school should be allowed to do so, and indeed respected for doing so, regardless of whether they have a school uniform that reflects their faith, and that is where some of this has just got it wrong. Just as, you know, you can have a range of views about the Middle East, and my Government, like previous Australian governments, has a strong position of support for a two-state solution that has been a bipartisan position for a long period of time. People should discuss that without either holding people of whatever faith or whatever background responsible for actions of others.
JOURNALIST: Premier, Pauline Hanson has already come out strongly against these gun buyback plans. Are you prepared to fight an election on this issue?
PREMIER MINNS: I think we’re going to. Clearly, One Nation has said they’re scrapping all of this, and they’ll remove the regulations, the laws, the fighting terrorism legislation that we passed last year in the Parliament. So it is on the ballot whether we want it or not. But this is too important for New South Wales. I’m very grateful to the Commonwealth Government and the Prime Minister, particularly, for providing generous funding to get this reform up and running, we couldn’t do it by ourselves. It’s just it’s expensive, and the logistics behind it are extensive. But we’re ready to fight an election on it. Not that we want that, but we’re not changing our position, and voters ought to know that when they cast their ballot next March. The only other point I’d make is, you know, it’s not normally my style to speak about the Opposition or get political about something that was previously bipartisan. But I have been concerned to hear that the New South Wales Opposition have said in recent weeks, look, they’re open to changes or reforms or watering down the legislation. I think that’s a concern, and it’s the opposite of the constructive way we’ve been able to pursue reform in the state previously.
JOURNALIST: You mentioned that you expect law-abiding citizens to come forward and hand over these firearms, but what about non-law-abiding citizens? Aren’t they the problem?
PREMIER MINNS: They certainly are in part the problem, and we’ve got tough, extensive, long prison sentences for those that breach the law in New South Wales. The short answer is we’re going to throw the book at people that have got illegal handguns, particularly criminals. The lawful gun owners, we believe, will do the right thing. Criminal networks, when you’ve got so many guns in circulation in a state like New South Wales, can still get their hands on legal firearms. So just withdrawing them from the marketplace and from the community is a good thing for New South Wales. That’s certainly been the experience in Western Australia, where our counterparts over there have said, I normally don’t give Western Australia a wrap, but in this instance, they’ve done the right thing, and they’ve been able to lead the way and provide a blueprint for us here in New South Wales.
JOURNALIST: Minister Burke, are you getting any closer to landing your migration policy? And what are the main sticking points at the moment?
MINISTER BURKE: We’re going through a cabinet process as we should. We’re going through a detailed policy process where you look at every possible consequence. If you want an example of what happens when you don’t do your policy work collegiately, I give you Senator Andrew Bragg as Exhibit A.
JOURNALIST: What’s happening with working holiday visas, though? Are they being paused in certain categories?
MINISTER BURKE: Oh, sorry, at the moment? At the moment, the processing of working holiday visas at the moment – they are still being processed, but they are being processed more slowly than they were previously.
JOURNALIST: And what sort of an effect is that going to have on the agricultural industry?
MINISTER BURKE: The principal visa for the agricultural industry is actually PALM, the Pacific Workers Scheme. One of the things that happened when we started to improve worker protections on PALM was not overwhelmingly, but some of the worst operators said, ‘well, if we’ve got to have better standards for PALM workers, we’ll just switch to backpackers.’ And that’s not the way this system’s meant to work.
JOURNALIST: Are we talking weeks or months before we get before you land the migration policy?
MINISTER BURKE: We’re talking about a cabinet process.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, reports today that the disaster funding changes would have cost Queensland more than a billion dollars over eight years. A reduction in the funding that would go to Queensland under those changes. What do you say to Queenslanders who say that, ‘why should we accept that reduction?’
PRIME MINISTER: I say we’ve got your back, and that every time there’s been a natural disaster in Queensland, we’ve provided funding. I’ve been on the ground, whether it’s Cloncurry, whether it be Cairns, and just north of Cairns with the flooding, whether it be in South East Queensland, whether it be at Longreach. I have been on the ground in partnership with Queenslanders. What this is about is making sure the system that wasn’t working, works properly. So one of the problems that has been there as well is delays in funding. What we’re about is getting money to local government, in particular, quicker with 50/50 funding guaranteed, so that some of the bureaucracy which has been there in the wake of natural disasters is removed. This is common sense. If the Queensland, if any other level of government saying they’re reducing their funding, then that’s a matter for them. What we’re doing is stepping up with these reforms, which we’ll continue to do. Thanks very much.
