Gun reform: an extraordinary achievement

It has been 25 years since John Howard introduced comprehensive national gun laws to keep our nation safe. John Anderson reflects on one of the Howard Government’s most enduring legacies.

The successful introduction of uniform and effective national gun laws by the Howard-Fischer Government in its first year was an extraordinary achievement. It is unquestionably seen as one of the Government’s most important policy ‘wins’ earning it respect abroad as well as in Australia.

In many ways, however, the need for this action could not have been foreseen. No commitment to such sweeping reforms had been made prior to the 1996 election, and indeed I have no reflection of the idea of national gun laws even being broached in Coalition ranks prior to the horrific events at Port Arthur on 26th April 1996 - just weeks after the election of the new Government. Such an objective would normally have been seen as a darling of the Left, rather than the Coalition, and indeed to this day many from that end of the political spectrum seem unimpressed that Howard succeeded where “progressives’ had failed.

The appalling loss of 35 people, plus another 23 injured, at the hands of a single crazed shooter led to a national outpouring of grief followed quickly by what the then leader of the Opposition Kim Beazley called a “ferocious response” from the public. It moved the people “intensely”, he noted, and it also moved recently-minted Prime Minister John Howard.

He advised the joint party meeting on May 6th of 1996 that he was proposing far-reaching proposals that would be “very tough”, and that many law-abiding gun-owners would find them painful and inconvenient. As a ( I hope it is fair to say!) law abiding gun owner I have to say he was right - they were tough and far-reaching. I had myself been a sporting and farming shooter since I had been a boy, and somewhat to the Prime Minister’s amazement, confessed to owning northwards of a dozen firearms!

I could see the need for strong action, notwithstanding my own interests in the matter, in no small part because I’d become increasingly concerned by what I saw as an undesirable ‘gun culture’ emerging in the outer suburbs of the big cities - not to mention big towns - as reflected in the quite surprising numbers of ‘urban cowboys’ that were starting to appear on weekends, blazing away, or so it sometimes seemed, at anything that moved.

Warren Truss, the Member for Wide Bay and later Deputy Prime Minister, was “shocked” by the reach of the new proposals and was, in my view rightly, keen to ensure that the measures were accompanied by action on the causes of crime and of mental illness.

Nonetheless, the PM was not only deeply personally committed to the proposed national approach, he secured the support of the Liberal and National Party members. Significantly, the Premier of Queensland, Rob Borbidge, and the major agricultural bodies around the nation had pledged their support for the Government’s proposals.

With wind in his sails, John Howard campaigned strongly for a joint Commonwealth-State initiative. Gun control laws were actually the responsibility of the States, but the Commonwealth was to play the critical roles of ensuring that the new laws were consistent across the nation, that outlawed firearms could not be brought into the country, and that the proposed buyback scheme could be properly funded by means of a temporary increase in the Medicare levy.

The NSW Premier, Bob Carr, proposed a referral of power to the Commonwealth by the States to ensure that the somewhat uncertain Constitutional capacity of the Commonwealth to institute the measures was secured, and to avoid the need for a Referendum to put the matter beyond doubt. Delay, in my view, might have derailed the whole exercise, as the ‘honeymoon’ period that existed for new governments in those day (but seems not to be granted in today’s more cynical times) started to ease over the course of the year.

In fact, the bush started to sour fairly badly as the terrible drought in much of eastern Australia dragged on; tough decisions, particularly in the area of expenditure reductions, were made, and indeed resentment over the gun laws themselves simmered away. I well remember flying to one of the most prosperous rural areas in my electorate a couple of weeks after the election and experiencing the extraordinary phenomenon of being given a standing ovation in a packed hall as I rose to begin an address. A year later, the good people of that district were telling me in no uncertain terms that they were disappointed in the Government, and indeed I was forced to preferences in the 1998 election for the first and only time. 

Had the debate dragged on as so often matters of national priority do, the moment might well have been lost as the hard won consensus would almost certainly have started to fray.

So timing was of the essence. Such is often the case in politics, but in no way does this reality detract from the importance of the reforms or from the impressive leadership of the Prime Minister, at that time. The reality is that Australia is a safer place, and more Australians are alive and well, because he, and the Government, prevailed. 

It was, frankly, tough on many rural and regional Members, all the more so because there was a distinct feeling that Australia was becoming a two-speed economy and that the bush and our country towns were being left behind. A feeling that we were somehow becoming two nations was in fact being captured politically by One Nation. For that reason, Tim Fischer and I in particular always appreciated John Howard’s generous acknowledgment that gun laws were politically and personally tough for us.

All is well that ends well. The laws were bedded down, they have come to be seen as a very worthwhile and courageous reform, and rural Australia came to strongly endorse the Government that I was so privileged to serve in for so long.

Hon John Anderson AO is former deputy prime minister and served under the Howard Government.