Various shotguns and rifles are on display to purchase at a shooting range in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Jan. 15, 2013. George Frey/Getty Images
State opposition plans to freeze a gun buyback scheme and unwind key firearms restrictions introduced after the Bondi terror attack have come under fire.
New South Wales (NSW) Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane on Sept. 19 unveiled the Liberals’ plan to tackle firearms crime, proposing a commission of inquiry to examine the issue while buyback plans were frozen.
The NSW gun buyback is set to begin on Nov. 2, providing compensation to licence holders for firearms under new ownership limits and the reclassification of certain weapons.
Sloane said the Liberals’ plan aimed to combat the real threats to community safety—organised crime, gangland violence, terrorism, firearms trafficking and illegal guns.
Labor had rushed through complex legislation without properly consulting licensed firearm owners, farmers, sporting shooters, collectors, firearms businesses and other affected stakeholders, she said.
A NSW Liberal government would scrap Labor’s arbitrary firearm ownership caps for primary producers and competition sporting shooters with genuine and demonstrable needs.
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“We will fix Labor’s flawed laws and back our police with the powers and resources they need,” Sloane said in a statement.
The NSW Liberals would freeze the buyback for all licensed firearm owners until a commission of inquiry completed its work and the government responded to its recommendations.
“Following the inquiry, any buyback will be better targeted, provide fair compensation and allow associated ammunition and accessories to be surrendered in the same transaction,” Sloane said.
The Liberals’ plan includes increased funding for the NSW Firearms Registry and relevant police commands to disrupt criminal networks, seize illegal firearms and combat gangland violence.
The maximum penalty for trafficking firearms would also be increased from 20 years in jail to life imprisonment, with mandatory jail terms for carrying illegal guns.
NSW Police and Counter-terrorism Minister Yasmin Catley fired back at the Liberals’ plan, calling it a “stunning backflip” that would leave more guns in circulation and unwind key community safety protections.
Those protections were put in place after the worst terror attack in NSW in which 15 people were shot dead at Bondi Beach on Dec. 14, 2025, at a celebration of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
Catley accused the Liberals and Nationals of following One Nation and putting politics before public safety.
“On an issue as serious as gun safety, the coalition has gone from supporting stronger laws after Bondi to promising to unwind them as One Nation campaigns for them to be repealed,” she said in a statement.
“Our position is simple and it has not and will not change: fewer dangerous guns in circulation means a safer NSW.”
By Lloyd Jones in Darwin
