National gun register way overdue

The execution-style killings of constables Rachel McCrow, 29, and Matthew Arnold, 26, and neighbour Alan Dare, 58, on a remote Queensland property at Wieambilla, more than 300km northwest of Brisbane, almost a year ago highlighted the urgent need for a national register of ­licensed firearm owners. All of the nation’s police forces backed the idea after it emerged that one of the killers, Nathaniel Train, had a suspended Queensland gun licence. When the young police officers embarked on a routine missing person’s check, it wasn’t known where he was, or where his registered firearms were located. His brother, Gareth Train, and Gareth’s wife, Stacey Train, were not licensed to own or shoot firearms at all. Nor were any of the three extremists legally allowed to possess the arsenal of high-powered weapons and ammunition they had hoarded.

Without a national firearms register, police are unable to instantly access firearms records from other jurisdictions, leaving them without crucial information, such as whether someone has a gun licence or owns weapons. Nor can gun dealers easily verify if a buyer’s licence is valid or if it has been suspended or cancelled, especially if the permit was issued interstate. A national register was first agreed to in the National Firearms Agreement after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. At a time of growing public service staff numbers in most jurisdictions, including Canberra, it is a disgrace that political, bureaucratic and administrative inertia has resulted in a lack of action.

The process is now delayed, Ellen Whinnett and Sarah Elks report on Monday, by a funding dispute between Canberra and the states and territories. The $200m-plus cost is a price worth paying for a lasting and important reform. Smaller jurisdictions are baulking at the cost. Tasmania, the Northern Territory, South Australia and the ACT claim they cannot afford to upgrade their paper-based firearms registries to be compatible with a national digital database. In an age of technology, that is not good enough. The Albanese government is offering to pay only for a federal technology upgrade, despite the Prime Minister and national cabinet committing to the national register in February, and police ministers agreeing on options in June. Rigorous vigilance in relation to firearms is vital. As ASIO director-general Mike Burgess warned, “ideologically motivated violent extremists’’ with a “cocktail … of views, fears, frustrations and conspiracies” pose serious dangers, encouraged by online sites.

Despite strong words from politicians, Australia’s gun laws remain inconsistent. So many loopholes exist that a person could build an entire unregistered gun by legally buying weapon parts in different states and assembling them. It is time to reinforce John Howard’s leadership in 1996 that produced the National Firearms Agreement and a buyback and amnesty in which 700,000 firearms were surrendered and destroyed.