Target on guns: $30m slug to sign up to firearms registry

Smaller states and territories could be slugged with a bill of $30m each to join a national firearms register and are increasing pressure on the federal government to pay for the new digital guns database.

Constable Rachel McCrow.

Smaller states and territories could be slugged with a bill of $30m each to join a national firearms register, and are increasing pressure on the federal government to pay more for the new digital guns database.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus told a meeting of the nation’s police ministers late on Thursday afternoon the funding fight would be sorted out by national cabinet before the end of the year, fuelling a belief among the states and territories that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would pay more than an initial offer made several months ago.

There has been speculation in Canberra that Treasurer Jim Chalmers may use his mid-year economic and fiscal outlook update in December to announce new funding for the states and territories to assist them in developing new registries that would be compliant with a national system.

With the federal budget in surplus due to low unemployment, strong tax returns and high commodity prices, Dr Chalmers is under pressure to fund several national security priorities, including the monitoring of recently released immigration detainees with criminal histories, and a national firearm registry.

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A formal communique released by the Police Ministers Council confirmed participants had “reaffirmed their commitment” to the register, but government sources told The Australian the smaller jurisdictions had reiterated their demands for the federal government to help fund the cost of upgrading or replacing their systems to make them compatible with a national database.

The Australian understands South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory could each need to pay an estimated $30m to connect to a new federal register.

A national real-time database, which would instantly allow police in any state to check any citizen’s weapons licence status and their registered firearms, has been costed at more than $200m.

The federal government has so far only agreed to pay for upgrading the existing technology of two Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission databases: the National Criminal Intelligence System and Australian Firearms Information Network.

Anthony Albanese at the funerals of murdered police officers Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow. Picture: Steve Pohlner

Some larger states, including Queensland, NSW and Western Australia, have already committed to pay for any necessary upgrades to their databases, and for the new technology required to “plug in” to the national system.

Queensland and WA have vowed to entirely rebuild their paper-based systems; Queensland’s overhaul will cost about $15m, plus more to make it compatible with a national register.

NSW’s Gun Safe online weapons register is already the most advanced in the country, and the licensing system is more than 95 per cent digitised.

The meeting came on the same day as a pre-inquest conference was held into the shooting murders of two police officers and a good Samaritan neighbour at Wieambilla in Queensland by a trio of domestic terrorists that included a licensed firearm holder.

Constables Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow, and neighbour Alan Dare, were shot dead by three Christian extremist conspiracy theorists, Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey Train, at a remote bush property at Wieambilla, more than 300km west of Brisbane, on December 12 last year.

At a second pre-inquest hearing in Brisbane, barrister Ruth O’Gorman KC, counsel assisting coroner Terry Ryan, told the court the police Ethical Standards Command investigation was still continuing, and a full brief of evidence would not be finished before the end of February.

Among issues being examined is whether communications between the NSW and Queensland police forces was adequate for the officers to do a proper risk assessment before they entered the Wieambilla property following up a missing person report and warrant relating to Nathaniel Train. The former NSW school principal had a Queensland gun licence that was suspended in August 2022, after he illegally crossed the NSW-Queensland border in December 2021 and dumped two of his registered guns.

However, authorities were never able to confiscate his physical weapons licence because he could not be found.

The Trains were later killed in a shootout with specialist police.

“Since the first pre-inquest conference (in June), the extensive investigation into the deaths … has continued,” Ms O’Gorman said. “The coronial report is now in the process of being prepared.”

McCrow’s mother, Judy McCrow, and sister Samantha watched the proceedings on video link, as did Dare’s widow Kerry and Aidan Train, the son of Stacey and Nathaniel and stepson to Gareth.

Ms O’Gorman said a number of expert reports would be completed by year’s end and there was “a number of active lines of inquiry still under investigation”.

A third pre-inquest conference has been tentatively scheduled for May 21; a month from July 29 has been set aside to hear the inquest.

The Australian’s Target on Guns investigation has been probing the stalled push for a national firearms register, likely to take at least four years to be operational after the funding fight is settled.

A national register was first agreed on by all states and territories in 1996 following the murders of 35 people by a lone gunman at Port Arthur in Tasmania, but has never been enacted due to funding concerns and squabbles between the states over how to register and classify weapons.