By popular request, the summer holidays of Australia’s federal parliamentarians have been cut short, but many of His Majesty’s (Rupert’s) Loyal Opposition are already regretting what they wished for.
Parliament will reopen today with a condolence motion for the victims of the Bondi massacre, to be followed tomorrow by a debate on the government’s proposed Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill, minus the racial vilification provisions, which have failed to find the necessary support from those on the cross benches.
It seems that the Greens and teals are reasonably happy with the gun law changes in schedules 3 and 4 of the draft bill, with the views of the extreme right irrelevant as the numbers currently stack up in the Senate, but even that section of this week’s proposed legislative changes go well beyond guns.
As Anthony Albanese outlined at his weekend press conference, they prohibit the import or export of ‘violent extremist material’, and will introduce new criminal offences for accessing, distributing, possessing or controlling online material for firearms and explosives manufacture. No more Googling ‘how to make a bomb’, in other words.
A new public safety test for firearms and weapons will enable ministers to refuse import permissions, and non-citizens will no longer be able to legally import weapons.
Along with a gun buyback scheme, based on John Howard’s post Port Arthur model, there will finally be ASIO security assessments and background checks on people who are trying to get gun licences. Hallelujah. The debate on that provision should be entertaining, as politicians under the influence of the gun lobby defend the ‘right’ to bear arms.
Haters gonna hate
The government’s final omnibus bill is yet to be seen, but Anthony Albanese says the controversial ‘hate crimes’ legislation element will remain, apparently frightening enough even in the abstract to cause the local Nazis (National Socialist Network) to shut up shop and begin rebranding. Do we want the courts to be deciding what is and isn’t hate crime, though? And how do you debate something consigned to the shadows?
As for the professional haters on the opposition benches, Albo says he’s still waiting for them to explain their collective position on his proposed legislation, if they have a collective position on anything these days, beyond opposing Labor.
‘They called for this to happen,’ said the PM. ‘They called for parliament to be resumed on more than 20 occasions. On the 22nd of December they were making it clear that the parliament should be sitting today, they said, and passing laws today. They will have the opportunity. They will have no excuse…
‘It is time that the politics stopped and that they stood up for what is in the national interest.’
Unfortunately, as Anthony Albanese knows better than most, politics never stops, not even on holidays, and the various interests of those remaining on the opposition benches diverged from the national interest quite some time ago.
For his part, Albo claims to have engaged constructively since December’s terrorist attack, resisting the urge to ‘slam lecterns’, as he put it.
He’s publicly yearned for the kind of bipartisanship that followed Port Arthur, the Lindt cafe siege and the Bali bombings, and is asking the parliament to quickly pass his cobbled together solutions to problems decades in the making. Unfortunately, this risks creating new problems that will last even longer, and probably fail to prevent further violent catastrophes in a country no longer conveniently isolated from the rest of the world by being an island.
Still, Albo’s call to ‘lower the temperature of debate in this country across the board, not just on this issue’ can surely be welcomed by (almost) everyone.
The prime minister has announced a National Day of Mourning for the victims of the Bondi tragedy this Thursday, 22 January.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
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