Western Australia Urges Unity on National Firearm Reform

The state government responsible for the Australia's toughest gun laws has called for unity on national reform, as the path forward splinters along party lines. In the wake of the Bondi terror attack, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced plans for a national gun buyback scheme for surplus, newly banned and illegal firearms. But the ABC understands Queensland, the Northern Territory and Tasmania — all of which are led by Liberal governments — will not participate in the national buyback. The buyback, and stricter firearm controls, are part of legislation currently being debated in Federal Parliament, which the government had to separate from hate speech reforms in order to get passed this week. Further changes are expected to be modelled off sweeping changes Western Australia has made to its gun laws in recent years, with Premier Roger Cook tasked with leading those efforts with New South Wales Premier Chris Minns. "This is a time for all states and territories to work together with the Commonwealth to get a good outcome for the country, for our nation," Mr Cook said on Tuesday. 'Vast majority' backs reform The comments came as the premier and his police minister Reece Whitby announced 83,764 firearms had been taken off the streets as a result of six buybacks over the last two years. "This reduction in firearms represents a 24 per cent decrease in the total number of firearms in this state in two years," Mr Whitby claimed. He also called for national unity around the national buyback and any future law changes. "I get it, these are hard things to do," he said. "There's a constituency out there in the community who oppose this. Mr Whitby said he believed it would be similar in other states, and that he had reached out to his counterpart in Queensland. "This is a time for the community and for our nation to come together in the wake of Bondi, this should not be a blue-state or a red-state issue," he said. "Different political colour, doesn't matter. "We've gone through an experience here in Western Australia that has made our state safer, and if we can help the rest of the country be safer too, it's a good thing." The ABC understands WA police officers are in New South Wales today as part of efforts to consider future law changes and share lessons from WA's experience. WA baulks at cost Despite the calls for unity, even the WA government is not prepared to commit to the cost of a future Commonwealth buyback being split evenly between the state and federal governments. "We'll be happy to look at what the final arrangement is with other states," Mr Whitby said. "You'd assume that it would be [a] uniform approach across the federation, so we'll be part of that."