The Australian federal government has announced a National Gun Buyback Scheme to purchase surplus, newly banned, and illegal firearms, with New South Wales set to become the first state to implement the rollout starting in November. Officials have promoted the initiative as an effort to fight antisemitism and strengthen public safety following the Bondi Beach Hanukkah terrorist attack, though voices within the Jewish community have expressed strong opposition to the move.
In official joint media release announcements and public statements following the massacre, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and New South Wales Premier Chris Minns framed the reforms as a necessary measure to curb gun proliferation, tackle violent threats, and combat rising extremism.
Proponents argue that tightening firearm restrictions and introducing tighter licensing requirements, including capping individual ownership at four firearms for most residents, form a vital part of government efforts to stamp out hate and protect vulnerable communities from mass violence.
Operated under a federal-state 50-50 funding agreement, the National Gun Buyback Scheme is structured to remove surplus, illegal, and newly prohibited firearms from civilian circulation by offering financial compensation to owners who surrender them.
The mechanism relies on state-run collection drives and amnesties, kicking off in New South Wales before expanding nationwide, where registered and unregistered weapons can be handed in without criminal penalty, alongside enforcement of the new ownership caps and stricter background verification processes for license holders.
However, the announcement has drawn sharp pushback from voices in the Jewish community who argue the policy misses the mark. In a statement to The Jerusalem Post, Australian Jewish Association (AJA) President Robert Gregory critiqued the policy as a “deflection” from the real issue, pointing out that “Australia already has some of the strictest firearms laws in the world.”
Gregory argued that “using the Bondi terrorist attack to justify further restrictions on law-abiding firearms owners” avoids addressing the perpetrators and the “hateful ideology that motivated them,” stressing that “this was an antisemitic Islamist terrorist attack, not an attack caused by ordinary Australians who lawfully own firearms.”
'Antisemitism, radical Islamist extremism conversations cannot be replaced with politically convenient gun debates,' AJA president says
Instead of pursuing new gun restrictions, Gregory suggested that Australia should examine whether existing laws “make it too difficult for appropriately trained and licensed security personnel to provide armed protection at vulnerable Jewish events,” concluding that “we cannot allow difficult conversations about antisemitism and radical Islamist extremism to be replaced with politically convenient debates about guns.”
Expanding on these security concerns, Jewish Australian security and anti-terrorism expert Daniel Lewkovitz told the Post that the government’s approach amounts to officials “trying to disarm Australians who have never broken the law” while framing it as a measure to prevent terrorism.
Lewkovitz argued that “banning guns won’t stop them ramming vehicles through a crowd” or “stop them stabbing people,” noting that the security guards present at Bondi were unarmed: “It was firearms legislation that stopped any of the first responders at the scene being able to neutralize that terror threat.”
Pointing to international comparisons, Lewkovitz contrasted the situation in Bondi with countries such as Israel or the United States, or even Sydney 15 years ago, where armed personnel or citizens would have ended the attackers’ lives in 30 seconds. In Bondi, the community was left as “sitting ducks while they waited for a police response that was many, many minutes away.”
Lewkovitz noted that the officer who eventually stopped the shooter only succeeded because he happened to be a sporting shooter who practiced frequently in his spare time, yet the government’s response is to “punish target shooters.”
Criticizing the focus on law-abiding gun owners, Lewkovitz warned that under the pretense of protecting Jews, the policy risks alienating the broader public, noting that a retiree whose hobby is criminalized, “a bloke who’s never hurt a fly, right? There’s a real possibility that he’s going to blame the Jews for that.”
He concluded that the government is simply looking for a “quick fix to complicated problems” to issue a press release claiming success while, in his view, “the door is wide open” to the actual threat of Islamist indoctrination and incitement that are “anathema to the Australian way of life.”