CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s parliament has passed sweeping gun control and hate crime legislation following the December 14 terrorist shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach that left 16 people dead and dozens injured during a Jewish festival, marking one of the country’s deadliest attacks in decades.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the new laws, passed late Tuesday, were designed to confront both extremist violence and the means used to carry it out, stressing urgency and national unity in the wake of the attack.
“Late last night our laws to crack down on hate speech and take sensible action on firearms passed the parliament,” Albanese told reporters at Parliament House on Wednesday.
“At Bondi, the terrorists had hate in their hearts, but they had guns in their hands. We said we wanted to deal with that with urgency and with unity, and we acted to deliver both.”
The reforms introduce a national firearm buyback scheme, tighter import controls, stricter background checks for gun licences, and additional limits on the types of firearms civilians may legally own.
The measures build on Australia’s already stringent gun regime, which has been credited with sharply reducing mass shootings since the 1990s.
The Bondi attack targeted a local Jewish community marking the first day of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. Police identified the alleged attackers as Naveed Akram, 24, and his father, Sajid Akram, 50.
Sajid Akram was shot dead by police at the scene, while Naveed Akram was critically injured and later charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder and one count of committing a terrorist act.
Authorities said six firearms were recovered during the investigation.
In parallel with the gun reforms, parliament enacted tougher hate crime laws that allow authorities to designate organizations as “hate groups,” target individuals who promote hateful or extremist ideologies, and impose enhanced penalties for offences involving advocacy of violence.
The federal government has also announced the establishment of a royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion, tasked with investigating the drivers of hate-related violence and making policy recommendations in response to the Bondi attack.
Australia’s last mass shooting of comparable scale occurred in 1996, when a lone gunman killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania.
That tragedy prompted landmark gun reforms, including the creation of the National Firearms Register and a nationwide buyback scheme.
Since then, mass shootings have been rare, a record often cited in global debates on gun regulation.
Albanese said the latest legislative package reaffirmed Australia’s commitment to preventing a return to such violence while confronting rising concerns over hate-driven extremism.
“We prioritize national unity and nation-healing and we want to make sure that light triumphs over darkness,” he said.
Australia will observe a national day of mourning on Thursday, with flags flying at half-mast to honor the victims of the Bondi attack. The theme, officials said, is the triumph of light over darkness.
Margaret Gibson, an Australian sociologist specializing in death and grief studies at Griffith University, said national days of mourning play a crucial role in restoring collective solidarity after traumatic violence.
“They are rituals that demonstrate a national agenda of government leadership toward collective solidarity and unity in the face of tragedy and violence that ruptures the sense of safety of community and nation,” Gibson told China Daily.
“In a multicultural and intercultural country like Australia, it is really important to have these kinds of nationalizing rituals to build solidarity and belonging, regardless of cultural, religious, or nonreligious identities,” she added.
