Australia Announces Firearms Buyback Programme, 274,000 Weapons Targeted for Recall from November
The New South Wales (NSW) government will begin a firearms buyback programme in November 2026. The programme is expected to remove up to 274,000 firearms from circulation as part of the response to a series of shootings in Sydney.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns announced the programme on Sunday (16/8). The scheme is scheduled to commence on 2 November.
Gun owners who breach ownership limits may surrender their weapons and receive compensation of up to A$1,000 (approximately Rp12.5 million) per firearm. In early 2027, the compensation cap will be raised to A$10,000 (approximately Rp125 million) for firearms with a market value exceeding A$3,000.
Albanese said the programme was necessary because the number of firearms in Australia is now higher than when the government conducted a buyback programme after the Port Arthur tragedy in 1996.
“Australians should rightly be proud of our firearms laws, but the fact is there are more guns in Australia today than when we dealt with the Port Arthur buyback programme,” Albanese said in a televised statement.
The latest buyback programme is expected to be the largest in Australia since a similar scheme was held after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in 1996. In that tragedy, a gunman killed 35 people.
The policy is part of a national response to the shooting on 14 December during Hanukkah celebrations at Bondi Beach, Sydney. That attack killed 15 people.
The Australian federal government previously introduced new rules in January, including a buyback programme, stricter checks for firearms licence holders, and measures to counter hatred.
The Australian government said there were approximately 4.1 million firearms in the country last year. More than 1.1 million of these were in NSW, Australia’s most populous state.
Through reforms triggered by the Bondi Beach attack, NSW now limits individual ownership to four firearms.
Police said the attack was carried out by a father and son suspected of being inspired by the ISIS militant group. One of the suspects, 24-year-old Naveed Akram, still faces a number of charges, including 15 counts of murder, and has not yet entered a plea.
The buyback programme has drawn opposition from One Nation. The right-wing to far-right Australian political party, led by founder Pauline Hanson, plans to repeal the rules if it wins next year’s state election.
NSW Premier Chris Minns, from the Labor Party, said gun control policy would be one of the key issues in the NSW election and that his government would not back down from the policy.
“One Nation says they will scrap all of this … this entire legislation … so this issue will be on the ballot, like it or not,” Minns said.
“This is too important for NSW.”
“We are prepared to fight an election on this, even though we do not want to. We will not change our position and voters need to know that when they cast their ballots.”
Asked about the cost of the programme to taxpayers, Minns said the figure could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.
The programme will form part of the first phase of legal reforms following the Bondi Beach shooting. The government hopes that ownership limits and firearms recall will reduce the number of weapons circulating in the community.