Australia's most populous state, New South Wales, will begin a gun buyback scheme on 2 November as part of a sweeping national response to last December's deadly terrorist attack at Sydney's Bondi Beach. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the measures on Sunday, describing them as essential to preventing a repeat of what he called an antisemitic terrorist attack. The scheme will offer gun owners up to AUD$1,000 (approximately US$700 or £523) per firearm handed in, with a second phase beginning early next year covering higher-value weapons capped at AUD$10,000.
The buyback is a direct response to the 14 December 2025 attack, in which a father and son opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration along the famous beachfront, killing 15 people — including a ten-year-old girl and a Holocaust survivor. Australian authorities say the attack was inspired by the Islamic State group (ISIL/ISIS). The surviving suspect, Naveed Akram, 24, has yet to enter pleas to multiple charges including 15 counts of murder. Critically, the firearms used in the attack had been legally obtained, prompting urgent questions about the adequacy of existing gun laws.
The scheme will be jointly funded by the New South Wales state government and the federal government, and will be implemented in two phases. The first phase covers handguns, shotguns and rifles — a revolver, for example, will fetch AUD$1,000, while an air rifle will receive AUD$450. The second phase, starting in early 2026, will address higher-value firearms. Businesses, including gun dealers, will be eligible for up to AUD$25,000 in support to help them adjust to the reforms. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said he hoped hundreds of thousands of weapons would be surrendered and safely destroyed.
The announcement comes alongside other reforms already introduced by New South Wales, including a limit of four firearms per person — with exceptions for farmers and sports shooters, who may hold up to ten — and a reduction in licence terms from five years to two. Albanese drew a pointed comparison to Australia's landmark 1996 response to the Port Arthur massacre, in which a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania, prompting a nationally celebrated ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons. "Australians are quite rightly proud of our gun laws," he said, "but the fact is there are more guns in Australia today than there were at the time of the Port Arthur gun buyback." Official figures show Australians currently own a record 4.1 million firearms, with more than 1.1 million in New South Wales alone.
The scale of the challenge is significant. While Australia's 1996 buyback is widely credited with reducing gun violence, the country's firearm ownership has since climbed back to record levels. The new scheme, though initially conceived as a nationwide programme, has faced delays over funding and implementation questions, with New South Wales now taking the lead. Whether other states will follow with comparable measures remains to be seen, but the federal government has signalled that broader national reform is a clear priority.