On this anniversary of the Port Arthur Massacre I offer my deepest sympathies to all those for whom this tragedy remains a continuing blight on their lives. The gun debate now is not the gun debate of then and the laws have changed to reflect this and by reason of this incident.

The argument to tighten firearm control has been had and is now legislated. I fail to see the purpose of dragging the gun debate back out when there is no clear issue that inspires the need amongst law abiding Australians. A person of good character who conducts himself in the context of the current laws should be allowed to own a firearm.

We should be careful not to impugn the character of the law abiding citizen with the presumption that they may break the law and use in our reasoning the actions ten years ago of Martin Bryant. Gun laws are tight enough and there has not been brought forward the case to tighten them further, nor has the laws of ten years ago stopped the inflow of illegal firearms. This appears to be the weapon of choice for the vast majority of firearm related felonies today.

If there is a need, and I feel there is, to track down those who are purchasing or profiting from illegally imported weapons, a far greater threat to people in the suburbs, then I am 100% behind a concerted effort to find those criminals and jail them.

Going back to a terribly unfortunate period in Australian history committed by a criminal of borderline intellect and using that as the reason to further curtail the rights of the law abiding farmer or sports shooter is not a solution. It is avoiding the problem. The problem, I suspect, is the illegal importation of weapons which get through like the illegal importation of drugs. We should attach our fervour to that issue, whilst remembering the tragedy of Port Arthur 1996.

ENDS