NT urged to strengthen 'ancient' gun laws amid federal funding for national firearms register

Australia has some of the strictest gun laws in the world. (ABC News: Jessica Henderson)

Advocates are calling for urgent reform to the Northern Territory’s “ancient” gun laws following the federal government’s $161 million commitment to establish a national firearms register.

The NT has the second highest rate of gun ownership in the country, the third highest rate of gun deaths per 100,000 people and some of the nation’s weakest controls, with a series of high-profile incidents in recent years causing concern.

In 2019, Darwin’s worst mass shooting saw four people killed by Benjamin Hoffmann. In 2022, a man who fatally shot a 26-year-old home intruder as he was running away at a property near Katherine was sentenced to jail.

A few months prior, at a remote community near Alice Springs, a gun was found close to the dead bodies of a man, a woman and baby.

In January, a man driving a car in Darwin’s northern suburbs was shot at and taken to hospital.

Last week, police streamed into the remote community of Nauiyu following reports of gunshots and community members fleeing into the bush.

Why are people still being killed by guns in the Northern Territory?

And what changes do experts say will make a difference?

New register to provide real-time information

Australia has some of the strictest gun laws in the world after a massacre in Port Arthur saw 35 people killed in the late 1990s.

Roughly 650,000 privately held guns were confiscated by then-prime minister John Howard, and all states and territories signed up to a National Firearms Agreement.

The Commonwealth’s new register will allow police to access near real-time information on guns and who owns them.

But Walter Mikac, a gun reform campaigner whose wife and two daughters were killed in the Port Arthur massacre, said this should have been introduced decades prior.

“I would have liked that to have been instigated way back when John Howard introduced the National Firearms Agreement back in 1996,” Mr Mikac said.

The Northern Territory’s current gun laws still lag behind the rest of the country.

In the NT, the maximum penalty for unlawful possession of a firearm is one to two years in prison compared to 14 years in NSW and up to 20 in the ACT.

In other jurisdictions, to qualify for a gun a person must have a genuine reason to want to own one, but NT legislation doesn’t rule out personal protection as a reason.

And unlike most other states the NT has waved the 28-day waiting period to acquire a gun for people who already own one.

‘Large grey market’ for guns in Australia

John Coyne is the head of the strategic policing and law enforcement program at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Dr Coyne said over the past several years there had been a rise in illegal importation and stolen gun trading in Australia.

“Criminals have been able to find and exploit vulnerabilities at Australia’s border,” Dr Coyne said.

“At the same time the Australian Border Force has been asked to focus on a broad set of issues from vapes to tobacco, illicit drugs to terrorism, and regular arrivals.

“Australia has a large grey market.”

Dr Coyne said for a long time in Australia, law enforcement “would often say that crooks can’t even get bad guns”.

“But there has been a change in nature,” he said.

Dr Coyne said for the most part, gun crimes typically involved firearms which had never been registered or had been stolen.

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has made several attempts to estimate the size of the country’s illegal market, but says it’s almost impossible to paint an accurate picture due to its clandestine nature.

Based on available data, the commission conservatively estimates there are 200,000 firearms in the domestic illicit market.

Dr Coyne said “a significant number of weapons” had not been surrendered during the Howard-era buyback and gun theft was a major issue.

He said Australian Border Force needed more staff and resources and it should be “key priority” for all law enforcement agencies to target illegal firearm possession.

“I would say very clearly, there is room for legislative change in the Northern Territory in relation to illegal firearm possession,” Dr Coyne said.

“The aim should be to remove all illegal firearms from our communities. And it is only by doing that, that will provide community safety.”

‘Ancient’ gun laws need a rewrite

Police Minister Brent Potter said the NT, as well as other states, had invested millions to help implement the national firearms register, which was “a serious and significant step forward to firearm management and keeping our community safe”.

“The Northern Territory government takes gun control very seriously,” Mr Potter said.

“NT Police have conduction multiple operations over many years to reduce the number of illegal firearms in the NT.”

Mr Potter said in 2019, the NT government passed laws which introduced a Firearm Prohibition Order and increased maximum penalties for a range of firearms offences.

But president of the Darwin Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, Andy Armstrong, said the NT’s current laws left room for interpretation and were not ideal for recreational shooters such himself, nor police who were in charge of administering the law.

“Our act and our regulations are so ancient, they probably need a rewrite, to be honest,” Mr ARmstrong said.

He welcomed funding for the new register but worried it wasn’t nearly enough.

“It’s a sensible thing but $160 million won’t be anywhere near enough to resource it properly and have it built well,” he said.