South Australia has refused to join a planned national gun buyback, warning it will not spend state funds on a scheme it says should be paid for entirely by Canberra.<\/p>\n
Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis says SA is not interested in signing up to a model that relies on state co\u2011funding rather than being fully funded by the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
South Australia cannot divert money from essential services and cost\u2011of\u2011living priorities into a program driven by federal politics, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think we\u2019ve got the balance right here in South Australia, but if the Commonwealth government want to embark on a buyback scheme under the same process that John Howard did, they\u2019re more than welcome to,\u201d Koutsantonis told ABC Radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe John Howard buyback was fully funded by the Commonwealth government, so they funded it in its entirety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koutsantonis said all states faced broader funding pressures to keep up with demand for health, disability and other frontline services.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns announced details of the state\u2019s buyback, due to begin in November.<\/p>\n
NSW is currently the only jurisdiction participating in the national scheme, which was promised after last December\u2019s Bondi terror attack in which 15 people were killed.<\/p>\n
Conservative governments in Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory have also declined to sign up to the buyback.<\/p>\n
Western Australia has already run its own gun buyback and has no plans for a second scheme linked to the Bondi attack.<\/p>\n
In Victoria, regionally based former premier Jacinta Allan had previously baulked at joining the national buyback, denting Canberra\u2019s hopes of broad state participation.<\/p>\n
Her resignation and replacement by Ben Carroll has created uncertainty ahead of the November 28 election as the new premier weighs how far to go on firearms.<\/p>\n
The stand-off has revived comparisons with former Liberal prime minister John Howard\u2019s 1996 post\u2011Port Arthur buyback, funded entirely by the Commonwealth through a temporary Medicare levy.<\/p>\n
Gun\u2011rights advocates say Albanese\u2019s approach falls short of that standard and unfairly targets law\u2011abiding shooters while failing to address extremism and radicalisation.<\/p>\n
Sporting shooters are among a broad range of pro\u2011gun groups attacking the post\u2011Bondi reforms at federal and state level, alongside the coalition and One Nation.<\/p>\n
In regional NSW, independent Barwon MP Roy Butler said the Minns government\u2019s approach unfairly targeted farmers and sporting shooters in his vast western electorate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that taking firearms away from law\u2011abiding people, farmers, sporting shooters, target shooters \u2013 that somehow that\u2019s going to stop terrorism or impact terrorism and extremism and radicalisation is just nuts,\u201d Butler told ABC Radio.<\/p>\n
Anti\u2011violence organisations, including the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, have welcomed the NSW buyback and continue to lobby other states to tighten their firearms laws.<\/p>\n
-with AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Australia has refused to join a planned national gun buyback, warning it will not spend state funds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-857915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}