SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER
MINISTER FOR FINANCEMINISTER FOR WOMEN
MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE
MINISTER FOR GOVERNMENT SERVICES
SENATOR FOR THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC BREAKFAST
TUESDAY, 16 DECEMBER 2025
SUBJECTS: Gun control, National Firearms Register, funding for security agencies
ROSS SOLL, HOST: So, late yesterday, the meeting of all the national leaders, the state and territory leaders and the Federal Government, they have agreed to revisit our gun laws here in Australia because obviously there’s some questions being asked about are they fit for purpose? There was also yesterday a gathering of the National Security Committee to talk about where we’re at and how all this happened on Sunday night. Katy Gallagher, of course, is our ACT Labor Senator. She’s also on the National Security Committee and she’s joined us on the breakfast program this morning. Senator Gallagher, good morning to you.
FINANCE MINISTER, KATY GALLAGHER: Good morning, Ross.
HOST: Do you back, I mean, obviously, just judging from what people are saying, our gun reform, our gun laws need revisiting. Do you agree?
GALLAGHER: Well, I think the discussion in National Cabinet yesterday showed that we need to accelerate the work that’s been happening under the National Firearms Agreement. So, there has been agreement in place. The Commonwealth has funded the National Firearms Register, or large parts of it, particularly for small states, to make sure we have better systems there. But the agreement out of National Cabinet yesterday agreed that we need to accelerate and look at issues that have been highlighted by the terrorist attack at Bondi.
HOST: Yeah. Can you think of any reason why anybody would need six guns, especially if they’re not living on a farm or a station?
GALLAGHER: I think it’s a totally legitimate question, Ross. I think when people have been given that information from one of the attackers, one of the gunmen, that it is hard to get your head around why someone would need that type of weapon and that many of those weapons. And so National Cabinet yesterday dealing with that, they do want to look at the type of weapons and the limits on weapons and also this important point of having a time-limited licence like we do for our driver’s licences and things like that, not an open-ended licence that once you get that, that means you, you have it until you, you don’t. So, I think there’s a lot of issues there and then there’s some things that they’re largely state matters, they regulate that side of things. And so the Premiers have agreed on a process there and then I think there’s some things the Commonwealth needs to do which the PM outlined last night.
HOST: Well, front and centre, I think, is the National Firearms Registry, which seems to have been taking forever to get. I mean surely there must be a sense of urgency now that this needs to be done?
GALLAGHER: Well, absolutely, and I think from my memory we put about $160 million into that about a year ago, which was really to help build the national system, the IT system. I think from memory when I was dealing with that as Minister for Finance and we were looking at it, some of the systems, or at that time, were paper based as well. So the idea behind the funding was to really get a move on with building that IT system essentially that needs to feed into all of those state systems. So, I know these things always sound easier than they are, that they prove to be because usually you’ve got, under our federation, we’ve got state-based systems, they’re all a bit slightly different and we’ve decided to build a national system which everyone has agreed to, but we need to build the IT system to facilitate that.
HOST: Yeah, we will be talking to Andrew Barr after 8.30 this morning just about the laws here in the ACT and I understand a couple of areas which might be of interest is that we still have a paper-based registry here in the ACT, which is a little bit surprising. And also a few people have pointed out on the text line this morning that once you get licence here in the ACT, you can have as many guns as you want, which again, I think we’ll, we’ll chat with about that to Andrew Barr. Just on.
GALLAGHER: Yeah, just on that.
HOST: Yeah.
GALLAGHER: Like I think WA might be the only jurisdiction that’s limited gun licences. So, I don’t think the ACT’s an outlier...
HOST: Yeah. That’s weird though, isn’t it, Katy? I mean, why. Fair enough. Okay. I think you could mount an argument. Okay. If you are, if you’re a recreational shooter, if you like going out and doing that then yeah, okay, maybe you could have one gun. In what world do we think, yeah, okay, now you’ve got your licence, get as many guns as you want. I mean that to me just seems quite ludicrous.
GALLAGHER: Well, I think the limits is definitely something that the National Cabinet has agreed on and WA has led the way on that in terms of they’ve done it most recently. I think people, you go back and have a look at these things. Agreement was reached about having a licencing system. At that point in time people didn’t turn their minds to limits on it because every gun had to be licenced and that was the kind of check and approvals. But totally agree. On the, on the paper-based systems it does seem that the smaller states, are the ones where some of those big ICT builds, to be honest, and I’ve been Chief Minister so I get this, things are difficult to fund when you’ve got a whole range of other priorities. And that’s why the Commonwealth has come in a year ago and said, look guys, we want to build this system and we’re going to put the money on the table to sort of alleviate some of the pressure there.
HOST: Just with your National Security Committee hat on, Katy Gallagher, when you had the meeting yesterday, was there any concerns raised about the fact that these two chaps somehow managed to sneak through the system, that they managed to elude the dragnet that’s out there to try and make sure that people who are of suspicious character are being watched closely?
GALLAGHER: So, Ross, I mean I’m not trying to not answer your question, but a couple of things. One, I can’t comment on discussions at National Security Committee. I can say that we work closely with the security agencies. They do an incredible job really when you think about how they manage and monitor threats to citizens and threats to Australia. This is obviously under active investigation and so I really don’t want to say anything that would jeopardise any of that. Obviously, you can imagine as the National Security Committee is meeting and meeting regularly. It met on Sunday night just a few hours after the attack happened. It will continue to work through things this week and we discuss all matters relating to what’s happened at the terrorist attack at Bondi.
HOST: Yeah, and I get the reasons why you don’t want to speak specifically, but The Australian’s reporting today that senior Australian Federal Police officers were warned last year that they didn’t have the resources to actively monitor people of interest and even if one of these two men had been flagged that they wouldn’t have had the resources to do it. I mean, are you aware of that, Katy Gallagher? Has that been raised as a concern?
GALLAGHER: Well, I’ve seen the reports this morning. I can’t confirm any of that, but I can say that we have, I think when you look back and have a look at the funding we have put into the AFP, to the national security agencies, to Defence, you’ll see a very strong record of responding to some of the pressures that we acknowledge exist across law enforcement in the country. We have, and we’ll continue to do that essentially. I would say as I’m going back, almost in every budget there was investment in kind of keeping Australians safe.
HOST: So, they had. As far as you’re aware, there’s plenty of resources there for ASIO and the authorities to track people of interest.
GALLAGHER: Well, what I can say is from where I sit, where we have been, we’ve found room for more resources for those agencies since we’ve come to government. It’s under active consideration all the time because we live in a very uncertain world and there’s a lot of pressures on our security agencies, on the AFP, on border protection, on all of those agencies and we find room for them. I can’t think of a budget that we haven’t put more money in across the board to make sure that we’re dealing with some of those pressures.
HOST: And can you just clarify one and you may or may not have the answer to this? Katy Gallagher, is there a responsibility on state and territory governments to inform ASIO of individuals who do have multiple guns or that have guns? Is there a line of communication there or not?
GALLAGHER: Look, I can’t answer that definitely. I think one of the issues that came out of National Cabinet yesterday was around how we ensure best practice in sharing information across the Commonwealth and the states and territories. So, I’m sure that that is something that will be looked at as well.
HOST: All right, Senator Gallagher, appreciate your time. Hopefully I think we’re going to catch up with you later in the week after the mid-year economic review, which I’m also looking chatting to you about. Thank you for your time this morning. Appreciate it.
GALLAGHER: Thanks very much, Ross.
HOST: That’s ACT Labor Senator Katy Gallagher on ABC Canberra.
ENDS
