TRANSCRIPT:
Last year, police constables Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow, along with neighbour Alan Dare, were shot and killed at Wiemballa, a rural property in Queensland.
Their deaths reinvigorated a push for a national register of guns.
Now, the government is making it happen - as the nation marks the 28th anniversary of the tragedy that was the original catalyst for Australian gun reform: the Port Arthur massacre.
Attorney General Mark Dreyfus.
"This National Firearms Register will help ensure that police know what guns are in the community, where they are and who owns them... The National Firearms Register will help connect Commonwealth, state and territory firearms information and share it in near real time with state police departments across the country."
The Albanese government will spend just over $160 million over four years to establish the register by 2028.
The investment will be in partnership with every state and territory government in Australia, who all agreed to the move in their last national cabinet meeting in December.
And like the original firearms agreement, the national gun register also has broad federal bipartisan support.
For Liberal M-P Dan Tehan, it's better late than never.
"This has been something that we have been working on for a long time. And the fact that all states and territories have come on board is very welcome."
Dan Tehan says the Coalition would prefer to see the register implemented in a shorter time-frame.
"Obviously we'd love it to be in place tomorrow but it's getting the systems together from each state and territory and being able to bring those systems together nationally - and that takes time."
Mark Dreyfus says there's a lot of work involved in creating the new database.
"It's going to take four years because of the complexity that I mentioned. You've got some states that are moving from paper-based systems to digital. This will be a digital system. Other states are more advanced. And there's a complexity about getting all those systems to talk to each other. There's a complexity around the upgrades that we need."
But while the new register has been widely welcomed, there are questions about why it's taken so long to introduce.
Gun expert Rebecca Peters told SBS in 2021 that there had been concerns since Port Arthur about loopholes in the national firearms agreement, and states making amendments to their gun laws.
"In different jurisdictions they've begun to chip away at the laws. And also some of the gaps that were originally there have become more apparent."
John Howard, who drove the original post Port Arthur reforms, said that wasn't the case.
In remarks given on the 25th anniversary of the Port Arthur massacre, the former Prime Minister said there have been no significant changes, and support for strong and significant gun laws remains as strong as ever.
"I don't think any state government would be game to bring about change - and not that I am suggesting they want to - but I think the public is so convinced that these changes helped."
Individual states have maintained that they remain committed to safety.
In 2023, Western Australia proposed an historic overhaul of gun laws that would see a limit imposed on the number of firearms any one licence holder can own.
Police Minister Paul Papalia said at the time that the change was driven by a sharp increase in gun ownership across the state - and concerns around theft.
"The bottom line is that since 2009, when our system for licensing firearms was changed, Western Australian firearm numbers have increased by something like 60 percent... In the last five years, 1,769 firearms have been stolen in Western Australia. That's an equivalent of one a day."
Mark Dreyfus has taken a similar view on safety.
He says while this new register won't pick up on illegally owned firearms, Australia's gun laws have always been about protecting people from harm.
The Attorney-General says it's taken almost three decades to introduce this latest reform simply because of the complexity of the task.
"It's fair to say it took three decades because this was a complicated piece of the puzzle. Each state and territory is responsible for their own firearms laws. Each state and territory has quite different arrangements for registration of firearms, licensing, and it's taken this long to get all state and territory governments... A catalyst was the shocking events at Wiemballa."
