After the Bondi Beach attack, Sydney and Canberra moved fast: promises of tighter gun laws, faster registers and tougher eligibility checks.
That’s the part everyone sees.
What matters next is what happens after the cameras leave because the impact won’t be felt in a ministerial media room. It will be felt in places like Tamworth, Gunnedah, Inverell, Narrabri and Moree, where firearms can be tools of work as well as sport.
So this isn’t “someone else’s issue”. It will shape how people in our patch experience licensing, compliance, and policing.
What is on the table
A lot of options are being floated, including limits on open-ended licences, caps on how many firearms a person can have, tighter rules on types and modifications and restricting permits to Australian citizens.
NSW Police said one of the alleged gunmen was a licensed firearms holder, with six firearms licensed to him.
Prime Minister Albanese said people’s circumstances can change and that licences should not be in perpetuity.
NSW Premier Minns has said the state is looking at reforms and has argued against permanent licensing settings.
The part Sydney sometimes misses
Out here, people don’t talk about firearms in the abstract. We talk about what they’re for.
Service NSW lists genuine reasons for a firearms licence, including primary production, business or employment and sport shooting. It also states self-protection is not a genuine reason.
Most people in the region understand that line, even when they don’t like it. The political job now is to reduce risk without treating legitimate rural users as a social problem.
That’s where “tougher laws” can go wrong.
A blanket cap on numbers might sound neat at a press conference. In practice, it can hit primary producers, professional pest controllers, sporting shooters and collectors in very different ways.
It is the same with “genuine reason” reforms. If the settings don’t match how work is actually done in the bush, the result is not better safety – it is more red tape for people who were never the threat in the first place.
Risk checks need to work in small towns
Regional towns run on relationships. That’s a strength… but it also makes reporting concerns hard.
In September 2025, I emailed the NSW Police Firearms Registry to raise a public-safety concern about a person I believed may have access to firearms. I asked police to assess whether the person held a NSW firearms licence and to take appropriate risk-management action if needed.
That experience sits alongside the question people keep asking after Bondi: if warning signs show up, do they trigger meaningful checks or do they disappear into silence?
NSW audit reporting on firearms regulation notes the registry has enforcement tools, including suspension and revocation of licences, and it calls for clear guidance on proportionate enforcement.
In plain terms: the system can act. Public confidence depends on whether it does act and whether it can explain its standards without breaching privacy.
If policy is being rewritten, regional communities should insist on:
- Smarter licensing, not louder politics – stronger periodic reassessment, clearer triggers for review and better integration of relevant intelligence with safeguards.
- Fair rules for rural use – protect legitimate primary production pathways while targeting accumulation and high-risk access.
Bondi has created momentum for tougher laws. The regional test is whether “tougher” becomes “smarter” – and whether safety improves without widening the policing net onto people who were never the threat.
Dean Foley grew up in Gunnedah and later served as an analyst in the Royal Australian Air Force before founding Barayamal, an Indigenous business accelerator. He is a contributor to the New England Times covering Indigenous Affairs, procurement and community-led economic development.
Got something on your mind? Go on then, engage. Submit your opinion piece, letter to the editor, or Quick Word now.
And what will they do about the black market of illegal weapons? Probably nothing!
If anything it’s only going to make them more desirable
Australia has an immigration problem not a gun problem typical knee jerk reaction from these morons
David Thompson the problem is not the current gun laws, the problem is those that are paid to enforce them. Under the current gun laws he should never have been given a gun license. So tightening gun laws will make no difference if those being paid to enforce them are not doing their jobs according
Graham Bullock yes but isn’t that still a gun law problem? There is a law, but it is not enforced? So the law does not work.
Sadly, I predicted that day would come years ago, but thought it would be via a more cohesive terrorist cell, not two cowardly radicalised animals who had legal guns!
David Thompson, no it’s a case of the government shifting blame again.
If they had actually done their job it never would have happened.
Much easier to blame all other firearms owners though isn’t it.
David Thompson By that logic, the new laws won’t work either…
We need to truly enforce the laws we have.
A firearm offence is a 15 yr gaol term but never hear anything
Enforcement of the laws already in place would have prevented this terrorist attack,,,, more gun laws won’t do a damn thing,, just like albo and his team of yes men that follow him around.
Wrong, there were, and still are gun laws that should have prevented the terrorist attack from happening,, we have a government problem, , if the laws that already exist were enforced, this would not have happened.
David Thompson #factcheck he was a resident, had been for nearly 20 years. The son was investigated by ASIO but was never on a radar or watchlist.
If they come from another countrie no fire arms lic to be issued for any one over the age of 16 for 70 yrs
Nothing wrong with gun laws we got ,why do this? People kill people even though guns were used,so is the gov and police going to ban cars for running over people killing people, run into other cars cars loose control roll over kill people ,ao should ban cars then too!because a car kills people!as said befor cars kill people ,but havent ban cars from people
Police are quick to say how many guns etc they had
Do they realize they gave them the license and the guns after been told there was a risk
Grant Gaskell and that the shotgun should have been a class c not b firearm but slipped in due to a technicality l interesting to see who owns the import licence!!
Knee-jerk reaction targeting the lowest hanging fruit as usual.
Focus should be put on the intelligence failures, rather than chasing emotive brownie points from the general public who is not adequately informed of the current firearm legislation and more than adequate controls.
Failing to use current legislative powers is not an excuse to introduce more.
The police have so many laws how would they know what they are?