Charles Croucher: 9News Australia Correspondent on the Bondi Beach Shooting

The Bondi Beach massacre has propelled the Australian Government to overhaul its already-tough gun laws.  

Sixteen people died and dozens were injured when two shooters opened fire on a Jewish gathering on Sunday night in what's been labelled a terror attack.  

Now 26 victims remain in hospital, with six fighting for life.  

A 24-year-old suspect is also in hospital under police watch while his 50-year-old father, who's also believed responsible, died at the scene.  

The older man had been a licensed firearms holder for about a decade and owned six registered firearms. 

9News Australia correspondent Charles Croucher told Heather du Plessis-Allan the federal government now wants to cut down the number of guns a person can own and conduct more regular checks on those with licences.  

He says it also wants to restrict gun ownership to Australian citizens only. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi has announced tougher gun laws
following the Bondi terror attack. Charles Croucher is Channel nine's
chief political leader, sand is with us Morning Charles Morning. Ever, Okay,
what are we talking about here? Limiting the number of guns,
checking gun owners more regularly.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yeah, that's the two headline ones, particularly following one of
the attackers that appears to have not only just been
a license gun owner, but owned six licensed guns. Now,
the argument from the Prime Minister and the state premiers
is that's just too many without justifiable reasons. So that
will be part of the restrictions, cutting down on the
number of guns someone can known. There's also be more

(00:37):
regular checks on those with licenses. And one other sort
of element God added towards the end of the discussions
in National Capet yesterday, was you have to be an
Australian citizen rather than just resident to become an Australian
gun owner.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Interesting. Okay, what are the questions that are likely to
be asked about the competence of the intelligence agencies here?

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, it's a couple of questions. Firstly, what was missed,
If anything was missed Mike Burgess, our AZO, that is,
our secret intelligence organization boss has been warning about the
potential for anti Semitic attacks for a while now our
terror threat level. Was it probable? But the question is
how do you were their red flags? Were there anything

(01:19):
of interest among these two men? One of them had
been investigated for some peripheral peripheral links to Islamic State,
but that's six or seven years ago. So did they
drop off the radar? Were the checks not frequent enough?
And then clearly there was planning that went into this.
Is it something that was just known by the two men,
what to the rest of their family know and their associates, colleagues, etc.

(01:43):
And then obviously the big challenge how to prevent something
like this happening again? I mean New Zealand is all
tool where sadly of the confusion that happens in the
event like this, and the not not blame game, but
just the questions that are left unanswered of how well
in countries like ours people can be driven to such

(02:04):
hate and such horrible actions.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
How much trouble is Anthony Albinizi and his government and
for sitting on that anti semitism and envoys report for
about six months and doing nothing.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
It's a flashpoint. I mean there was a couple of
changes made. I went through a Jillian Siegel's report again
yesterday to see if there were anything in there. The
question that can't be answered by particularly those really critical
of the Prime Minister at the moment, is what actual
change could have been made that could have prevented this.
There is a discussion of greater infrastructure and greater protection

(02:37):
around Jewish institutions, given this Huneker event was happening in
an unusual place in a park. Effectively, this is a celebration.
Could security have been better, clearly it could have, but
even that wasn't a specifically spelled out in the envoys reports, Sook.
There will be big questions. I mean that the number

(02:57):
one job of the governments to keep their citizens safe
and that is failed this time around. Whether there is
a long lasting impact on the Prime Minister not, But
it will be largely defined by what the actions are
taken in the coming days and weeks. And I think
beyond all the tragedy, the Prime Minister was fully aware
of the yesterday when he called that many national cad

(03:21):
in terms of a response in gun laws for the
gold standard demonstrating was John Howard response to Port Arthur
a generation ago, where the semi automatic rifles were banned.
So I think that's what everyone's expecting. Something similar this
time around, where there is the scope to do something
as bold. It's probably not, but some action, some effort

(03:42):
to prevent this from happening again, is necessary.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Charles is good to talk to you. Thank you so much.
Look after yourself. That's Charles Croucher, nine News Chief Political Editor.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
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