Funded by All.
Adopted by Few.

On 21 August, the ACT and Commonwealth announced how the ACT’s part in the National Gun Buyback will be funded. The Commonwealth will pay 75 per cent of the buyback and its administration, and 100 per cent of the cost of destroying surrendered firearms; the ACT funds the remaining quarter. That makes the ACT the second jurisdiction to join, after New South Wales. But — on the Government’s own account — there is still no start date and no compensation schedule: no figure for what a surrendered firearm will be worth. The Home Affairs Minister put it plainly: “the thing that is settled is the ACT is in.”

The Commonwealth’s share is not abstract “federal money.” It is raised from all Australians — including the people of Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, and of the Northern Territory, whose governments have rejected the buyback, made no plans for it, refused to fund it, or run their own scheme and moved on. Those taxpayers will now fund half of the NSW buyback and three-quarters of the ACT’s — and, in the ACT, the entire cost of destroying the firearms surrendered. A resident of Brisbane or Adelaide, whose own government judged this measure not worth doing at home, is paying for it in Canberra.

The Chief Minister called the measure “reducing the number of high-risk firearms in circulation” — “a sensible and practical measure to help keep Canberrans safer.” But the caps do not target “high-risk firearms”; they cap the number of firearms a law-abiding owner may hold, whatever the type. About 14 per cent of the ACT’s 7,000-plus licence-holders are expected to lose firearms — and nowhere is it said what measurable reduction in harm that will achieve. The independent evidence says the benefit is unproven.

“Sensible and practical,” and “some of the strongest firearms laws in the country,” measure how hard a government is acting — not whether anyone is made safer. A scheme all Australians help pay for should be able to state the benefit it buys.

The order is back to front. The ACT has committed to the scheme, and to funding a quarter of it, before members — or the wider public — know what a surrendered firearm will be worth, or when the scheme starts. The Minister says the details will be worked through “over the next few weeks.” The Territory has signed up to the split of a total it has not yet calculated — exactly what the ACT’s own committee warned against, having recommended the full estimated cost be tabled in the Assembly first (Report 9, Recommendation 8).

Whatever compensation is finally set, the ACT’s legal position is not New South Wales’. NSW, as a State, is not bound by any just-terms guarantee and may set a fixed schedule as it chooses.

Two of the eight jurisdictions are taking part in the national buyback — New South Wales and the ACT. The other six are not: Victoria and Queensland have declined; South Australia has no plans; the Northern Territory will not fund it; Western Australia ran its own separate scheme; and Tasmania has not signed. Adopted by two, declined or avoided by six — but funded, in the majority, by all.