Gun owners would face limits on the number of firearms they could hold and licences would only be issued to Australian citizens under tougher new controls to be considered nationwide after the Bondi beach terror attack.
State leaders agreed to strengthen gun laws across the country after Anthony Albanese convened an urgent meeting of national cabinet on Monday afternoon following the worst terrorist attack in Australian history.
Speaking on Monday night, the prime minister said the father and son who allegedly committed the atrocity were not part of a wider terror cell but were motivated by an “extreme perversion of Islam”.
He also stood by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) after revelations it had investigated the son in 2019, and interviewed his father, but deemed he wasn’t a threat.
“They determined that there was no evidence of this person planning or considering or, indeed, promoting any act of violence or any act which could be deemed to be anti-Semitic, targeting the Jewish community, which is what occurred. So that investigation went for six months, and that is a determination that they made,” he told ABC’s 7.30 program.
The attack at the Chanukah by the Sea celebration on Sunday night was Australia’s deadliest mass shooting since Port Arthur in 1996, which prompted the Howard government to introduce some of the strictest gun control laws in the world.
“This is different from Port Arthur,” Albanese said.
“Port Arthur was someone engaged in random violence against people. This was targeted. This is ideologically driven. And therefore, is a different form of hatred and atrocity.”
National cabinet also pledged to “eradicate anti-semitism, hate, violence and terrorism”, as the prime minister faced pressure from the federal opposition, Jewish leaders and his own anti-semitism envoy, Jillian Segal, to do more to stamp out acts of anti-Jewish hate.
Albanese was also criticised by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he warned his Australian counterpart that recognising a Palestinian state would fuel anti-semitism. The prime minister rejected that claim, noting most countries recognised the need for a two-state solution in the Middle East.
At least 15 people, including a 10-year-old girl, were killed and more than 40 wounded after a father and son, Sajid Akram, 50, and Naveed Akram, 24, allegedly opened fire on the Hanukah celebration.
The older man was shot by police and died at the scene, while the 24-year-old suffered critical injuries and was taken to hospital under police guard.
The alleged gunmen are suspected of carrying out the terrorist attack using weapons that were registered to the father. The father owned six weapons, four of which were seized at the scene in Bondi.
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, confirmed the father was not an Australian citizen, having arrived in Australia on a student visa in 1998 before transferring to a partner visa in 2001. He has travelled overseas three times since on a resident return visa.
Under new gun laws to be developed by police ministers and attorneys general across the country, only Australian citizens would be able to hold a gun licence.
There would be limits on the number of firearms an individual could own and new restrictions on “open-ended” licensing and the types of guns that are legal, including modifications.
The premiers and chief ministers agreed to fast-track work to establish the national firearms register, which is not due to start until 2028.
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said state parliament would be recalled as soon as possible to strengthen gun laws, including to ensure firearm owners have to renew their licenses.
“I’m determined to introduce the toughest gun legislation in the country and I believe it needs to be passed and put into legislation as soon as possible,” he said.
It emerged on Monday that Naveed Akram – who is an Australian citizen – came under the attention of the Australia Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) for six months in 2019 because of people he was allegedly associating with.
Earlier, the New South Wales police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, would not comment on ABC reports that Naveed was identified in a 2019 counter-terror investigation involving an Islamic State cell, nor on reports claiming a manifesto or black Islamic State flag were found in the car driven to the scene by the alleged attackers.
The former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who is Jewish, said there had been “failures across the board” from intelligence agencies.
“What were the warnings that were missed,” he told ABC’s Afternoon Briefing.
Speaking on 7.30, Albanese said Naveed was investigated because of his connection to two people who subsequently went to jail. His father was also interviewed as part of that investigation but Asio found no evidence of radicalisation.
The prime minister, the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, and the governor general, Sam Mostyn, were among the dignitaries to visit Bondi on Monday, laying flowers at a makeshift memorial as thousands gathered to mourn the victims.
Albanese said the mass shooting was an “act of pure evil, an act of terror”, promising to dedicate “every single resource required” to eradicate antisemitism in Australia.
Ley claimed “antisemitism in Australia has been left to fester” under Labor, urging the prime minister to implement the recommendations from Segal’s plan to combat anti-Jewish hate.
The envoy’s recommendations, which were released in July, called for tougher legislation on antisemitic conduct and protest activity, tougher screening of visa applications, terminating funding to universities and arts institutions failing to take action against antisemitism, and a plan to “monitor media organisations … to avoid accepting false or distorted narratives”.
The government has yet to formally respond to Segal’s recommendations, as well as separate recommendations from its envoy against Islamophobia, Aftab Malik.
Segal said Albanese and Minns were right to condemn antisemitism, but demanded more action.
“Calling it out is not enough. We need a whole series of actions that involve the public sector and government ministers, in education in schools, universities, on social media and among community leaders, community activities. It has got to be a whole society approach,” she told Guardian Australia.
