National gun register the ‘next step’ for reform that John Howard started, Anthony Albanese says

Anthony Albanese says it was to John Howard’s ‘enduring and eternal credit’ that he legislated strong gun control. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has praised John Howard’s “courage and determination” to legislate gun control in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre and says a national firearms register would be the “next step” for the reforms that began in 1996.

Albanese will make the remarks at the National Museum on Thursday at a ceremony with Howard and Walter Mikac, who lost his wife and two daughters at Port Arthur. The ceremony will mark correspondence between Mikac and Howard entering the museum’s collection.