Police responsible for the “institutional failure” behind the Bondi terrorist attack, including the NSW Police Commissioner, must be held accountable for it, Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MLC Robert Borsak has told the state’s parliament.
“When a system fails so catastrophically that a terrorist can lawfully obtain a firearm and kill 15 people, resignation is not punishment, it’s the responsibility of those that are responsible for this failure,” he said in a speech this week.
“This terror did not appear overnight. It grew because of over two years of hatred that was allowed to fester. Warnings were ignored and government systems failed to act.”
He took aim at both the NSW and federal governments, which each rushed to enact poorly considered firearms laws and other legislation immediately after the attack.
Mr Borsak said both governments had performed “political theatre, a distraction designed to shift attention away from the institutional failure”.
“It was hardcore politics, not based on sound policy at all,” he said.
He asked how one of the terrorists had been issued a firearms licence despite existing laws having mechanisms in place to ensure the licence should never have been granted.
Managers within the NSW Police Firearms Registry, officers who ignored intelligence reports and others in the chain on command “right up to the police commissioner” should all be held to account for the attack, Mr Borsak said.
“Instead of accountability, what did this parliament see? Rushed legislation. Fear driven lawmaking. Knee-jerk crackdown on lawful firearms ownership that had nothing to do with stopping terrorism and everything to do with deflecting blame and chasing the anti-gun vote,” he said.
“We were told these laws would make us safer, but you cannot legislate your way out of intelligence failure and poor administration.”
He said the reason for the “knee-jerk” gun laws was “because it diverts attention from the real failures inside government”.
He added that the Bondi attack “was not the fault of law-abiding firearm owners or family-run firearms businesses, gunsmiths, manufacturers, importers or distributors, or indeed farmers.”
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