Gun law reforms to address calls for mental health checks, minister says

Mental health checks for gun owners are likely to be among reforms to be introduced to Queensland parliament when MPs return in a fortnight.

Police Minister Dan Purdie said the checks, one of several calls by the Wieambilla inquest, would form part of a suite of laws still being finalised by cabinet.

“Yes, we’re working through that at the moment,” Purdie said when asked at a media conference in Brisbane on Tuesday whether the checks, and nine other inquest recommendations, would be included.

While the Crisafulli government is not due to outline its response to the inquest’s findings until May, the national post-Bondi reforms have heightened pressure to act sooner.

Premier David Crisafulli has said his government would not participate in a planned national gun buyback, claiming it did not keep guns from criminals or terrorists.

Purdie remained tight-lipped about the proposed national buyback on Tuesday, declining to elaborate on the government’s reasoning, but confirmed, “it’s not about the money”.

At a separate media conference in Brisbane’s south, Crisafulli also declined to detail the proposed laws, which are also set to include an expansion of banned hate symbols in an effort to tackle antisemitism.

“We’re going to make sure that terrorists and criminals don’t have guns, and I think if we do that, the state will overwhelmingly be a safer place,” Crisafulli said.

While saying there was no room for negotiation with the Albanese government on the state’s buyback rejection, Crisafulli insisted he was “not in the game of picking a fight with Canberra”.

“There will be less guns in the community – crooks and terrorists won’t have them [guns], and they shouldn’t have them,” he said.

“And if people harbour antisemitic thoughts, and if they’ve got links with terrorists and terrorist views, they shouldn’t have one gun, not two or three or four – they should have zero.”

Opposition Leader Steven Miles has accused the Crisafulli government of placating the gun lobby and fringe elements of the LNP, while undermining national reform efforts.

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