NSW Firearms Buyback: A Workable Alternative

Phase 1 of the NSW firearms buyback opens on Monday 2 November. NSW Police will run it through a small number of police stations at first, by appointment, at a time when the Firearms Registry finalised under a quarter as many permits in June as it did in December and permit waits are running past 140 days. We do not believe it will work as designed. We have put together a proposal for MPs across the parliament that would remove more firearms, at lower cost, using the network that already does this job: licensed dealers and clubs. This post sets out what we are proposing and why.

Where things stand

The Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2025 limits most licence holders to four firearms (ten for primary producers and some sporting and professional shooters), moves straight-pull, pump-action and button- or lever-release firearms to Category C, caps magazine capacity for Category A and B firearms, prohibits belt-fed firearms, cuts licence terms to two years and makes club membership mandatory for most licence holders. The Government estimates up to 274,000 registered firearms, about a quarter of the state's total, are affected.

On 16 September a motion to disallow the buyback regulation failed in the Legislative Assembly. On 19 September the NSW Liberals announced that, if elected in March, they would freeze the buyback until a commission of inquiry has reported, and scrap the caps for primary producers and competition shooters with a demonstrable need. So there are two positions on the table: run the scheme as designed, or freeze it and hold an inquiry. Ours is a third: fix the design before it opens on 2 November.

Why the current design will not deliver

Capacity. The Police Minister told Budget Estimates the buyback will open through a few police stations or districts only, with appointments booked through Service NSW, to pressure test the Gun Safe system. Every police station by early 2027 is hoped for, not committed.

The Registry. Police's own figures show permit to acquire finalisations fell from 8,849 in December 2025 to 2,062 in June 2026, and average processing time went from under nine days to nearly 90. Dealers are now seeing waits of 140 days and more, and collector applications have been reported at 270 days. The Government is putting more than $42.8 million into the Registry over ten years, but the buyback starts on 2 November, and this is the agency that will run it.

The amnesty has stalled. Hand-ins under the permanent amnesty are down about 30 per cent on the Registry's own figures. The reason is structural. The amnesty worked because an unregistered firearm could be brought to a dealer, registered and kept. The new limits removed that option and the permit backlog removed what was left. Immunity from prosecution was never the incentive on its own. With registration gone, compensation is the only lever left to get those firearms out of sheds.

Surrender points are closing. Dealers take in almost 80 per cent of amnesty firearms. Firearm sales have more than halved since December, from about 5,000 to 2,000 a month, and dealers are closing. Every closure is a surrender point lost, and a compliance point lost: every sale and transfer in NSW goes through a dealer and is recorded in Gun Safe. Dealers and clubs are the field network the Registry relies on for its records and its monitoring.

Cost. Up to 274,000 registered firearms at $450 to $1,000 each is a bill in the hundreds of millions to collect firearms from people who have passed every check the State applies. The same money spent on firearms nobody is checking removes more risk.

What we are proposing: surrender through licensed dealers

Every participating dealer becomes a surrender point from 2 November, alongside police stations, using the Gun Safe portal dealers already use for amnesty hand-ins and disposals. No Service NSW appointment; the dealer books it. Three streams:

• Registered firearms handed in voluntarily, including reclassified firearms: the announced schedule rates, unchanged.
• Unregistered firearms and prohibited items: accepted on existing amnesty terms (no questions on provenance, protection from possession offences) with a flat $250 disposal payment per functional, factory-made firearm. Nothing is paid for home-made or 3D-printed firearms, deactivated items, replicas, parts or ammunition, which are still taken for destruction. The same terms apply to amnesty items already sitting with dealers awaiting collection, with payment to the dealer.
• Dealer stock: stock made unsaleable by reclassification or prohibition, bought at invoiced landed cost; and registered firearms handed in and then abandoned by their owners, now carried on dealer books, bought at schedule rates.

The dealer inspects the item, records make, model, calibre and serial number with a photograph in Gun Safe, and issues the receipt. The State pays the owner directly; dealers carry no float and receive a $50 handling fee per item, settled weekly. Police collect within 14 days. Destruction is Commonwealth-funded, as already agreed. Integrity comes from serial checks against the register and stolen-firearm records, payment only on Gun Safe lodgement, a photograph of every item, Registry referral for anyone handing in more than five items, and Registry audit sampling of dealer lodgements.

The cost is small. If 20,000 unregistered firearms came in at $250, that is $5 million. Handling fees on 60,000 items come to $3 million. The current scheme's registered stream, at an average of about $850 across 274,000 firearms, is in the order of $230 million. The dealer stream costs about what the current scheme pays for 10,000 registered rifles, and reaches firearms the current scheme cannot.

The limit: waive it, or make it open-ended

Every firearm in NSW is already tied to a licence category, a genuine reason, a permit to acquire and storage requirements police can inspect. A number adds no check to that process; it only removes lawful firearms from people who have passed every check. Genuine reasons compound: a hunter uses different calibres for different game, a competitor shoots several disciplines under different rules, a professional pest controller works different jobs by day and by night. Four, or ten, does not describe any of them.

Two forms work. Either the numerical limit goes and the existing genuine-reason and storage tests govern every acquisition, or a default number stays but is open-ended: any licence holder may hold further firearms on demonstrating a genuine reason for each, decided by the Registry against published criteria within a set time, with the decision reviewable.

The open-ended pathway works with mandatory club membership, not against it. A firearm justified by a discipline is a firearm tied to a club, and clubs record membership and participation the Registry can see. Owners drawn into clubs by their genuine reason are under more monitoring, not less. Dealers and clubs are the Registry's extension into the community. That network needs to be built on, not broken down.

Either way, the compulsory surrender of up to 274,000 firearms, and most of its cost, falls away. Owners who want to hand firearms in still can, at schedule rates.

Three fixes that make the rest workable

• A permit service standard. The 28-day wait for a first firearm stays, as the National Firearms Agreement requires. A current licence holder acquiring a further firearm within category gets the permit within two business days through the dealer portal. Ten business days for everything else, with performance published monthly.
• The Queensland model for non-citizens. Since 3 August, Queensland has restricted licences to citizens but kept non-citizens eligible where their genuine reason is sport or target shooting or an occupational requirement, with the licence limited to that reason. NSW already accepts the principle in its carve-out for New Zealanders working in primary production and security. Adopting Queensland's approach keeps permanent-resident club members and professional pest controllers licensed, on tighter conditions than they held before.
• Bring NSW-only rules into line. NSW prohibits firearms on appearance, on stock design and for having a moderator attached, and now caps Category A and B magazines. Some of these go further than other states, which is why some rifles imported for sale elsewhere in Australia are prohibited here. The Commonwealth is building a national firearms register, and rules that change at every state border work against it. The ask: remove the appearance and stock-type prohibitions, give pest controllers and primary producers a workable permit pathway for sound moderators, and align magazine rules with the National Firearms Agreement.

What stays, and what the Government gets

The two-year licence term, mandatory club membership, the reclassification of straight-pull, pump-action and button- and lever-release firearms and the citizenship principle all stay. What the Government gets is more firearms out of the community than the current scheme can deliver, including the unregistered ones it cannot reach at all; a lower, demand-driven cost with Commonwealth co-funding and destruction funding unchanged; a surrender network drawn from up to 550 licensed dealers, open on 2 November instead of a handful of police stations; a Registry that can return to licensing; and a compliance network of dealers and clubs strengthened rather than thinned.

What you can do

If you are affected by the limits or the reclassifications, talk to us before you surrender or sell anything: call the store on (02) 9882 2689, or read our legislation update and FAQ. If you belong to a club, put this in front of your committee. If you agree with it, send it to your local MP. The full proposal is available on request. The buyback opens on 2 November, and there is still time to fix it.

Aubrey Sonnenberg, Magnum Sports