Queensland rejects key Bondi report recommendation as Albanese’s gun buyback flounders

State’s police minister says buyback ‘doesn’t focus on keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists and criminals’, leaving NSW only clear supporter of plan

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Queensland has rejected key recommendations from the Bondi royal commission’s interim report, insisting plans for a national gun buyback will not keep weapons “out of the hands of terrorists and criminals”.

The report, handed down by commissioner Virginia Bell on Thursday, raised doubts about whether efforts to establish a national gun register after the 2022 police killings at Wieambilla in Queensland had been “unduly leisurely”. Bell recommended the federal government and the states speed up a jointly funded weapons buyback scheme.