History is dotted with decisive events that leave indelible marks on nearly everyone’s memory. The day wars are declared or end are such events, as are the assassinations of major world figures. Most people over 40 can recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when the news of President John Kennedy’s assassination was first broadcast. So momentous was that event, and so intense and prolonged was much of the Western world’s attempt to come to terms with the meaning of his murder, that it marks a special point in the memories of millions. The Port Arthur shootings seem destined to become another such event for most Australians. As one newspaper expressed it, ‘The cloth of our nation was torn across.’1

About 3pm on 28 April 1996, radio and television programs were interrupted by news flashes of a man running amok with a gun at Tasmania’s Port Arthur tourist site. Ironically, Roland Browne was at home in Hobart holding a meeting of the Tasmanian Coalition for Gun Control (TCGC). They were developing a strategy for gun law reform including semi-automatic weapons ahead of a meeting scheduled for the following Wednesday with the Tasmanian Police Minister. Even more ironically, just one month earlier the Hobart Mercury had published a letter from Roland Browne pointing out that the Dunblane massacre could easily be repeated in Tasmania, because semi-automatic weapons were so easily obtainable in that state.

32 I learned of the killings while at home in Sydney, reading and listening to a radio broadcast of a football match. The early radio reports said that several, then ten or more, had been killed. Subsequent reports added three, four or five more, with speculation mounting that the toll could go as high as 20. As the afternoon progressed, the death toll rapidly passed 20, rising to unbelievable levels which could only be compared with major bus or train crash figures. By early evening, the number of dead was 32. Three more bodies were discovered in the next two days at the burnt-out guesthouse which Martin Bryant set alight, and where he was arrested.

I sent the following release to all main media outlets at 4.39pm that day. The next day, the Coalition for Gun Control did little else but give interviews to the Australian and international media.

It is difficult to describe the frenzied interest of the media over the following weeks. Those who had been active in gun control were besieged with requests for interviews, fielding incessant calls on our mobile phones. During the occasional lull, the message bank would call and for me, instead of the usual few messages stored, there would be up to 20. For several weeks after the massacre, Rebecca was getting virtually non-stop calls on two mobile phones, a pager and three phone lines. Most of these were from journalists seeking information for articles and features. On the spot in Tasmania, Roland Browne was inundated with calls up to midnight on the day of the massacre, with calls starting again with the BBC at 6am the next day.

In the days, weeks and months which followed, the Australian mass media devoted unprecedented time and space to the incident and to the many aspects of its aftermath. For days afterwards, nearly every major newspaper devoted several full pages to the story. The event dominated radio and television news bulletins, with current affairs programs devoted entirely to news, background and analysis of the massacre, not once but several times.

It was repeatedly stated that the killings represented the worst and largest civilian death toll involving a single gunman anywhere in the world this century (‘the worst mass murder of civilians in modern times’, ‘a grotesque world record’). Comparisons were made with highly publicised massacres in the US in recent years and at Hebron, Israel, in 1994 when Baruch Goldstein shot dead 29 Palestinians.

This massacre was larger, and of all places it happened in the sleepy, sylvan backwater of Tasmania, a place psychiatrist Professor Beverley Raphael described as an ‘innocent part of Australia’. Because Tasmania seemed such an unlikely location, it lent a special sub-text to the phrase, 34‘these things can happen in the most ordinary of places’. As one newspaper put it, ‘This is the State where nothing happens … this hideaway from the worst of the world.’2 Ironically, Tasmania had the worst record of gun deaths in Australia and, significantly, the weakest gun laws in the country (see Chapter 3).

The perpetrator

From the outset, there was immense interest in the man who had committed this atrocity. In the days after the murders, dozens of articles appeared in the media purporting to provide scoops on Martin Bryant, the man accused and later convicted. Elements in the portrait painted repeatedly by the media included the claim that he had been left a large inheritance by a woman who had herself inherited a fortune; allegations of his extravagant and idiosyncratic expenditure and lifestyle; and comments on his upbringing and his relationships.3 Neighbours repeatedly described him as variously lonely, quiet or ‘like a normal person’. The West Australian’s page 1 summarised these descriptions in its opening paragraph: ‘Australia’s worst mass murderer is a rich, lonely, deluded 29-year-old social outcast, haunted by the memory of his dead father.’4 On the front page of The Australian on 30 April, a full-colour photograph of Bryant accompanied an article claiming he slept with a pig in his bed and that he ‘spooked’ people who knew him.5 The Australian subsequently admitted to re-touching Bryant’s eyes in the photograph to create an intense, glaring look.

35 Any perpetrator of such a crime could have scarcely avoided the glare of those parts of the media intent on demonising the killer. But journalists seized on particular elements of Bryant’s alleged biography in an attempt to match the killer with the enormity of the outrage. Anyone who had even the slightest acquaintance with Bryant became an unquestionable witness to his character. Dozens of people were interviewed, ranging from ex-girlfriends to neighbours and even the proprietor of a coffee shop he frequented.

For the purposes of a main focus of this book – analysing media discourse on gun control – the picture of Bryant that became the subject of countless discussions across the country was that he was insane, had given the community many opportunities to notice his eccentricities, and could have been ‘stopped’. This theme is taken up in greater detail in Chapter 6.

Repeated allegations were made about Bryant’s mental health. The Sun Herald claimed Martin Bryant ‘had slipped through the net of health authorities and police at least three times before he embarked on his killing orgy …’ The paper alleged he had a record of ‘known criminal or anti-social acts … stealing, violent mood swings and one attempt at self-immolation’. It suggested that Bryant was now suspected in previous unsolved and suspicious deaths6 and that a series of complaints about his violent nature had been ignored.7 A Daily Telegraph ‘investigation’ reported that Bryant had been ‘examined by doctors from Tasmania’s Health and Community Services and found to be suffering from a personality disorder and schizophrenia’.8 This diagnosis was repeated in a Bulletin article.9 These reports allegedly concluded that he was ‘unable to handle his own affairs and would need continuing

36 medical treatment’10 and that the Tasmanian Supreme Court had ordered a trustee company to administer his inheritance lest he squander it. As described in Chapter 6, it emerged at Bryant’s sentencing that he was not considered unfit to plead, and no details of any previous diagnoses of mental illness were revealed.

An illustration of the extraordinary effort the media made to portray Bryant as a disaster waiting to happen was the ABC’s Four Corners program on the question of whether psychiatry can predict violence in children and young adults. The program had located archival television footage of Bryant as a 12-year-old in a hospital bed, having been burnt while using fireworks. The program included the following dialogue:

This brief, commonplace response from a young boy that he would not be deterred from using fireworks again by this one incident was thus decoded into an ‘obvious’ sign of future psychopathology and brutality. If the young Bryant was asked about any pain and trauma he suffered, it was not broadcast. Four Corners saw a single reply to one question as sufficient material to formulate a diagnosis. In the rush to satisfy its line that Bryant’s actions might have been predicted, the program did not consider that the 12-year-old’s words might indicate he had in fact learnt from the incident and would be more careful in future. Apparently only a total swearing away from ever using fireworks again would have sufficed as a sign of normality.

This discourse assisted the gun lobby’s argument that those involved in gun massacres were mentally unstable, and that authorities should establish a register of such people who should be prohibited from owning or using guns (see Chapter 6). The gun lobby also focused on the culpability of doctors and the police in not controlling people like Bryant: ‘They are going to punish everybody over the actions of one man who, if the Tasmanian authorities had done their job properly, would not have been on the loose,’ said one Queensland shooter.11

Angry scenes were reported outside the Royal Hobart Hospital where Bryant was first treated for burns, as well as failed attempts by people to enter the hospital with the presumed intent of harming or killing him. The editor of Australian Gun Sports had no patience for legal process and invited his readers to: ‘Write in and describe your preferred method of punishment to be meted out to the accused massacrer at Port Arthur.’12 Reporters noted that police sharpshooters had been ‘prevented’ from shooting Bryant because he had not made any attempt

38 to escape or avoid arrest.13 These remarks were enthusiastically taken up by several talkback radio callers, who argued that in a decent, sensible society it would have been natural to shoot such a person.

Advocacy lessons

A ‘wise after the event’ phenomenon frequently follows gun massacres. Acquaintances and neighbours of these gunmen often report that they had always thought the person ‘acted strangely’ or displayed anger or odd behaviour. Reportage of these accounts rarely questions whether this behaviour was within the normal range of human behaviour or why little was ever done if it was so obviously remarkable. The gun lobby will seek to fully exploit the slightest rumour about a perpetrator’s mental health, seizing on such reports as if they were credible and official diagnoses. It is in their interests to promote the view that anyone who acts violently with a gun could have been prevented from doing so by the vigilance of the community or, more particularly, by doctors and the police. This argument attacks solutions to gun violence directed toward reducing guns in the community as inappropriate, suggesting that authorities are using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

Gun control advocates should come to expect reportage that describes gunmen as mentally unstable, followed by attempts by the gun lobby to fan this into an accepted explanation of the events. While some high profile killers have histories of mental illness, it is far more common that they do not. Advocates need to be thoroughly acquainted with the facts on the relationship between mental health and violence. Chapter 6 explores this issue in further detail.

The victims

In the few days after the killings, newspapers began to publish the names and biographical sketches of the victims. Most newspapers published

39 whole pages showing photographs of all the victims, or their names beneath photographs of bullets.14 In every respect, those killed were a cross-section of normal, ordinary citizens. Many articles reviewed the impact of the shootings on the victims’ families and friends,15 the local Tasmanian community,16 the Tasmanian tourist industry,17 health workers and counsellors,18 and Bryant’s mother.19

The Mikac family

Of all the victims at Port Arthur, three were profiled more than any others. These were Nanette Mikac and her two daughters, Alannah (aged 6) and Madeline (aged 3). They had been killed while hurrying away from the main site of the shootings. Bryant first shot Nanette Mikac and Madeline and then chased Alannah behind a tree and shot her at point-blank range. The pastor at their funeral said Nanette Mikac had ‘died trying to protect her children against impossible odds.’20 The death of the two children and the circumstances of their murder carried a particular poignancy.

Their husband and father, Walter Mikac, who had been playing golf nearby when the shootings occurred, came ‘to symbolise the tragedy at

40 Port Arthur’,21 with his grief at the memorial service the subject of most press photographers who attended.22 ‘Don’t let Walter weep in vain,’ wrote one woman, describing her own grief.23

Many reports covered the Mikac funeral,24 giving detailed descriptions of the family and its life together. A Current Affair, the highest-rating TV current affairs program in Australia, sent its anchor Ray Martin to the funeral, thus allowing the nation to attend. The words of those at the service were repeated in editorials:

Gun law reform thus became a form of community prayer – a form of absolution that the community demanded from politicians. One report published on the morning of the Police Ministers’ meeting opened with: ‘Police Ministers searching for a compelling reason to support Prime Minister Howard’s call for stronger gun control laws need look only at this haunting image of the Mikac family.’26 The illustration showed a drawing made by one of the dead girls. Weeks later Walter Mikac told the media at a NCGC press conference that after he saw the bodies of his family on the roadside, ‘I sometimes feel that maybe I should have taken a photo and sent that to [the gun lobby’s leaders] to

41 see if that made any difference. But with their methods of thinking, I somehow doubt it.’27

An Age editorial praising the 10 May Police Ministers’ agreement concluded: ‘Yesterday our political leaders honoured the wishes of the Australian people – and the memory of Nanette Mikac, her daughters, and all the other victims of the Port Arthur massacre.’28

Victims and witnesses speak up

Eyewitnesses to the shootings and those injured were also prominent in the reportage. Some survivors gave graphic accounts of the shootings.29 A woman who had much of one arm shot away discharged herself from hospital to join a Melbourne gun control march. Her photo accompanied a page 1 story in the Age.30 Relatives of the dead spoke to gun control rallies in Melbourne,31 Brisbane and Adelaide.

One of the most memorable accounts was from a middle-aged nurse, Lynne, who had attended those still barely alive in the devastation of the Broad Arrow Café.32 ABC TV’s 7.30 Report ran a lengthy interview with Lynne which was replayed many times and later won an award for excellence in current affairs TV. The interview was intensely moving and generated many letters to newspapers and extensive radio discussion.

42 In what were called instances of ‘searing intensity’ and ‘unpractised but touching speeches’,33 some of those most personally affected by the massacre spoke publicly in support of gun control, against the gun lobby34 and commented despairingly about the wavering that took place in some states after the 10 May Police Ministers’ agreement.35 After a Tasmanian politician joked in the Tasmanian Parliament about burying guns, speaking about ‘holes all around my garden’, Nanette Mikac’s father wrote to a Tasmanian newspaper: ‘I dearly wish that a certain gun, used at Port Arthur, had been placed under the ground long before we had to place my daughter and two granddaughters in that position.’ Not surprisingly, the gun lobby always failed to respond directly to the statements of victims and their loved ones, allowing the weight of their words to resonate unchallenged.

Virginia Handmer, mother of 15-year-old Dali Handmer-Pleshet, who had been shot dead by a bullet from a semi-automatic rifle in 1993, near Mudgee in New South Wales, spoke about her daughter’s killing at a CGC rally on 4 May at Hyde Park, Sydney. On the three-month anniversary of the Port Arthur killings on 28 July, survivors and relatives of the dead laid flowers on the steps of the Victorian Parliament36 and spoke at another gun control rally in Sydney. Walter Mikac spoke at the Sydney rally. Earlier in July, at his initiative, he supported the Tasmanian CGC by speaking at a press conference in Hobart when the TCGC called for a referendum should the states fail to carry out the Police Ministers’ resolutions.37 He later laid roses on the steps of the Tasmanian Parliament, while inside some conservative parliamentarians argued for loopholes in the new gun laws.38

43 Survivors of previous massacres were reported to be distressed by the Port Arthur massacre, phoning mental health hotlines at rates of up to 30 a day.39 Some were contacted for media statements. For example, Frank Carmody, who was shot five times in Melbourne’s 1987 Queen Street massacre, said of the new gun laws: ‘I think it’s really wonderful. It’s taken a long time, but at least they’ve got it all together.’40

Among the thousands who wrote to newspapers and called talkback radio programs were many who had personally suffered from gun violence in domestic situations, bank robberies and sieges.41 Typical of these was the story of a young man whose mother had been shot dead by an armed robber.42 The Sydney Morning Herald was so inundated with such letters that as well as publishing several, it ran a feature article profiling three of the writers. These included people who had been held hostage, women threatened over many years by violent husbands who menaced them with threats such as, ‘I’m leaving … I’ll shoot the lot of you’, and a teacher whose class included a girl shot in the Strathfield massacre.43 Doctors wrote about attending gunshot victims44 and about patients who had told them of threats of violence from men with guns.45 Such letters lent not only authenticity to the public debate but also a sense that gun violence was not something bizarre that happened only to ‘others’.

44

Advocacy lessons

Politicians, gun control lobbyists and the general public have a great deal to say about gun control after massacres. But people who have been injured, who lose loved ones and who survive or witness violent incidents can bring an invaluable authenticity to such comments. Journalists will do all they can to seek out such people. As one said, ‘Experts are fine, but they’re not actually a living thing.’ Gun control advocates should seek to contact survivors of shootings and relatives and friends of those who died. Through their personal tragedies, many of these people become passionate advocates for gun control. The Dunblane Snowdrop group in Scotland was formed by a group of people including some who had friends in and associations with the town of Dunblane. They collected more than 700,000 signatures after the Dunblane massacre, and are perhaps the best example of this. The views of such people on gun control will be eagerly sought by the media after public shootings or for policy debates. Advocacy groups should keep contact details of such people, noting their willingness to speak to the media.

Of course, the gun lobby occasionally convinces victims to support its cause, calling for retribution against criminals as the best solution to violence. One memorable speaker in support of the gun lobby was a former security guard, confined to a wheelchair by spinal injuries incurred when he was shot during a robbery. He proclaimed at a Sydney rally and on 60 Minutes: ‘I don’t blame the gun – the gun had nothing to do with this! I’ve never seen a gun that loaded itself!’ Gun control advocates should not therefore assume all victims of gun violence will automatically support stricter laws. Many people who have been personally affected are understandably angry about their loss and suffering and become strong advocates for capital punishment and other punitive responses. In an arena where clarity of communication is at a premium, there is a risk that their hopes for retribution can come to dominate their concern for gun control. This can place them in unwitting partnerships with the demands of the gun lobby who may seek to build explicit or implied alliances with such victims to the detriment of a gun control agenda. 45

The gun laws

The Port Arthur massacre focused the national and international spotlight on Australia’s weak gun laws. This went way beyond an examination of only Tasmania’s feeble gun laws. In a country where the laws are different in every state, the system of gun control is only as strong as the weakest link. Two days after the massacre The Australian published an article by Rebecca Peters describing the problem: 46

46 The article outlined three cardinal points needed to improve Australia’s gun laws: registration of all guns; proof of reason for gun ownership; and a ban on semi-automatics. Ten days later this was the core of what was delivered through the Police Ministers’ national agreement. This newspaper article was photocopied and circulated widely among journalists and political advisers because it summarised briefly, and in plain English, what the legal problem was and how it could be solved.

The political response

The Port Arthur massacre presented John Howard – a newly elected leader barely settled into the prime ministerial role – with his first serious challenge. It was one that had been merely hinted at in the electoral promises made only weeks before: in Howard’s pre-election televised debate with then Prime Minister Paul Keating, Howard had declared his wish to control military firearms. There were many political options available to Howard, including those taken by previous national and state political leaders responding to gun massacres. As all aspects of gun law (except importation) are state rather than federal responsibilities, Howard could have followed the example of previous prime ministers such as Bob Hawke, electing to express outrage, offer condolence and predictably urging the states to reform their laws.

In the decade before the Port Arthur killings, there had been 13 gun massacres in Australia and New Zealand which involved the death of five or more people.47 With the exception of the Hawke Labor Government’s ban on imports of military-style semi-automatics (MSSAs), prime ministers and their governments had taken little action beyond urging state reviews of laws and placing gun law reform on the agenda of various federal/state committees for discussion. For example,

47the Hawke Labor Government established the National Committee on Violence in response to the Hoddle and Queen Street massacres. The 1990 report from this committee48 recommended 25 reforms, very few of which had been taken up by any state or territory by the time of the Port Arthur shootings. By late 1995, six months before Port Arthur, the Australasian Police Ministers Council had drafted a set of resolutions for uniform gun laws which were barely stronger than the existing laws in the weakest jurisdictions.49 The resolutions had been decided after consultation with relevant ‘interest groups’, namely the gun lobby. No consultation had occurred with the public health community or any group representing the 80–90% of Australians who have consistently supported tighter gun laws.

Not down the American path …

Prime Minister Howard convened a press conference the morning after the massacre and gave strong hints that his own performance would be markedly different to previous gun law reform rhetoric. His personal commitment to overseeing gun law reform became explicit within days when he announced the emergency meeting of the Australasian Police Ministers Council.50 Howard had signalled his interest in gun law reform in one of his ‘headland’ speeches, made as Leader of the Opposition on 6 June 1995. In that speech he referred to gun violence in the United States, saying that Australia needed to ‘learn the bitter lesson of the United States regarding guns … Whilst making proper allowance for legitimate sporting and recreational activities and the needs of our rural community, every effort should be made to limit the carrying of guns in Australia.’

48 This reference to the United States became a central element of all advocacy for the new gun laws: again and again, political leaders, media commentators and ordinary people said that Australia ‘must not to go down the American path’ of gun culture and violence. Years of news reports detailing the US homicide rate, muggings, a seemingly interminable series of gun massacres, and frequent TV documentaries on American gun culture had given Australians a strong sense of America going down a violent road of no return. People who had lived and worked in the US wrote to newspapers describing the mayhem of street gunfights they had witnessed.51

The ‘down the American path’ catchcry had been used for many years by gun control groups in Australia and now it was picked up again by the Prime Minister who, along with editorial writers, made it the core explanation of his actions, repeating it many times:

There was perhaps no better sign of just how out of touch the gun lobby was with the mood of the Australian people than when it lamely sought to turn the tables on the ‘down the American path’ reference in December 1996. In an SSAA recruitment pamphlet letterboxed throughout Australia, the opening line was: ‘It’s John Howard’s gun laws that are taking Australia down the American path.’61 The pamphlet

50 stated, ‘over 20,000 gun laws in the USA … have not worked in reducing crime there.’ Curiously, the SSAA failed to mention the primary reason why the American laws have failed: they are not uniform between states or even between local council areas.

As senior Australian journalist Mike Steketee wrote: ‘The greatest achievement that can flow from Port Arthur … is that the American gun culture which is nascent in this country is eradicated; that owning a gun is a privilege, not a right; and that reducing the murder rate is more important than the contrived objections to disarming the civilian population.’62 Chapter 2 describes the extent of gun violence in the US, contrasting it with nations like the United Kingdom and Japan, which have different policies on gun control.

Leadership

From the day after the Port Arthur massacre, Howard and his Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, became the central figures advocating gun law reform. As an Age editorial expressed it, Howard began by ‘appointing himself chief spokesman for the anti-gun lobby’.63 Daryl Williams – described as ‘studious-looking and quietly spoken … not a bar room brawler’, ‘too legal, too logical, too polite, too right’ and having the gently deprecating nickname of ‘Rowdy’ – had been ‘catapulted into an alien world of pump-action shotguns, rim-fire .22s and heavy assault weapons’.64 Together, the two men stood like principled and determined Davids against the angry and threatening Goliath of the gun lobby.

With immediate and unequivocal support from the Labor party (‘The Federal Opposition will do everything it can to support the measures’65), the Greens and the Australian Democrats (which had both

51 always advocated tougher gun laws), gun control in Australia suddenly became a mainstream political priority.

The near-unanimous political support extended well into the heartland of the electorate. Many non-Liberal voters expressed their admiration for Howard and for the rare political maturity the issue had generated: ‘I have voted Labor all my life, but at this time, I have nothing but admiration for Prime Minister Howard … for once, political differences are buried by concern for the safety of Australia.’66

It is impossible to overestimate how much the leadership of Howard and Williams contributed to the successful outcome. On the night of the 10 May Police Ministers’ meeting, Howard reflected: ‘This is an agreement I don’t think that anybody would have thought remotely achievable three weeks ago or even a few days ago.’ But as his first significant political challenge, gun control became a test he could not afford to lose. This point was repeatedly noted by the media: ‘Mr Howard has staked his leadership authority on achieving nationwide gun control …’67 Equally noteworthy was his dogged resolve to see through the reforms he demanded in the face of the political risks involved. Howard’s language, and commentary describing his leadership, were spiked with aggressive and militaristic turns of phrase:

52 His performance evoked the quietly spoken schoolboy who is being cajoled and bullied but has the courage to defy all threats. The media were intrigued by Howard’s obvious personal dedication to the issue. Many reports noted his grief at the massacre: ‘Colleagues say he was clearly distraught … his eyes red-rimmed, his face still registering shock …’73 The television pictures of a plainly moved Howard confirmed his persona as an ‘ordinary Australian’. An intriguing juxtaposition was created between his reputation as a somewhat grey character and the force of his convictions on gun law reform:

Howard repeatedly claimed his demands for gun law reform came from the heartland of ‘middle Australia’. He did not hector or adopt an overt campaigning mode. Rather, his style embodied a dignified determination to see his reforms through. He avoided framing the changes he was attempting to enact as in any way radical, world-beating or pioneering. Instead, he presented them as changes any ordinary, decent

53 person would see as necessary. On the eve of the Police Ministers’ meeting, Howard stated in Parliament that his radical reform position was not ‘an ambit claim. It represents what we believe to be the collective aspiration of the Australian people …’77 In his speech on the night of the 10 May agreement, Howard stated: ‘I think we have done good work for the future of Australia today … We have done something that will send a signal to people all around this country that ours is not a gun culture, ours is a culture of peaceful cooperation.’78

As Geoff Kitney, a senior writer for the Sydney Morning Herald suggested: ‘Any backlash from gun owners will be overwhelmed by the gratitude of ordinary people who will be hopeful that the Howard reforms will give them a safer future.’79 Howard, he wrote, was ‘the ordinary people’s leader’ who had been able to achieve the agreement because he had ‘effectively mobilis[ed] the ordinary people’s power.’

Another ironic aspect of Howard’s stance was that he was first and always a conservative, anti-regulatory politician in matters of social policy. An unnamed politician said,

Howard ‘believes in deregulation and getting government out of the lives of people; yet he has just imposed some of the most restrictive and intrusive regulations ever imposed on hundreds of thousands of Australians.’81 This irony underscored the exceptional nature of the event

54 and the corresponding need for an exceptional policy response which married ‘decency’ with uniqueness. Mike Steketee in The Australian suggested: ‘This is Howard’s version of Richard Nixon’s trip to China – a pragmatic response, taken in the national interest but contrary to normal expectations.’82

This decisive action by a conservative politician caused some great amusement:

But Howard did not convince the Shooters Party’s John Tingle of his sincerity. Tingle tried to explain to shooters that Howard was in fact a far left-wing ideologue, telling the Sydney pro-gun rally on 15 June: ‘Understand this has nothing to do with guns. This is not about public health or public safety or guns. It’s a political agenda from the far left outfield. What it’s about is control!’84

Howard was not alone in abandoning his non-interventionist principles. Media personalities more commonly aligned with the political right – radio hosts like Stan Zemanek, Alan Jones, John Laws, Howard Sattler and the journalist Piers Akerman – all took a strong anti-gun position and most of them maintained it throughout the months-long aftermath of the first APMC meeting. John Laws, with Australia’s largest radio audience broadcasting to more than 2.5 million people a day, was particularly tenacious in his support and apparently received several threats from shooters.85 The rabid gun magazine Lock, Stock and

55 Barrel paid Laws the ultimate tribute by caricaturing him in Nazi uniform along with Hitler and Howard on the cover of their first post–Port Arthur issue, above the caption ‘Tyrants comparing notes’.

Journalist Geoff Kitney wrote that the leadership Howard displayed over the issue was unprecedented in Australian political history: ‘John Howard yesterday marked himself as the leader who has probably changed the nation’s future more decisively, more quickly than any prime minister before him.’ He said gun control would henceforth ‘be long regarded as the symbol of John Howard’s prime ministerial authority’.86 The Age declared, ‘Beyond question, the finest hour in the Prime Minister’s first three months in office coincided with the nation’s darkest hour.’87 These comments were mirrored in the Daily Telegraph’s editorial: ‘No matter what he does in the remainder of his term as Prime Minister, he will do no more important work than this.’88

To the Sydney Morning Herald, the decision was ‘historic’ because it ‘put public safety ahead of political self-interest’.89 It was compared to ‘the introduction of seat belts, public sewerage systems and hygiene education’.90 On 11 May The Age ran a banner headline, ‘The historic bans’, over its pages reviewing the agreement. Other comments on the portent of the decision included: ‘To the credit of the Prime Minister, Premiers and police ministers, there was no back down yesterday, no kowtowing to the noisy protests of the gun lobby …’91

‘The days of licensed gun owners assiduously assembling arsenals of weapons without any hindrance are gone.’92

56

Threat of a referendum

After the 10 May Police Ministers’ meeting, three states (Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia) and the Northern Territory became the sites of prolonged debates and lobbying that sought to weaken and relax several of the resolutions, broaden definitions and amend provisions. The proposal to allow ‘crimping’ of whole categories of guns listed for banning (see Chapter 4), became a particular point of pressure on the Federal Government.

Fearing disintegration of the national resolve, the Prime Minister threatened to hold a national referendum if all parties to the agreement failed to introduce the laws they had promised on 10 May.93 He set a deadline of 22 July for all states and territories to fall into line on the crimping issue, threatening a referendum if they failed to agree. The referendum question would have sought the electorate’s permission to alter the constitution so as to transfer the power to make gun laws from the states to the Commonwealth Government. All opinion polls indicated that in each state the majority support required for this would have been very easily obtained, particularly since the reforms had the full support of the Federal Labor Opposition. Howard thus held a very powerful card, and was volubly supported by NSW Premier Bob Carr94 who had earlier sought to transfer all gun control powers to the Federal Government. One commentator described the referendum threat as Howard ‘arming himself with the political equivalent of a nuclear weapon’.95 Knowing that a referendum would be easily won and that it would cost the community $50 million, the Northern Territory’s chief minister admitted that it would have been ‘reckless and irresponsible’ for any state or territory government to force a referendum. Howard got his way before the deadline he set.96

57 A Sydney Morning Herald editorial nonetheless suggested bluntly: ‘In some ways it will be a pity if Australians are denied the opportunity of voting … A referendum would destroy the political power of the gun lobby in this country once and for all.’97

Prime Minister in bullet-proof vest

Howard’s strong leadership on the issue was maintained throughout the months after the Police Ministers’ agreement, before the states and territories introduced their legislation. On 15 June, as the first stop on a much-publicised tour of Australia’s rural heartlands to sell the gun reforms,98 Howard spoke at a 3000-strong pro-gun rally at Sale in rural Victoria.99 On security advice he wore a bullet-proof vest underneath his suit. As he faced the crowd, who jeered and taunted him with cries of ‘Nazi’, ‘Fascist’ and ‘Heil Hitler!’, and signs reading ‘Gun Culture Safer than Canberra Poofter Culture – Only Woosies Hand in Guns’, the contours of the bullet-proof vest were plainly visible to TV and press cameras. Much was made about this being the first occasion that any Australian politician had taken such precautions and what this implied about the violent propensities of some gun owners.

The Prime Minister’s appearance in the vest inspired many letters to the press, debating whether it was a symbol of his courage, cowardice or folly.100 While the SSAA’s Ted Drane predictably described the vest as ‘an insult’,101 all editorials described his visit as ‘courageous’ and once again

58 focused on the ‘lunatic fringe’ among the gun lobby102 (see Chapter 5). One journalist observed that the incident provided a new type of courageous role model: ‘At a time when courage is in short supply and we lament the lack of role models for our young, the sight of John Howard, hands outstretched in front of a hostile crowd, was inspiring. Shortish, balding, bespectacled and physically unimposing, he didn’t look like a classic hero. But hero he is.’103 This writer also described a farmer who attended the rally on 15 June and defied the crowd by shouting support for Howard.

A public opinion poll conducted on the same weekend found that Howard’s personal popularity in country regions had risen to 66%, up six percentage points from May (also after Port Arthur) and higher than his 63% city rating.104 The next day in Federal Parliament, Howard said he would visit other rural areas:

But Howard did not undertake any more of these visits – perhaps because his advisers suggested they were unnecessary in the face of the huge public support he enjoyed.

59

They did not die in vain …

Along with ‘not down the American road’, the declaration that the Port Arthur victims ‘must not be seen to have died in vain’ became one of the most enduring clichés of the period. It captured a redemptive morality fuelled by horror at the event, anger at collusive political inertia, and the long-standing Judeo-Christian tradition of atoning for wrong-doing. The Sydney Morning Herald’s editorial on the morning of the Police Ministers’ meeting listed the moral choices facing the ministers that day: ‘The nation looks today to Canberra for statesmanship, not opportunism; for wisdom, not ignorance; for cooperation, not petty squabbling; for courage, not intimidation. Those who were slain at Port Arthur must not be allowed to die in vain.’106 An Age editorial used the same expression: ‘The 35 victims may not have died completely in vain.’107 By mid-July when there was anxiety that some states would renege on the changes, NSW Premier Bob Carr again repeated this appeal: ‘It would be simply unforgivable in the wake of Port Arthur if we don’t go for tighter gun laws. It will mean those lives were lost in vain. It’s as simple as that.’108 The Tasmanian CGC called a press conference in Hobart and Walter Mikac, the husband and father of three victims, invoked the reference too, saying, ‘To do anything else would be a betrayal of those 35 people who died that day.’109

A less sentimental comment on the cliché was run by the Daily Telegraph on the day after the Police Ministers’ meeting:

60

Brokering bipartisanship

As discussed, reportage of the Police Ministers’ agreement and Howard’s role in it invariably referred to Australia’s former political shirking of gun control. Since 1980 Australia’s police ministers had met 20 times to discuss uniform national gun laws, but as one editorial commented, ‘yet no [comprehensive national] laws are in place’.111

With the exception of Barrie Unsworth’s 1988 efforts to seriously reform gun laws, successive NSW governments, along with those in Tasmania and Queensland, had long stood in the way of a national gun control policy. Queensland and Tasmania still allowed open access to military-style semi-automatic weapons and all three states had refused to introduce registration for rifles and shotguns. (All other jurisdictions had registration of all firearms, but these three renegade states required it only for handguns, which constitute only about 5% of guns). Three days before the 1995 Queensland election, then Premier Wayne Goss did a deal with the gun lobby, promising not to introduce gun registration in return for the lobby’s electoral support.112

The Port Arthur massacre provoked immediate and passionate calls for gun law reform, many of them citing the appalling political record of inaction. The letters editor of the Sydney Morning Herald wrote, ‘Not since the run-up to the Gulf War, when people feared an apocalyptic conflict, has our mail bag been so large.’ In her weekly summary of letters received, she wrote:

Other typical comments included:

As the 10 May meeting of the Police Ministers approached, many editorials were scathing in their predictions that, yet again, no national consensus would be reached. Most described the approaching meeting as an opportunity to test political courage: ‘Rarely in a federation of sovereign States such as our nation is there an opportunity to take decisive, united action to bring about instant change for the national good.’118 Significantly, the pastor conducting the Mikac funeral on the day before the Police Ministers’ meeting stated in his eulogy, ‘To our national leaders we say, do not trade your votes for lives.’119

Four days after the massacre the front page of the Daily Telegraph showed 35 bullets, each with the name of a victim. Underneath was the statement:

62

The NSW Labor Party

After the 1988 defeat of the Unsworth Labor Government in NSW, gun control had become a political sore for the NSW Labor Party – the party in government in NSW – requiring regular band-aid applications such as highly publicised voluntary gun amnesties. Before Port Arthur the party had plainly ruled out any serious tightening of gun laws, particularly long-arm registration, due to its fear of electoral reprisal from the gun lobby. In 1995 the CGC sought a meeting with Premier Carr and his Police Minister, Paul Whelan. We met Whelan and Carr’s senior adviser and their message was unequivocal: the Labor Government would not move alone to introduce gun registration. The only possible avenue of hope lay in the remote possibility of brokering a bipartisan policy between the Liberal-National Coalition and the Government. But almost everyone we spoke to was highly sceptical that we would have any hope of convincing the National Party arm of the Coalition to support registration.

Premier Carr had gone on public record several times, both in Parliament and in the media, saying he would not consider introducing registration unless there was bipartisan support between the Government and the Opposition parties. The Liberal-National Opposition agreed: ‘The only way to provide for serious and lasting reforms on firearm ownership, if there is bipartisan consensus, is to have broad-based community support … Opposition members … encourage a bipartisan and consensus approach in the future.’ Despite both major parties thus agreeing that bipartisanship was necessary and

63even a good thing, both stood like shy brides, each refusing to take the initiative to consummate the arrangement. John Tingle noted after Port Arthur that he had ‘an assurance in writing [dated November 1994] from Bob Carr when he was Opposition Leader that … his government if it came into power would not be moving toward any kind of registration or anything else’(emphasis added).121 But Port Arthur changed this almost overnight.

On 2 May, four days after the Port Arthur massacre, Carr announced that he would introduce legislation to turn over the state’s powers to regulate guns to the Commonwealth. Carr based his reasoning on the prospect that other states would refuse to act on gun control, arguing that the issue of national laws was too important to be left to flounder while it required identical legislation to be passed by six state and two territory governments.122

We suspected that many in the Carr Government – including Carr himself – privately sympathised with gun control, but their political pragmatism forced them to appease the gun lobby. Nonetheless we were highly suspicious of Carr’s move, judging it as cynical posturing designed to make him appear tough on gun control while avoiding giving offence to John Tingle of the Shooters Party. He must have known the move would come to nothing, as it was highly unlikely that other states would want to hand powers back to the Federal Government. This would have then allowed Carr to blame other states for not having the ‘courage’ to hand over power to the Commonwealth, thereby derailing national gun law reform and allowing him to retreat behind the defence that he could not be expected to act alone. The CGC issued a press release deploring the move as buck-passing and hand-washing. Professor Charles Watson, a member of the CGC, said:

A Sydney Morning Herald journalist, Bernard Lagan, who had long reported gun control matters from the NSW Parliament, wrote an article under a particularly critical headline ‘Hairy chested and hare brained’. He contrasted Carr’s previous position on gun control with his new-found enthusiasm. Lagan wrote that Carr’s

The same criticism was never made of Howard’s motivations, probably because of his consistent position on gun control from the pre–Port Arthur period.

By the time of the 10 May Police Ministers’ conference, NSW Premier Bob Carr and Police Minister Paul Whelan had apparently converted to gun control advocacy. The CGC believes it played an important role in brokering this radical transformation. But on the Tuesday after the massacre, the NSW Labor Party was in a dither about what to do. A motion by the Left faction to toughen the party’s position was rejected in an emotional Caucus meeting. The proposer, Sandra Nori, had urged the Premier to develop a bipartisan approach with the State Opposition. Carr was reported to have rejected this in favour of his much-publicised move to hand over gun control powers to the Commonwealth Government.125

65On 4 May, six days after the Port Arthur massacre, the CGC organised a mass rally for gun control in Sydney’s Hyde Park. One of our intentions at the rally was to read out a four-point minimal position for gun law reform and to tell the crowd where the two main state political parties – the Labor Government and the Liberal-National Coalition – stood on these points:

State Parliament was sitting that week, and four CGC members – Rebecca Peters, Geoff Derrick, Charles Watson and I – first sought an appointment with the leader of the Opposition, Peter Collins. What made us seek the views of the Opposition before those of the Government? The first reason was that the Liberal Opposition seemed more likely than the Labor Government to want to appear consistent with the position being advocated by the Liberal Prime Minister. If the Opposition signed, this would put pressure on Carr and his Labor Government who had long opposed gun registration. Second, we had sent the four-point list to all State MPs and asked for their faxed responses by the Friday morning. We received responses from all the minor parties and several Labor MPs, but nothing from the Opposition. We felt we held a card that, if publicised, would be embarrassing to the Opposition and so wanted to give them an 11-hour opportunity to state their views.

We telephoned on the morning of Friday 3 May to request a meeting with Collins, which was arranged for that afternoon. Collins arrived at the meeting with National Party leader Ian Armstrong, Shadow Police Minister Andrew Tink and National Party MP Peter Cochrane. It was the first time most of us had met any of these men in our capacities as gun control advocates. After briefly explaining the aims and structure of the CGC, we pointed out that we had received no response from the 66Opposition to our four-point statement. We explained that we intended to read out a list of politicians who both supported and opposed our points at the rally the following day.

Peter Collins expressed surprise that we had not received his response – he was sure he had signed the statement. He then looked for and produced the statement, containing – sure enough – his signature. He passed it to Ian Armstrong, who (to our amazement) signed as well, without hesitation. Swiftly Collins then produced a typed list of Coalition MPs which he attached to the document, remarking airily that he and Armstrong were signing for every parliamentary member of the Coalition. To say we were speechless would be putting it mildly. Here, with little argument and no acrimony, the entire Opposition had been signed over to support gun registration and the other points in the document.

We left the building so jubilant that we momentarily overlooked trying to get the Government’s agreement. Geoff Derrick then said, ‘We’ve only got the job half done – we need Carr’s signature.’ We re-entered the Parliament building and called Bob Carr’s office, explaining to a staff member what had happened. He replied that he thought ‘the boss’ would want to know about this urgently, so would we please come up to his rooms. We gave the staffer a photocopy of the statement signed by the Opposition – having first extracted a promise not to break the news publicly – and then we were left to wait. We waited for over an hour, during which (thanks to mobile phones) we ploughed ahead with the barrage of media interviews, which were still coming thick and fast, this being just five days after the massacre. After an hour we began to get nervous: Geoff Derrick suggested, only half in jest, that the Government was holding us hostage. Eventually we were taken to meet the Premier and the Police Minister, and they both promptly signed our document.

We had brokered the long sought-after bipartisan support. For the first time in recent NSW political history, all parties had agreed to introduce the gun lobby’s bogeyman: gun registration. The next day at the Hyde Park rally, Rebecca Peters held aloft the signed agreements and declared: ‘These documents mean the end of the power of the gun lobby 67in NSW. If Bob Carr or Peter Collins or Ian Armstrong renege on this commitment … they need never ask for the trust of the people of NSW again.’126

From that day on, the NSW Government became an open supporter of gun control, taking every opportunity to present itself as a leader of national reform. On the day of the 10 May Police Ministers’ meeting – when several states were equivocating about details of the Howard plan – Carr convened a press conference where he had the temerity to refer to this obstruction to national agreement as coming from ‘the usual suspects’.127 NSW had for years, under both Labor and Coalition governments, been one of the principal states obstructing national agreements on gun law reform. But now things promised to be different.

On the eve of the 10 May Police Ministers’ meeting, former NSW Premier Barrie Unsworth chronicled in the Sydney Morning Herald Australia’s recent history of failure to achieve national gun laws. Unsworth had unsuccessfully attempted to introduce gun registration in 1988, thereby becoming a ‘scalp’ of the gun lobby. In the months after the defeat of Unsworth’s Government in 1988, the SSAA and the Firearms Advisory Council distributed a publication to all politicians titled ‘Rednecks, Reactionaries & Rambos: the true story of how a supposedly unsophisticated group of firearm owners helped bring down a government’.128 The title came from a statement made by Unsworth. The booklet gloated over the gun lobby’s alleged power in unseating the government. The gun lobby claimed its advertising expenditure during the election had been topped only by that of the two main political parties.

In the article, Unsworth attributed his failure to ‘a lack of bipartisan

68political support’ on the issue – Nick Greiner’s Liberal Opposition had opposed Unsworth’s reforms. Unsworth’s article failed to mention any of the other factors to which analysts also attributed his defeat in 1988.129 He concluded that after Port Arthur politicians were ‘now all older and wiser’130 – doubtless code for ‘not foolish enough to try and ride out this one by doing nothing’ or more optimistically, ‘at last we have a pretext to show political courage’. It was as if the outrage of the event could not sustain another moment of procrastination. One analyst suggested: ‘The devastation wreaked … had rendered gun control reform inevitable.’131

Reflecting the widespread community cynicism about politicians being soft on gun law reform, NSW Police Minister Paul Whelan (who had himself worn this accusation) said soon after the meeting, ‘But those changes had to happen on Friday – it was a litmus test for politicians.’132 Presumably the colour to be avoided was yellow. Similarly, Tasmania saw a dramatic turnaround in the Liberal Government, which still contained many of the parliamentarians who had endorsed former Police Minister Frank Madill’s decision to do nothing about military and other high powered semi-automatic weapons. Tasmania was now to have the toughest gun laws in Australia, said Premier Rundle. The Tasmanian Liberal’s U-turn mirrored that of the Labor Party’s. For years both parties had courted the redneck shooters’ vote by ignoring gun law reform. Following Port Arthur, they sang in unison with the Tasmanian Greens who were long-time gun control advocates.

The force of this discourse created a formidable definition of government as spineless and utterly out of touch with community concerns. At the beginning of his term in office, Prime Minister John Howard had the chance to reinvent himself as a model of political leadership rarely seen in Australia in recent years.

69

The National Party

The National Party presented the greatest threat to political bipartisanship across the country. Conservative socially and politically, perennially suspicious of having their interests ignored by city-dominated parliaments, the Nationals had a long and ugly record of opposing gun law reform. The Victorian Deputy Premier, the National Party’s Pat McNamara, had stood beside Ted Drane on the platform at a progun rally in Melbourne after the Cain Labor Government reacted to the Queen St massacre in 1987.133 Drane himself had formerly stood as a National Party candidate in Victoria. In 1995 Queensland’s National Party Police Minister, Russell Cooper, announced his party would give householders what the Bulletin magazine called ‘the unfettered right to shoot intruders’,134 following a series of populist articles in Brisbane’s tabloid press on the alleged rise in crime.

On the night after Port Arthur, Cooper told the 7.30 Report: ‘What I don’t want to do is one of these massive knee-jerk reactions …’ going on to explain that he didn’t support gun registration and that he wanted to see a prohibited person register ‘with the cooperation of the AMA [Australian Medical Association]’.135

The National Party’s Federal leader, Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer, fell in behind his Prime Minister and, despite being threatened with revolt in his party, consistently supported Howard’s position throughout the months of debate. Several commentators noted that Fischer was emerging as a hero in his own right, because he had far more to lose by supporting gun control than Howard did. His party’s rural seats were the main electoral targets of the Shooters Party, which campaigned vigorously against the gun laws, distributing leaflets, organising meetings and recruiting members. It was said the entire executive of at least one National Party branch resigned en masse to join the Shooters Party. Tim Fischer travelled tirelessly to country towns, explaining the

70new gun laws and dampening down the hysteria fomented by the gun lobby.

In early June, the bipartisan unity in NSW appeared to be under threat when National Party leader Ian Armstrong suddenly announced that his party did not support gun registration, something to which he had signed his explicit agreement on the CGC’s document on 4 May. Armstrong announced that he ‘support[ed] the call by the Prime Minister for a national register of gun ownership’ – that is, a record of the general fact that a person owns guns – but not a specific record of how many or what type of guns. He denied he had changed his stance, insisting this was the form of ‘registration’ he had always intended to support.136 (Unfortunately the wording used in the CGC statement was ‘registration of the ownership of all guns’. The words ‘registration of every gun’ would have expressed our intention more clearly. But since the principle of firearms registration is firmly established in other Australian jurisdictions, and even in NSW for handguns, there could never really have been any doubt about what was meant by the phrase.) The CGC attacked Armstrong’s announcement as a pathetic attempt to weasel out of his signed agreement, suggesting that, ‘Mr Armstrong may be being held captive to a hillbilly minority in the Coalition’.137 To his credit, Liberal leader Peter Collins stood firm and said the Opposition’s position was unchanged on registration and support for the full Howard package: ‘Regardless of anything that may have been said today by Mr Armstrong, I guarantee that the Howard legislation will pass through the NSW Parliament.’138

And pass it did. Chapter 7 reviews several areas where state and territory governments watered down some of the principles of the 10 May APMC agreement when it came to incorporating these into legislation. Some of these were serious departures from the agreement and reflected obvious lobbying by conservative groups. Nonetheless, most

71of the APMC package passed into laws around Australia. Port Arthur had been the catalyst for transforming political cowardice. Federal Attorney-General Daryl Williams told the 7.30 Report: ‘I think the gun lobby is now being matched by an anti-gun lobby … The people of Australia expressed their own view of this issue quite emphatically and I think that gave the political will which was previously missing.’139

There will always be speculation about whether John Howard’s resolve over gun law reform was opportunistic, or whether he would have been as resolute had the massacre occurred at a less politically ‘safe’ time. Howard’s March election victory had been sweeping, giving him the confidence of huge electoral support. But would Howard have been so bold if the massacre had occurred toward the end of his first term as Prime Minister? Or if he had not enjoyed such a large parliamentary majority? Liberal-National parties were also in power in seven out of eight Australian states and territories. This allowed Howard, as Liberal leader, a huge advantage in dealing with state premiers who shared much of his political philosophy. Would the Federal Opposition have taken the same action if it had still been in power, with the same political situation prevailing in the states? Some have speculated that the coincidence of Bryant’s rampage with the first weeks of Howard’s sweeping political victory created a ‘now or never’ situation for gun law reform: even a massive backlash from shooters would not be sustained throughout a three-year political term. By this analysis, Howard had little to lose but everything to gain by stamping his mark of strong leadership on the community as his first major political act as Prime Minister.

On the first anniversary of Howard’s prime ministership, a national poll asked respondents to rate 19 different issues in terms of how well the Howard Government had handled them. Only the handling of two issues – interest rates (55%) and gun control (63%) – was rated by more than half the respondents as ‘good/very good’. The mean ‘good/very good’ rating across the 19 issues was only 27.5%.140 Almost a year after

72Port Arthur, it seemed that no other issue could come close to gun control in community approval ratings.