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| ISBN-13: | 9781742244433 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | UNSW Press |
| Publication date: | 12/01/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 463 KB |
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CHAPTER 1
A DAY LIKE NO OTHER
When Prime Minister John Howard woke on the morning of Sunday 28 April 1996, the new Coalition Government was still finding its way. It had been a tumultuous few months for the prime minister and his inexperienced ministerial colleagues. When the election campaign began in January of that year, the major parties presented the people with a stark choice. Paul Keating and John Howard were dominant party leaders with a clear sense of where they wanted to take the country. Labor strategists knew Keating was disliked by large sections of the electorate but they hoped the public's respect for his political leadership would prevail. Liberal strategists tried to present John Howard as a man who had changed much since regaining the Opposition leadership in January 1995. He seemed more ready to listen to community sentiment, such as its desire to preserve Medicare, and more adept at handling controversial issues than when he was Opposition leader for the first time in the 1980s. Both parties decided to fight the election on the economy; Labor garnished its message with Keating's expansive national vision of social transformation; the Liberals pledged to govern for all Australians and not just the cultural elites.
During the campaign, no-one in the press or in the electorate had asked either leader about whether they were considering a new approach to regulating the private ownership of firearms. It wasn't an issue attracting any public profile although both Howard and the National Party leader, Tim Fischer, had mentioned the prospect of restrictions during the previous year and pledged to reduce the number and availability of firearms in the community. Howard had discussed the issue in the fourth of his 'Headland' speeches in June 1995 but did not include any detail or even a timeframe for action. It was merely a statement of intent. There was no pressure on the Coalition parties to change the current arrangements – unacceptable as they were to many people in the wake of several shooting sprees such as those in Hoddle Street and Queen Street in Melbourne in 1987 and Strathfield Plaza in Sydney in 1991. Farmers and sporting shooters presumed that talk of restrictions was little more than political window dressing. Essentially, Howard's and Fischer's comments would prevent any voter thinking a Coalition government might ease import restrictions on some previously restricted classes of firearm. Although Howard found the existing regulations inadequate and felt more strongly about the issue than his colleagues realised or the public knew, throughout a highly disciplined campaign he focussed on the failings of the Keating Government and on presenting the Coalition as a credible alternative.
The Coalition won a landslide victory at the March 1996 election, achieving the second largest parliamentary majority in Australian history. Standing under a banner featuring the word 'Leadership', Paul Keating conceded a defeat that had been much worse than expected. The people had lost patience with Labor and wanted change. In claiming victory for the Coalition, Howard said:
the Government that I will lead will be a Government not only for the people who voted for us but also for the people who voted against us ... although uniting the Australian people will be the cornerstone of my approach in Government, we have been elected with a mandate, a very powerful mandate ... one of the great features of the Liberal Party is that it is owned by no section of the Australian community and our only obligation is to give good government to all of the Australian people.
There was naturally no mention of reforming firearms legislation. This was not the time for policy specifics, and there was nothing to suggest the Howard Government would legislate at all. It had released no policies on restricting firearm ownership and no plans, secret or otherwise, were on the table. Doing something about firearms was an aspiration rather than an intention. There were no votes in restricting the activities of farmers, shooters and hunters, just the prospect of conflict and of alienating traditional National Party supporters in the bush.
The election that brought the Howard Government to power continues to be the subject of intense interest. Commentators are fascinated by its revelation of substantial changes in the political landscape, the shifting affiliations and aspirations of the Australian people and the kinds of policies that help or hinder an election campaign. Whether Labor did more to lose or the Coalition more to win remains a vexed issue.
There is, however, one element of the campaign upon which commentators agree: the private ownership of firearms was not an issue on which the major parties sought to differentiate themselves. Consequently, the public were not expecting any change to the existing arrangements when they went to the polls.
It was difficult for observers to predict much of what the Howard Government would do in office given its 'small target' strategy before the election. Unlike former Liberal Opposition leader John Hewson's comprehensive Fightback! policy, the first Howard Government did not have a declared manifesto. In one sense, it was at complete liberty to fashion its own agenda and order its own priorities.
But national governments are never able to fulfil their destiny unfettered by convention or circumstance. Unforeseen events and pressures demand action, reducing the scope for discretionary activity. Furthermore, in 1996 the Coalition had not undertaken the specific preparations for government that had preceded the 1993 election, which the Coalition and most observers assumed it would win comfortably. Given the magnitude of government debt, the size of budget deficits and the Coalition's commitment to spending restraint, attending to the economy would circumscribe the Howard ministry's options for at least the first two years in office.
The new government was determined to make the most of its first 100 days. The ministry was appointed on 11 March and the ministers launched into their duties with vigour. The most pressing challenge was dealing with the $8 billion budget deficit reported in post-election Treasury briefings. The extent of the deficit surprised the new Cabinet, as did the extent of the Commonwealth's net debt ($96 billion). To address the twin issues of deficit and debt, the government would reduce funding for all departments (with the notable exception of Defence); Treasurer Peter Costello stated that 'the days of sloth and waste are over'. The need for immediate austerity also meant the government would not be able to fulfil some of its election promises. The much-depleted Labor Opposition accused the Coalition of exploiting the budget deficit to engage in an ideological program designed to silence dissenting voices in the publicly funded media, and to divest itself of unwanted policy advice by abolishing the agencies Labor had established. Notwithstanding John Howard's public pledge in 1995 to pursue consistent national regulations, there was no mention of when the Commonwealth might raise the issue of firearm legislation.
On the last weekend of April 1996, the biggest newspaper story was the prime minister's plan to 'protect' the national flag from politicians who he claimed failed to appreciate its rich symbolism. Most Australian newspapers considered this 'wedge politics' and counselled the prime minister to focus his energies elsewhere. This was about to happen anyway as the prime minister worked on official papers ahead of a busy week.
In the mid-afternoon of 28 April, Howard was at the prime ministerial residence in Sydney, Kirribilli House, when he received an urgent telephone call from the Liberal Premier of Tasmania, Tony Rundle. He told Howard that a man had gone on a shooting spree at the popular tourist destination of Port Arthur and that many people were dead. Howard was stunned. There had not been an incident of this kind since the Strathfield Plaza massacre in 1991, which had left eight people dead and six injured, and early indications suggested that the death toll was already higher. Whatever happened at Port Arthur was legally a matter for the Tasmanian Government and the state police, but this looked like a national tragedy and the Commonwealth government had to be involved.
The Tasmanian Labor Opposition leader, Michael Field, was waiting for a flight at Melbourne airport when he saw the initial media reports. Field cancelled his travel plans immediately and booked a flight back to Hobart. He recalled: 'the death toll just went up when I was waiting for the plane ... the tragedy just got bigger and bigger'. The premier and his police minister, John Beswick, were both on the island's north coast, although many hundreds of kilometres apart, when they received news of the mass shooting. Beswick, who had served as deputy premier from 1992 to 1996, had no doubt about what the unfolding tragedy would mean. A few weeks earlier he had been briefed on failed attempts to achieve national firearm laws during a meeting of state police ministers held the previous year. In contrast to Tasmania's long-standing opposition to firearm restrictions, Beswick had asked for a Cabinet submission to be drafted prohibiting private ownership of semi-automatic centre-fire rifles, of the kind the media mistakenly called 'assault rifles'.
When Rundle telephoned Howard the exact number of dead and injured was not known and the killer was still at large. It was clear, however, that he had used at least one semi-automatic rifle. Howard knew that firearm legislation was a state matter but felt 'the scale of the massacre gave it a national dimension'. Rundle asked the prime minister to travel to Tasmania as soon as possible to support the state government's response and to give comfort to victims and their families. During the call, Howard recalled, 'we briefly discussed the adequacy of Tasmania's gun laws'. Howard's own strong views were fast becoming known. The nation's firearm laws were, he said, 'a hodge-podge, lacking both consistency and uniformity ... I began to give thought to the possibility of a national initiative to tighten those laws'. It was agreed that the prime minister would visit Port Arthur the following Wednesday (1 May) with the premier. Howard suggested that Opposition leader Kim Beazley and the leader of the Australian Democrats, Cheryl Kernot, should accompany him. Right now, he needed to be in Canberra. He was already preparing for a hectic few days, with the new parliament scheduled to open the following Tuesday. By the time Howard arrived at The Lodge, the killer had taken refuge in a guesthouse with several hostages and would not be apprehended until 8:40 the next morning. During the siege, he fired on police using semi-automatic rifles he'd found at the guesthouse, before setting it alight. The need for government action was gathering momentum by the hour; Howard's first week in parliament as the prime minister was about to become one of the most significant in an already long political career.
Media coverage of the massacre was detailed and dramatic. The Hobart Mercury's front page had a large photo and the heading 'This is the man'. Melbourne's Age ran with 'Australia's worst-ever mass shooting'. Brisbane's Courier Mail went even further, reporting that the Port Arthur incident 'is believed to be the world's worst massacre by a lone gunman ... and probably the worst civilian shooting massacre by a lone gunman in history'. Some 700 journalists and news presenters descended on Port Arthur and Hobart, wanting briefings from police and medical staff, hoping for interviews with injured victims and eye witnesses. Legislators were now under intense pressure to prevent another shooting spree. Aside from the fury directed at the accused, and prosecutors reminding the media not to prejudice his trial, reporters and commentators were claiming that inadequate firearm regulations had contributed to the tragedy and that efforts to change the law could no longer be resisted. Claiming to speak on behalf of the people, the press blamed the easy availability of semi-automatic firearms and concluded that a raft of reforms must be brought in, including prohibiting such firearms.
The government also needed to contact the Governor- General's office. A few weeks earlier, work had begun on the speech Sir William Deane would deliver at the opening of the new parliament on 30 April. The text had already been circulated and finalised, but it would need to mention a tragedy of this magnitude. The speechwriters added the following note:
At the request of the Prime Minister, I depart from the prepared text for this speech by making specific mention both of the sadness which envelopes [sic] the opening of the thirty-eighth Parliament and of the profound sympathy which all associated with the parliament feel for those affected by the Tasmanian tragedy.
In what is usually a joyful occasion for new ministers, parliamentarians and their families, John Howard's first remarks in parliament as prime minister, a job he had coveted for decades, were sombre and subdued. He moved a motion conveying the parliament's sympathies to the victims and urging 'all governments to work cooperatively in response to issues raised by this tragedy'. In addressing the motion, Howard thought the massacre was
an occasion for all of us to reflect upon the humiliation that it brings to us as a nation and as a people and for us to try in a constructive way to learn lessons from it and to address those issues that such a tragedy produces. And not least of course is the vexed issue of gun control laws. Whilst this is not an occasion for me to initiate a debate on that, I would not be doing the right thing by this parliament if I did not repeat to it what I said in the press conference I held yesterday: I will do all that I humanly can as leader of the government to bring about a significant improvement and to address some of the great deficiencies that exist.
Notably, the prime minister suggested that beyond considering what he called 'gun control laws', there was a need to do something about 'the repetitive, mindless, numbing depiction of violence in some elements of our mass media'. Practical measures were needed but cultural change and a shift in attitudes were companion projects.
The new Opposition leader, Kim Beazley, commended the prime minister on bringing forward a national meeting of police ministers before making a confession:
We were not successful with the police ministers in our efforts to get from them national gun laws. We did attempt that and were not successful. We do think now that the pressure upon them to arrive at the right conclusion is going to be very great and I do believe that the Prime Minister in his endeavours will enjoy success. If he does not, I would ask him to contemplate the offer made by the Premier of New South Wales [Bob Carr] to take upon ourselves federal powers in this regard. I understand his party's concern with that and it is, in part, embedded in the ideology of the Liberal Party that they would act with great reluctance as far as that is concerned. But we would in no way regard it as a precedent of an embarrassing nature to be utilised in debate if the government decided it was necessary to make an exception at this time. These issues are beyond attempting to make the point.
Beazley echoed Howard's remark about the role of wide cultural forces, the need to deal with violence on television and the prevalence of mental illness.
The Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Tim Fischer, spoke next and had the least to say. He recounted stories of heroism and tragedy before noting the duty of federal and state parliamentarians 'to analyse away from this emotional moment and find out exactly what is behind these horrific happenings, previously in Hoddle Street and Strathfield and now in Port Arthur on a tranquil Sunday afternoon'.
The final speaker was the local Tasmanian federal member of parliament, Dick Adams. He spoke of the impact of the massacre on the local community before asking:
What causes someone to go out and kill complete strangers? I doubt whether we will ever really know. Fifteen such incidents where more than 10 people have been killed by a lone gunman have taken place around the world in the last few years. There are no boundaries – no ethnic groups, no obvious type – that can explain this madness that leaves so many people to mourn. There is no explanation – only grief.
Enveloped by unrestrained grief, the prime minister arrived in Port Arthur the following day to attend a memorial service at Hobart's St David's Anglican Cathedral. He later recalled:
I met many of those who had been involved in helping the victims, including a Dr Brian Walpole, who had attended to the most seriously wounded. He broke down when speaking to me and, spontaneously, I embraced him. As a public figure, the most helpful response one can provide is the natural spontaneous one. Hesitancy and awkwardness only aggravate the grief of the person who is looking to you for support.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Gun Control"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Tom Frame.
Excerpted by permission of University of New South Wales Press Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Introduction vii
A Word 10 Readers xviii
Glossary xxiv
1 A Day Like No Other 1
2 Penalising the Law-Abiding? 16
3 A Nation Divided 36
4 Restricting Freedoms, Saving Lives 53
5 A Problem in the Making 77
6 Elusive Solutions 91
7 A Deadly Debate 109
8 A Strange Alliance 125
9 The Best Thing He Ever Did 146
10 Conflict Without Conclusion 169
Further Reading 182
Notes 187
Acknowledgments 195
Index 196