Australia's New South Wales state will start a gun buyback in November, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday, part of the national response to a shooting spree that killed 15 at a Jewish festival in Sydney, the state capital.
Albanese's centre-left government enacted laws in January covering the gun buyback, tighter checks for gun licences and a crackdown on hate following the 14 December gun attack at a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach last year.
The alleged gunmen used powerful firearms that had been legally obtained. Australia had a record 4.1 million firearms last year, according to government data, with more than 1.1 million of them in New South Wales, the country's most populous state.
The buyback will be Australia's largest since a similar campaign following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, where a gunman killed 35 people.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said the scheme would begin on 2 November. People handing in rifles and handguns will be eligible for compensation of up to A$1,000 ($700) per firearm.
"Australians are quite rightly proud of our gun laws, but the fact is there are more guns in Australia today than there were at the time of dealing with the Port Arthur gun buyback," Albanese said in televised remarks.
New South Wales now limits individuals to owning four guns under reforms introduced after the Bondi Beach attack.
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