By Adam Haigh | Updated on Aug 16, 2026 at 12:43 AM
The Australian state of New South Wales will start a gun-buyback program in November following last year’s killings in the Sydney suburb of Bondi.
Gun owners in the state will be offered up to A$1,000 ($708) to hand in eligible rifles, shotguns and handguns from Nov. 2.
The changes come in the wake of the deaths of 15 people in a shooting at a Jewish festival beside Bondi Beach, in Sydney’s east, last December. New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, will split the cost of the program with the federal government.
“We want those guns handed in, compensated for and safely destroyed,” New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said. “There are potentially hundreds of thousands of firearms affected by these changes.”
There remains a push to broaden the gun-buyback plan to make it national, one of the recommendations that came from a commission investigating antisemitism earlier this year. As part of changes in Australia, there will be new limits on the number of firearms a person can own and many will be reclassified.
“We must do everything we can to make sure the antisemitic terrorist attack in Bondi doesn’t happen again,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
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