17.12.2025 Henskens Willis Bondi Attack
Willis: [00:00:00] Thanks for tuning in. It’s 20 minutes past eight. Alister Henskens is the Shadow Attorney General in New South Wales. He’s on the line for us this morning. Alister, good morning to you.
Henskens: Good morning, James.
Willis: Can I just ask firstly, what you’ve made of the focus on gun reform in New South Wales by the Premier and others over the past few days?
Henskens: Well, I’ve been concerned with some of the things that the Premier has said about our existing gun laws, because the reality is that political leadership requires honesty and accuracy, and I think there have been a number of inaccurate statements made about our gun laws. Of course, this is a hate crime and we need to focus on the hatred in our community that led to these crimes. But in respect of our gun laws, as the police commissioner has already confirmed to you this morning, criminal intelligence can be used in the assessment of licenses. The Premier was suggesting that it couldn’t be.
It’s been the law in New South Wales for more than 15 years, brought in by the previous Labor government. I might add, this is not a [00:01:00] party partisan point. The premier said that we shouldn’t have perpetual gun licenses. We haven’t had those for over 30 years in New South Wales. So again, the premier’s been inaccurate about that.
The maximum period you can get a gun license is five years. You have to renew it and after you’re given a gun license, criminal intelligence can be used to cancel it. If new information comes to the police after you’ve been given a gun license. There’s no right to have more than one gun license or, or more than one gun under a license.
The legislation makes it clear that getting a gun license is a privilege to be assessed, whether it’s in the interest of public safety, so there are a number of things that have been raised. Citizenship is another one. That could be changed by regulation. The premier could go down and see the governor at 9:00 AM this morning and get a regulation to have a citizenship requirement.
Over the gun licenses in New South Wales [00:02:00] immediately doesn’t need legislation to do that. So I think, you know, we are concerned that a premier who wanted to weaken gun laws less than six months ago by supporting a shooters and fishers game and feral animal legislation is now actually not accurately, you know, conveying what the gun laws are at the moment.
Willis: So basically off the back of Port Arthur, which was almost 30 years ago, there were some very significant gun reforms that were put in place. And you say there are some things around the edges, which I agree with, which would include obviously non-citizens not being allowed to have guns, but many of the things that are being proposed are either in place or could be fixed with the stroke of a pen.
Henskens: Correct. The existing laws are both strong and flexible to be changing around the edges, as you say.
Willis: How concerned have you been with what we have seen in New South Wales over the past few years? And my big concern here, [00:03:00] Alister, is that I realize Parliament has done what it can in regards to hate speech. And I know you’ve been talking about reducing the number of protests, but for me, this is about words and about political actions. And my concern has been whether governments of all levels have done enough to actually curb this problem off.
Henskens: Well, look, James, we’re willing to work in a bipartisan way with the government, but can I just point out some of the things we’ve tried to do, which have been blocked.
So it will surprise many of your listeners to know that those ISIS flags that were found in the vehicle of the government on Sunday are not illegal in New South Wales to publicly display. We actually brought forward legislation that’s the liberal opposition, brought forward legislation about six months ago to make that a New South Wales crime to publicly display terrorist symbols.
Willis: And I might also add that they were shown on the Harbor Bridge during the major pro-Palestinian, uh, protest.
Henskens: A number of months ago, Chris Minns and the Labor [00:04:00] Party voted against those that criminalization. I think you just need to understand that there hasn’t got a lot of attention. The second thing is that we weren’t just trying to change the protest laws to make the number of protests free protests.
We actually wanted to change the criteria so that issues like social cohesion and the impact on the community around the protest could be taken into account. And again, Chris Minns and the Labor Party have voted against that on multiple occasions in the New South Wales Parliament. This year, we’ve been trying to deal with this terrible hatred that festers in some sections of our community, the radicalisation of our community, and that really needs to be the focus at this moment.
This is the time. A national crisis, and we need some decisive action to actually deal with the root cause of what happened on Sunday. [00:05:00] A terrible, horrible tragedy that has impacted all of the community, but especially our Jewish community and especially our police officers who bravely put their lives on the line.
Willis: I would say as part of this Alister, I know that there’s been enormous frustration in the fact that when. The Minns government has attempted to reform hate speech or when there’s been, you know, we had two neo-Nazi protests out the front of state parliament over the past few months. The courts, one way or another, have inevitably let us down.
Henskens: Well, I’m not sure that that’s entirely accurate. If you look at what happened at the steps of the Opera House, the first protest was actually facilitated without any attempt to stop it. When a protest was brought before the courts to try and replicate that, the courts did stop it on the Harbor Bridge, the government did not raise our critical [00:06:00] infrastructure legislation when the matter was before the court.
That should have made the Harbor Bridge protest illegal. And the government was not even aware of the two Nazi protests outside of Parliament House. The speaker of the house knew about it. Before the premier and the police minister.
Willis: That’s right. They should have been. They should have been objected by, by the police and through the courts on principle. I’ve gotta run Alister, I really appreciate your time. Thanks for jumping on. Thanks James.
Michael says, great interview. Can you please put that up on your website? There’s a lot to discuss in response to what Alister Henskens had to say. And look, this is a very, very complex situation. And there are many assets to this, and I don’t think it’s fair to blame anyone or anything for what took place on Sunday in an unprecedented terror attack on our shores.
So it’s, it’s very, very difficult and would be very, very unfair to do [00:07:00] so. But I think it is worth. Unpacking the current climate that this country has faced over the past few years. The warnings from Jewish leaders, the concerns about hate preaching, and critically the concerns about our intelligence agencies, particularly Asia and what we knew about this offender in the lead up to Sunday.
WENDY TUCKERMAN 