NSW kicks off the national gun buyback — what happens, who pays, and whether it'll work
New South Wales will start a two-phase gun buyback on Monday 2 November 2026, becoming the first state to put the Albanese Government's National Gun Buyback Scheme into action. The scheme was announced after the Bondi terror attack on 14 December 2025, when two gunmen killed 15 people (Guardian).
The buyback is jointly funded by the state and federal governments and run by NSW Police, with the Australian Federal Police also involved (NSW Government). The commonwealth chips in 50 per cent of administration costs and fully covers the cost of destroying surrendered firearms (Guardian).
Phase 1, starting 2 November, pays owners to hand in firearms that breach new ownership limits or have been reclassified under laws the Minns Government passed in late December 2025. Those laws cap individuals at four firearms, with exceptions for farmers and professional shooters capped at 10, and ban guns that can fire multiple shots without reloading — think semi-automatics and rapid-fire weapons (Guardian).
The compensation is tiered by firearm type. Handgun revolvers fetch $1,000; semi-automatic firearms $850. Double-barrel shotguns attract $850 and single-barrel shotguns $650. Rifles are compensated between $650 and $1,000, and air rifles at a flat $450 (NSW Government; Guardian). Phase 1 also includes an industry support package: grants of up to $25,000 for businesses and dealers, plus one-off licence fee relief worth $500 over two years per dealer (Guardian).
Phase 2, beginning in early 2027, opens a separate compensation pathway for higher-value firearms with an indicative market value above $3,000, capped at $10,000 per firearm (Guardian).
The NSW Government estimates up to 274,000 registered firearms will be affected by the new ownership limits. That figure is roughly 24 per cent of the 1,158,654 firearms registered in the state, a number cited by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke in January 2026 when he flagged legislation to establish the national scheme (Guardian; Home Affairs Minister). NSW Premier Chris Minns said "hundreds of thousands of firearms" are potentially affected and that the government wants those guns "handed in, compensated for and safely destroyed" (Guardian). The state is also putting $42.8 million over ten years into the NSW Gun Registry (NSW Government).
The Prime Minister, at a press conference in Sydney on 15 August, confirmed the 2 November start date and referenced the Bondi attack as part of the process (PM media). The Albanese Government announced the National Gun Buyback Scheme on 19 December 2025 to purchase surplus, newly banned and illegal firearms (PM media). The NSW reforms that triggered the need for buyback compensation passed parliament on 24 December 2025, accompanied by a comprehensive audit of existing firearms licences (NSW Government).
The political contest is already running. The Coalition and One Nation oppose the buyback, arguing it unfairly targets law-abiding gun owners (Guardian podcast). That line of attack is familiar from every previous buyback in this country and will be tested against participation rates once the scheme is live.
The Guardian's Full Story podcast on 18 August put the question of whether the buyback will work to reporter Penry Buckley, who was interviewed by Rafqa Touma. The podcast frames the central policy uncertainty: whether compensation at these price points will pull in enough newly prohibited firearms to meaningfully reduce the pool, or whether owners will simply hold out, contest valuations, or move firearms into grey-market circulation.
The structural question for anyone watching this rollout is whether the state has the administrative capacity to process what could be a six-figure volume of surrendered weapons across two phases over more than a year. NSW Police runs the scheme. The AFP is a partner. The Gun Registry gets $42.8 million over a decade. Those are the moving parts, and the first real test of whether the numbers stack up comes on 2 November.
