Former prime minister John Howard has described the Port Arthur massacre as a “tragedy of a special magnitude”, reflecting on his government’s response to Australia’s worst mass shooting, three decades on.
On April 28, 1996, Martin Bryant carried out a shooting spree at Port Arthur in Tasmania, killing 35 people and injuring 23 others at one of the state’s most visited tourist attractions.
The former prime minister said that he realised the gravity of the situation after a staffer informed him of the incident.
“I naturally turned on the television coverage, and it was just extraordinary, and it rocked the country. There’s no other way of describing it,” he told ABC on Tuesday.
Howard visited Port Arthur and met with victims and community members three days after the tragedy.
“I felt immediately that I had to go to Tasmania … and I did make a point of ringing Kim Beazley, who was the leader of the Labor Party, of the opposition, and also (then-Australian Democrats leader) Cheryl Kernot.
“And I suggested that they should accompany me so we could demonstrate from the beginning that this would be a bipartisan response, that it wasn’t about politics.
“And I’d just been elected to be prime minister after a long period in opposition with a huge majority, and I developed a view pretty quickly that I had to do something significant.
“What’s the point of having a big majority unless you’re prepared to use it?”
The Port Arthur attack led to the ban of semi automatic and pump-action shotguns, the heavy restriction on firearm licenses, and the national buyback scheme, as part of the government’s legislative response to the situation.
Howard recalled that while a majority of Australians supported the move, others were “understandably” concerned, particularly in some of the National Party seats.
Despite this, the National Party leaders cooperated, which Howard said “was quite magnificent”.
“And I frequently said to them, and I say it again this morning, that without their co-operation, it would have been very, very difficult,” he said.
Howard also reflected on the famous moment he addressed a hostile crowd of gun owners during a rally in Victoria.
“My (Australian Federal Police) detail came to me and said that they’d got advice from the Victoria Police that somebody had made a very explicit threat that they would shoot me (at) the rally if I turned up,” he said.
“Their advice was to wear this bulletproof vest … and I remember my senior political adviser and close friend, Grahame Morris, said, ‘Boss, you better do this’. And I said, ‘I’m not going to wear that thing. I don’t feel unsafe’. And he persisted.”
He admitted he “felt (like) a fool” after reluctantly putting on the safety vest.
“I never really felt unsafe … and although that was a very hostile rally, I didn’t think anybody was going to try and shoot me,” he said.
“And after the rally was over, I went down and talked to a lot of people in the crowd.
“Some of them were polite, others weren’t so polite. That is part and parcel of public life in Australia.”
Image: Today Show
