And what was the increase in illegally smuggled guns?
================================ Customs must tackle 'failings' on firearms BY: AMOS AIKMAN From: The Australian May 14, 2012 12:00AM
THE Customs and Border Protection Service must urgently address the fundamental weaknesses that allowed illegal weapons to enter Australia undetected before other agencies will share intelligence and co- operate on a national firearms policing strategy.
This comment by NSW Police Minister Mike Gallacher followed warnings by NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione that illegally imported firearms are a national security threat.
Mr Gallacher is set to join federal Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare on a nationwide tour to drum up support for a national ballistics register ahead of a police ministers' conference next month.
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison, in whose south Sydney electorate of Cook a major illegal weapons importation racket was recently detected, said the Customs and Border Protection Service was failing, and accused the federal government of being in denial.
Mr Scipione told The Australian at the weekend three recent operations involving large quantities of illegally imported firearms could represent the tip of the iceberg, and said a new national approach was urgently needed.
Mr Gallacher welcomed the call for a new approach, but said Customs must first recognise it had a problem and put forward appropriate solutions.
"Otherwise I think you're going to see a reluctance from policing agencies to reveal their intelligence to another agency if they don't believe serious steps are being taken to address the fundamental weakness in the first place," Mr Gallacher said.
Mr Morrison said the Customs service and the federal government did not appear to be taking the problem seriously. "Customs didn't know they were on fire on this issue until the NSW police turned up with a hose," he said.
"What's happening in Queensland? What's happening in Western Australia? What's happening in Victoria? We don't know."
Mr Morrison criticised Mr Clare for failing to launch an inquiry after a NSW police operation revealed 220 new Glock pistols were illegally imported via a post office in his electorate.
Police say weapons from that shipment are implicated in a spate of recent shootings in southwest Sydney. Only two of the guns have been recovered so far.
Mr Clare, whose electorate of Blaxland is in western Sydney, the scene of much of the violence, said data from the Australian Crime Commission showed the majority of illegal guns in circulation were from domestic sources, such as theft, rather than from overseas.
Mr Scipione said there was a crucial knowledge gap on the scale of the illegal imports problem.
"I don't think there's a good enough estimate of how many guns are actually in Australia, how many guns are coming into Australia in the hands of criminals," the Commissioner said.
Responding to figures that showed at least four times as many handguns were detected being illegally imported as were reported stolen last year, Mr Scipione said: "If we've got a problem (with domestic gun theft) then we've got an enormous problem with guns that are circumnavigating our border controls."
A spokesman for the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service declined an invitation to respond to the criticisms raised in this article