Tempest,
Oz never had a bill of rights, and as a convict settlement, even more so...you know, the elites setting up peons to do the work, reap the harvest, and not have the chance to respond (my children and partner had an ancestor sentenced to 7 years in Oz for stealing a bag full of rocks...they were free to return after 7 years, provided they paid their trip home).
Oz has never had a right to gun ownership, it's always been a "conditional privilege" (like America has "liberties", not "freedoms")...and self defence is not a legitimate reason for owning a firearm in this country.
Pistols have always been controlled, as the elite's means of control. Case in Point, media Magnate (you like them), Kerry Packer had a pistol stolen from his office, and it was deemed lawful...when it was impossible by law for him to have a pistol in his desk...but he was a magnate, had a safe full of gold and a pistol.
As to your underlined "modern", Oz had a successful Civilian Marksmanship Programme, as it was deemed easier to teach a shooter to march than a marcher to shoot.
That all went by the wayside, and our current laws are largely the results of the Conservative Govt in 1996 (you like Conservatives), who wheeled out literally wheelbarrows full of legislation in days.
Guns are making a comeback, as the new 20 year olds don't remember the stereotypes, and propaganda fed to us by the (Conservative) govt of the day...
Same Conservatives proposed a republic, and put it to referendum "Do you want the existing Monarchy, or a Republic in which the politicians elect the President"...obviously rigged question, then announced an overwhelming majority vote (against their strawman model).
Conservatives rejected a Bill of Rights as being "limiting the scope of human endeavours"
In a way they are right. A Bill of Rights is a Bill of limitations, or liberties (not freedom). However, their "freedom, minus these excluded activities" is probably closer to freedom, but the convict beginning makes it all moot.