Canberra banned the import of automatic and semi- automatic weapons as a result.But power over guns remains with Australia's six parochially-minded state governments. In New South Wales, the most populous state, the rate of murders committed with guns is one-tenth that in America, but seven times greater than in England and Wales. Since 1984, 87 people have died in mass shootings in Australia. Military-style, semi-automatic weapons and pump-action shotguns were used in the four worst shooting sprees. Duncan Chappell, a Sydney criminologist, said yesterday: "If we can't get over the top at this point, I would be pessimistic about us ever being able to do it."Mr Chappell headed an inquiry by the National Committee on Violence after two mass shootings in Melbourne in 1987 left 15 people dead.

They had hoped to tip off their German counterparts.Greenpeace demonstrators kept vigil along the tracks near Gorleben during the night.. Presided over by John Howard, the prime minister, and spurred by public outrage, police ministers from around Australia will gather tomorrow in a bid to tighten the nation's ramshackle gun laws in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre of 35 people. Called by Mr Howard after the slaughter in Tasmania 11 days ago, the meeting is seen as a make-or-break attempt to bring in strict, uniform controls, smother the political influence of the rural-based gun lobby and head off a growing "gun culture". The waste shipment eluded observers from the environmental group Greenpeace who had staked out the world's largest nuclear reprocessing plant in La Hague in northern France. The waste, the end product of spent German nuclear rods recycled in France, needs to be stored and constantly cooled for between 20 and 30 years.

Though embedded in glass, the material is hot - about 450C in the centre of the container, and radioactive.It was the first of about 110 shipments set to carry nuclear waste and fuel back to German reactors over the next eight years. They had been demonstrating for weeks, at times sabotaging stretches of the railway line between Hamburg and Hanover Police also reported several bomb threats in recent days. Yesterday saboteurs threw an iron bar on to overhead electrical cables on the Hamburg-Kiel railway line, closing it for two hours.Opponents, backed in their cause - though not in their violent actions by Greenpeace and the Green Party - argue that both the method of the material's transport and its storage are unsafe. The grand total of police officers mobilised across Germany to protect the shipment was 19,000.As bonfires blocked roads, farmers in the villages surrounding the quiet market town of Gorleben dumped piles of manure in the streets in a last- ditch effort to stop the lorry.A thick wedge of riot police, backed up by vehicles carrying water cannon trying to hose away sit-down strikers, headed up a long procession of police vehicles protecting the waste shipment "You pigs!" young demonstrators screamed at police. Jurgen Trittin, a leader of the Green Party, accused police of heavy-handedness, condemning "the brutal methods of the nuclear state".The nuclear waste from German power plants was returning from reprocessing in France under an agreement between the two countries.