Appearing on The ABC’s Q and A on Monday night, Mr Fischer said the party stood for winding back the agreement he helped develop in 1996 to prevent another mass shooting like Port Arthur.

“There has been a reduction in gun deaths in this country since John Howard spearheaded the firearms agreement between the federal government and the state governments, since the legislation passed,” he said.

“You walk away from harmonisation of the laws very, very carefully.”

The comments from the former Farrer MP came the same day as the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party announced it would run for the NSW seat of Albury at the next election.

Last week Mr Fischer and Mr Howard signed an open letter saying the party wanted to weaken gun laws and “we can’t take a risk on a party with such dangerous policies”.

Nationals colleague, Senator Bridget McKenzie, was also on the Q and A panel and disagreed with Mr Fischer.

She was careful to not say laws should loosened, but supported a different system of background checks and restrictions on certain gun owners, rather than the guns themselves.

“The (National Firearms Act) has been in place for 20 years, I do not want to see that tightened at all, it’s incredibly strict,” she said.

Senator McKenzie said the recent Las Vegas shooting had been horrific, but Australia did not have the same culture and recognised right to bear arms.

Mr Fischer said the agreement meant Australia was in a better place than the US and its “poisonous policies”.

“We both own guns and we agree there is a proper role for guns … let’s keep working at it to make it better,” he said.

“I support the right of farmers, sporting shooters, recreational shooters, Olympic shooters to have guns properly, but I’m damned if we should have semi-automatics or automatics in the suburbs and towns of this country.”

The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party achieved large swings in the Murray and Cootamundra by-elections on the weekend.

“I think the Nationals in NSW have learnt those lessons,” Mr Fischer said.