Well, Australians were very free to own guns back then. So if civilians were poorly armed, it was largely by choice.
But speaking as an Australian military historian, I've never really heard the idea that Australians weren't equipped to deal with the Japanese because of a lack of guns - it was a lack of people that was the problem. A small population to start with, and most of our military aged men were already fighting in Africa and Europe at the time. The UK had a weapon shortage that is recognised - but I've never really seen an argument that that applied in Australia.
That’s interesting; thank you for clarifying!
I studied Australia’s mobilization during WW2 as part of my work on our current mobilization planning.
Rifles were sufficient for the fielded force (with supplementation from the UK/US) but if we needed to stand up extra divisions in, say, 1942 to meet a Japanese invasion, we would have been needed to equip them from either US or UK stocks.
Heavier weapons (sub machine guns, machine guns, mortars, and artillery) were in very short supply in the first 3 years and our production rates never really got us to real self sufficiency.
Ammunition, fuel, and most other logistical supplies were largely to nearly totally dependent on overseas supplies.