Australia: Labor’s promised hate speech bill will not deal with ‘hate speech’

Labor has scrubbed criminal penalties for seriously vilifying minority groups from its upcoming hate crimes bill, watering down its proposed laws just months after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese vowed to introduce stronger measures to protect people from hate speech.

Sources familiar with Labor’s promised hate speech bill said it had been significantly weakened in the final stages of drafting and was now starkly different from Albanese’s original pledge, which he made earlier this year following months of concern about inflamed antisemitism.

A minority of demonstrators at a rally at the Opera House in October 2023 chanted anti-Semitic slogans.
A minority of demonstrators at a rally at the Opera House in October 2023 chanted anti-Semitic slogans.Credit:Lisa Maree Williams

Sources, who spoke anonymously as they were bound to confidentiality in order to be briefed, said it will not use the words “hate speech” nor introduce a serious anti-vilification law, which was a key aim of the bill. Instead, it will focus on acts and threats of violence.

Albanese promised to strengthen hate speech laws and criminalise “doxxing” in February as community tensions ran high over the war in Gaza and anti-Zionist activists published the names and details of almost 600 Jewish writers, artists and academics.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the anti-doxxing laws, which he will also introduce on Thursday, impose a maximum six-year prison sentence for maliciously using personal data, which will increase to seven years if a person or group is targeted because of their race, religion, sexuality, gender, nationality or disability.

But his office refused to provide any detail about the hate crimes bill before it was tabled in parliament. The softened legislation will disappoint those who had demanded strong action on hate speech, such as LGBTQ advocates and Jewish representatives, but should satisfy stakeholders more concerned about freedom of religion and speech, such as Christian groups.

This masthead revealed in May that Dreyfus was drafting a hate speech bill that would impose criminal penalties for serious instances of vilification based on a person’s race, sexuality, gender, disability or religion.

Walking away from that creates another political dispute for Albanese, who will be forced to clarify how he plans to get tougher on hate speech if the bill does not allay community concerns, particularly around antisemitism.

The hate speech laws were intended as a compromise to faith groups, who were dismayed after Labor ditched its election promise to introduce a civil anti-vilification law through a now-abandoned religious discrimination act. The government also spent the last fortnight tied in knots over its commitment to LGBTQ questions in the census as it tried to avoid a divisive debate.

Jewish groups have been seeking assurance from the government that new laws would address concerns about the antisemitic phrases chanted by protesters near the Sydney Opera House following Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion welcomed the Albanese government’s commitment back in February, saying: “We have called for an end to the impunity and we are grateful that the government has listened”.

LGBTQ groups have also been pushing for stronger protections, particularly since the government walked away from its election promise to remove a controversial part of the sex discrimination act that allows religious schools to discriminate against staff and students.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/labor-s-promised-hate-speech-bill-will-not-deal-with-hate-speech-20240910-p5k9dp.html

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