I rise today to speak on this bill with deep sadness and deep concern about the state of our nation and with a deep sense of purpose. Our country is at a decisive point, and it’s the role of this parliament to ensure that we set this nation on the right course and that we send a strong message and call out appalling behaviour and actions for what they are—criminal acts.

The Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024 aims to strengthen Australia’s criminal laws to provide better protection against hate crimes. It does so in three main ways. First, the bill strengthens existing offences for urging the use of force or violence. It does so by widening their application so that they apply when someone urges force or violence against members of a group distinguished by sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status and disability. The offence currently protects groups distinguished by race, religion, nationality, national or ethnic origin or political opinion. The bill also strengthens the offence for urging the use of force or violence by removing the defence of good faith and changing the fault element that the prosecution must prove from intent to recklessness. These changes will make it easier to successfully prosecute this offence.

Second, the bill creates a new criminal offence for threatening force or violence against targeted groups and members of targeted groups I listed earlier. This will help fill a gap in the current laws to address conduct which involves a direct threat from one person to another rather than to a group or a member of a group.

Third, the bill strengthens the ‘public display of prohibited hate symbols’ offences—laws that were passed by this place last year. The bill does this by expanding the list of groups which these offences protect to include groups distinguished by sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status.

We debate this bill at a time of grave risk and vulnerability for Australia’s Jewish community. The level of antisemitism we have experienced in this country over recent months is unlike anything I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. I can’t imagine the fear Jewish Australians are living with. Just last week we marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and we know antisemitism is one of the oldest forms of hatred. It is a fear and a wound that is generations deep.

In Australia we are free to practice our faith but it’s clear there are people out there who seek to intimidate, to terrorise and to hate, and to do this to people because of their Jewish faith, with graffiti on cars, homes, schools, childcare centres, workplaces and places of worship. The arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue of Melbourne, and the discovery in Sydney of a caravan packed with explosives and with the address of a Sydney synagogue on a piece of paper inside—these incidents are truly terrifying. Of course, that is their purpose—to incite terror, hatred and fear. We cannot allow these incidents to go by unremarked and unchecked. These incidents must not be normalised. They must never be excused. The perpetrators of these attacks must be held to the full force of the law. There must be consequences for these vile actions, which have no place in our society. They have no place in Australia.

This bill is just part of the ways in which government can and should respond to the hateful acts of violence and threats against the Australian Jewish community. More must be done as well. It’s important to note that this bill is not exclusively about antisemitism but covers hate crimes against members of the community with protected attributes including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status and disability. This is vital because there are many marginalised groups in our community who are also feeling vulnerable. There are people out there who wish them ill will, who wish to do them harm because of their faith, their sexuality, their gender, their identity, their disability. These fears are not unfounded as anti-Muslim graffiti and incidents are also increasing in our community. These incidents must be acknowledged, they must be counted, they must be stamped out.

I acknowledge the fear and unease in the LGBTIQ community, and we must be constantly alive to the discrimination and hatred members of this community experience as well. Acknowledging the hatred and the intimidation experienced by other members of the community does not seek to minimise the impact of the escalation in antisemitism on the Jewish community in Australia. We must call out all types of hatred, all efforts to threaten and intimidate people based on their faith, their sexuality, their gender, their disability because this is how we become a truly cohesive society. And I agree with the words of the member for New England and the member for Riverina who both spoke earlier that it’s not just the parliament who is responsible here, as indeed we most certainly are, but it is every single Australian who must look into their own heart and into their own actions and never walk past or remain silent when they see this hatred in action.

I acknowledge the amendments put forward in good faith to this bill. The member for Wentworth has worked closely with Jewish leaders and equality advocates to draft amendments that expand the bill to cover serious vilification offences. The member for Wentworth’s electorate has experienced horrific attacks over the last few months in particular, and we must listen to them to find the solution. The member for Wentworth’s amendments to the bill would address gaps in legislation where the promotion of violence and hatred is not considered a crime because it does not meet the requirements of explicitly urging or threatening violence. The offence will focus on promotion of hatred and violence and draws upon existing laws in Western Australia that have been tested in the courts to ensure it achieves the right balance with free speech principles.

I support these amendments, and I urge the whole parliament to also support them. This is not about restricting freedom of speech; it’s about proper consequences for threats and promoting violence against specific groups. And I also note the coalition’s amendments to explicitly outlaw threats and attacks against places of worship. Again, I condemn the abhorrent attacks and threats against synagogues that have recently occurred. It’s for this reason I support the coalition’s amendments.

This bill is a crucial element of our nation’s response to the rising antisemitism the Jewish community faces. It’s an addition to our Criminal Code that, frankly, is overdue. But it’s not the start and end of how we as a parliament, as legislators from across the political spectrum, should respond to the problems that we face. In their submission, the Law Council of Australia warned:

… there are significant limitations on the role of criminal law an instrument of social policy.

We should dwell on this point. How will the government, the parliament and we as legislators and leaders of this country influence our social fabric, our social cohesion? We must continue to act to combat hate, to build trust and safety and bonds across all the different communities that make up our great country of Australia because we will not prosecute our way to social cohesion. We won’t. Social cohesion is something that is created, something that is tended and something that is protected. Tim Costello recently wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age:

Social cohesion is both a gift and a challenge. Building it requires risk, and maintaining it requires crossing lines.

He called out ‘conflict entrepreneurs’ who have politicised the conflict in Gaza and then decried the breakdown in social cohesion.

The terror attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 was abhorrent. The destruction and loss of life in Gaza in the time since then has been devastating. The current ceasefire is fragile. There are those in Australia who have sought to capitalise on these events to drive division, to widen the cracks into a fissure that cannot be crossed. And they have done so through threats, through violence, through intimidation. We must not stand for it. We must stand for peace.