THE Federal Labor government’s new hate speech laws are a mess of contradiction and stupidity, and an ominous threat to the religious and political freedom of Australians.
Federal Parliament will be recalled next Tuesday to debate the so-called anti-hate speech laws as contained in the the Combating Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026. The Bill is an omnibus package combining measures against hate speech, extremism, and gun control.
The legislation also mimics the totalitarian “anti-hate speech” and “online safety” laws of the UK’s Starmer Labor government and is likely to lead to cases of police officers knocking on doors and charging people for social media posts that supposedly threaten someone.
In the UK, this type of legislation has turned police into Stasi-style political police. Some 30 Britons are arrested every day in the UK in connection with alleged online speech offences.
Lyle Shelton of Family First says Anthony Albanese’s legislation “carves out” religious texts for protection under the legislation, which means Wissam Haddad will be free to continue quoting Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 52, Hadith Number 176, which reads, “Toward the end of times, when the Muslims will be fighting the Jews, the trees will speak, the stones will speak, and they will say, ‘O Muslim, O believer, there is a yahudi [Jew] behind me, come and kill him.’”
“Coincidentally (?) this is also part of the Hamas charter. Think about that,” says Shelton. “Post Bondi, the Jew-killing part of the Hamas charter will be protected by Anthony Albanese’s new hate speech laws. We are governed by fools.”
As noted by Turning Point Australia’s Joel Jammal, even the Australian Jewish Association has spoken out against the bill as criminalizing free speech and lawful firearm ownership.
Section 116 of the Commonwealth Constitution says “The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.”
This may be why Albanese has protected religious texts, even ones that can be seen as threatening to a particular group. We would suggest that even Muslims know about this provision in the Constitution, and they would probably not hesitate to take it to the High Court if they felt they were being prohibited from freely exercising their religion.
However, any Mullah who incites violence against Jews, for instance, can be dealt with under long-standing common law and the Criminal Code Acts, under which inciting violence is a punishable offence.
As revealed by Senator Susan MacDonald, the Bill also contains bizarre provisions such as protecting Jews and Sikhs as “ethno-religious groups” but not necessarily Catholics and Protestants because there is no distinct ethnic Protestant or Catholic group.
There is no need for some bureaucrat to attempt to decide whether speech was “hateful”. Speech, even in Parliament, can be hateful to some degree as long as personal insult is not involved. Hate, a natural human emotional state, should not be a crime unless it descends into physical, threatening or defamatory attacks on another person.
Why the desperation to push this legislation through, we ask. There are serious concerns about it across the board, even in the Liberal Party.
Key themes include criminalizing hate incitement, designating prohibited groups, and restricting firearms access. Overall, it is a totalitarian package.
Under the new federal offence for pomoting or inciting racial hatred, it is is illegal to publicly promote or incite racial hatred where the conduct would cause a reasonable person to feel intimidated, harassed, or fear violence.
But making a threat or threatening violence has been an offence under common law as long as we’ve had it in Australia. Why the need to bring race into it?
The offence applies to speech, symbols, gestures, and online content intended to promote or incite hatred because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the target.
There is no need to prove actual hatred was generated or that someone felt fear, only that a reasonable person would be affected. The maximum penalty is up to five years’ imprisonment.
Aggravated penalties (higher sentences) apply if a religious official or preacher is involved, or if children are targeted.
Ominously, the legislation also creates a framework for the Minister for Home Affairs to designate organisations as “Prohibited Hate Groups” if they have “engaged in, prepared or planned to engage in, or assisted … or advocated engaging in” a hate crime.
Listing can occur if deemed “reasonably necessary to prevent harm,” based on intelligence. No procedural fairness is required before listing.
Offences: Membership: Up to seven years’ imprisonment. Directing, funding, recruiting, or supporting: Up to 15 years’ imprisonment.
There are also offences for hate preachers and radicalization with offences deemed serious for leaders or preachers seeking to radicalize young Australians, and with increased penalties if children are involved.
Groups Targeted by this law Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups (do they actually exist?) and Islamist extremist groups. But the legislation can be used against any group assessed as posing a risk based on intelligence, such as “far-right militias, antisemitic conspiracy networks, or racial supremacist cells”.
ASIO’s 2025 assessments highlight rising threats from politically motivated violence, including right-wing extremism and foreign-inspired terrorism.
