The hate speech laws have cleared the first hurdle. This is why MPs are worried

The NSW government’s contentious hate speech laws have cleared the first hurdle despite MPs questioning how they would explain themselves to constituents excluded from the “two-tiered” legislation.

As the Crimes Amendment (Inciting Racial Hatred) Bill 2025 passed through the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday afternoon, the association responsible for regulating the legal profession expressed concern about injecting “imprecision and subjectivity into the criminal law”.

NSW Premier Chris Minns delivers a speech on antisemitism in parliament last week.Credit: NSW government

The legislation is the second tranche of the Minns government’s response to several attacks on the Jewish community over summer. It will establish a new section, 93ZAA of the Crimes Act, making it a crime to intentionally and publicly incite hatred towards another person, or group of people, on the grounds of race.

The state government has faced broad resistance to the legislation. The confinement of the bill to race has caused consternation among legal experts and other advocates, with other faith groups and the LGBTQ community arguing the law should be extended to cover all vulnerable sections of society.

With the Coalition falling in behind the bill without amendments, an unlikely alliance of the upper house Greens MPs and Libertarian MP John Ruddick are expected to pitch a limited rearguard action against the legislation. The resistance is likely to be short-lived, with the Coalition providing the government with the necessary votes to pass the legislation through both houses.

During the bill’s second reading debate in the Legislative Assembly, Labor MP Jason Yat-Sen Li spoke of his own experience with racism against Asian-Australians, arguing the bill represented an urgent and necessary first step before the government ultimately returned to broadening the laws.

“It sends a clear and unequivocal message that racism is not just unacceptable, it is now a crime,” he said.

MPs across the political aisle condemned the raft of abhorrent attacks on the Jewish community and the rise of antisemitism across Australia. But there remained disquiet about several aspects of the legislation, and the reduction of time to consider the legislation from five days to 24 hours.

As she signalled the Greens would oppose the reforms, Newtown MP Jenny Leong lashed the decision to rush the laws through parliament as “nothing short of a disgrace”, accusing the Labor government of entrenching division through legislation.

“It is a heavy-handed solution to a social problem that cannot be solved by legislation,” Leong said.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum, Ruddick said as a “free speech absolutist” he would oppose the efforts to impose further “censorship” and increased government control over public debate.

“The scourge of antisemitism is not caused by ‘too much free speech’ and so it won’t be solved by restricting free speech,” he told this masthead.

While confirming the Coalition’s support, opposition health spokesperson Kellie Sloane expressed concern at the pace of delivery and the “selective” drafting of the bill, including the exclusion of other faith groups and the LGBTQ community.

“I wonder what the message is that we are sending today to other faith and multicultural groups. Don’t they deserve our protection? How do my colleagues … go back to their communities and say today that they supported a bill that didn’t protect their constituents?” she said.

Members of the Jewish community walk past the Dover Heights home targeted in an antisemitic attack.Credit: James Brickwood

Despite supporting the bill, Liberal MP Tina Ayyad said she could not stand by as a “two-tier” system was created by the legislation, providing protection to some communities but not others.

Attorney-General Michael Daley defended the speed of the process, saying there was an urgent need to provide legislative protection for the Jewish community, and there would be a 12-month statutory review of the bill’s effectiveness.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip has welcomed the government’s urgent outlawing of hate speech as a necessary response to the “emergency situation”.

Upper house MPs were bracing themselves for a long night on Thursday after environment minister and leader of the Legislative Council Penny Sharpe moved to remove the hard adjournment of 10pm. Debate could stretch into the morning before the bill is voted on.

Labor MPs speaking on the condition of anonymity said caucus had been told in no uncertain terms the urgency arising out of the spate of attacks on the Jewish community meant the policy would be rushed through and amendments disregarded.

NSW Bar Association president Dr Ruth Higgins cited work completed by the Law Reform Commission in September, who after reviewing serious racial and religious vilification concluded introducing terms such as “hatred” into criminal law would create issues given the difficulty in defining them precisely.

“While the association acknowledges that the NSW government’s proposed criminal offence for inciting hatred in certain circumstances is intended to address antisemitism, the association does not support the terms in which the offence is framed,” she said.

“The criminal law demands clarity and consistency to ensure it can be understood by the community and predictably enforced.”

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