Law designed to solve Sydney’s antisemitism crisis faces opposition from within

The Minns government has come under fire from sections of Labor over the narrow scope of the vilification laws designed to tackle Sydney’s antisemitism crisis, setting up a rocky start of the year when state parliament resumes on Tuesday.

Rainbow Labor, the Greens and Sydney MP Alex Greenwich have all criticised the exclusion of LGBTQ communities from the draft laws, while after a lengthy deliberation in shadow cabinet on Monday afternoon, the Coalition remained uncertain about significant aspects of the bill given it had not received a briefing from the government.

NSW Premier Chris Minns is facing criticism of his vilification laws as parliament resumes.Credit: Kate Geraghty

Premier Chris Minns faces criticism not only from the crossbench and across the aisle but also internally as government MPs doubt the legislation will achieve its desired aims.

Foreshadowed by Minns after a series of violent antisemitic attacks across Sydney, the legislative changes will make intentionally inciting racial hatred a criminal offence, strengthen protections for places of worship, and outlaw displaying Nazi symbols “on or near a synagogue”.

Rainbow Labor NSW conveners Savanna Peake and Mits Delisle said many of its members had been subject to “vile abuse, threats and intimidation simply for being who they are”, saying LGBTQ people “deserve the full protection of the law”.

Rainbow Labor expressed support for amendments proposed by Greenwich, which would expand the government’s proposed legislation to cover religion, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Steve Johnson, who laid the groundwork for the historic NSW inquiry into gay hate crime after the murder of his brother, Scott, in 1988, urged the government to take a stand against all hate speech, saying “we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past”.

Greenwich said there was a “fundamental misunderstanding” within the government about “why the laws were important and how they operate”. Creating a new offence that captures the incitement of hate based only on race would capture only a neo-Nazi targeting a Jewish person, but would not stop the targeting of an LGBTQ person.

“The NSW government’s proposal is effectively providing neo-Nazis with an exemption to target LGBTQ groups,” he said.

Greens justice spokesperson Sue Higginson said any legislation which introduced “new offences, higher sentences, and infringes on the right to legitimate and peaceful protest” would prove too difficult to support.

“The premier must know, we can’t arrest our way out of intolerance and hate. Doubling down to further criminalise activities that are already illegal drives a wedge through public discourse on important political matters,” she said.

If a bill materialised overnight, the proposal would be put before the Coalition’s party room on Tuesday morning, opposition sources said on condition of anonymity.

The mandatory sentencing aspects of the bill would probably be supported, but concerns over the potential impairment of freedom of speech could create issues, one Coalition source said. The bill was likely to be waved through unless there were serious issues.

NSW Council of Civil Liberties president Timothy Roberts accused the government of using violence on the streets of Sydney to “criminalise political opposition and silence freedom of speech”. The proposed changes protected religious institutions from legitimate protest despite the “significant and overt political power” in Australian politics, he said.

Two survivor networks of institutional child sexual abuse – Care Leavers Australasia Network and Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests – said the changes would impede the ability of victims to “gain access to justice” by limiting one of the few levers available to build public pressure.

Defending the limited scope of the laws, Minns said the time pressures created by the number of brazen antisemitic attacks meant he could not wait for a compromise between religious institutions and LGBTQ communities who respectively did not want vilification laws to “apply to the other one”.

“That’s a reasonable argument in a free democracy like ours, and in a perfect world, I’d wait and see all of those issues debated, but I can’t wait,” he said.

“The antisemitic hate speech problem within our community today; some of it’s online, some of it manifests itself with appalling behaviour on public buildings [and] Jewish institutions throughout the city.”

Efforts to legislate discrimination laws in NSW and federally have come to an impasse.

Former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison walked away from an anti-discrimination bill ahead of the 2022 federal election, while Minns passed a drastically watered-down version of the Equality Bill last year.

A Labor MP speaking on condition of anonymity said while details remained scarce on Monday afternoon, they were concerned the legislation could compound community division, expressing doubt LGBTQ communities would ever be included in anti-vilification laws.

“I don’t think we will come back to it,” said the MP. “It’s an impossible area of law to strike the balance. How do we protect the community from hate speech on the basis of religion without interfering with another community’s right to practice their religion?”

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