Queensland bans display of hate symbols
Public displays of hate symbols, such as Nazi flags and tattoos, will be a crime in Queensland under new laws passed on Thursday night.
Public displays of hate symbols, such as Nazi flags and tattoos, will be a crime in Queensland under new laws passed on Thursday night.
The state’s criminal code has been amended to ban the display of hate symbols, including posting them to social media platforms; it carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison.
Penalties have also been increased for serious racial, religious, sexuality or gender identity vilification.
The laws were passed days after an ugly protest in Sydney where an Israeli flag was burned, anti-Semitic slurs were chanted and flares set off in the Opera House forecourt.
A pro-Palestine protest is planned for Brisbane’s King George Square on Friday.
A Queensland Police Service spokeswoman said: “Police are aware of a proposed unauthorised rally to take place on Friday night in King George Square, and preliminary planning is under way”.
Queensland’s laws were first flagged by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk last year after a Nazi flag was flown above the Brisbane Synagogue and a train carriage was vandalised with a Nazi slogan.
Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath said she hoped new laws would encourage more people to report vilification.
“Serious vilification and hate crimes have no place in our communities,” she said. “The effects are corrosive, eroding trust and depriving individuals of their safety and sense of belonging.”
Ms D’Ath said criminals motivated by hatred or serious contempt when committing crimes were liable for tougher penalties.
Offences include threatening violence, assault, harassment and public nuisance.
“Now, for the first time in our state’s history, Queensland will have an offence dedicated to prohibiting the public display of symbols of hate,” she said.
Those displaying hate symbols for artistic, religious and historical reasons will be exempt from the laws.
The laws bring Queensland into line with other states and territories that have outlawed, or are in the process of banning, symbols associated with Nazi ideology, including in Victoria, NSW, the Australian Capital Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania.
Queensland’s laws differ from other states because specific hate symbols are not named in the legislation, but will be managed through regulation.
Greens and Liberal National Party MPs raised concerns that banned symbols would be designated by the minister, in consultation with police and the corruption watchdog.
LNP MP Jon Krause said: “In other jurisdictions, it is passed into an act, a more rigorous process that requires more extensive consultation.”
Mr Krause, along with a number of other MPs, declared support for Israel during the debate on the hate symbol bill.
“It was alarming, to say the least, to see the actions of protesters in Sydney who saw fit to hijack an occasion for Sydney’s Jewish community with threats of violence, expressions of hate and open encouragement for the violence being visited upon Israeli families,” Mr Krause said.
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