Teal MP Allegra Spender to table changes to hate crimes bill

Independent MP Allegra Spender will propose an amendment strengthening Labor’s hate crimes legislation.

Allegra Spender in Woollahra, Sydney, following an anti-Semitic attack. Picture: Rohan Kelly

Independent MP Allegra ­Spender will propose an amendment strengthening Labor’s hate crimes legislation that will criminalise acts that promote hatred, as Labor prepares to introduce its own changes amid a surge in anti-Semitism.

After her eastern Sydney seat of Wentworth became the target of a spate of anti-Semitic attacks, Ms Spender will table her own changes to the bill when parliament sits this week.

The amendments will outlaw acts committed with “the ­intention of promoting hatred ­towards, harassing, threatening, intimidating or abusing” targeted people and groups. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus told the Labor caucus on Monday that he would introduce his own amendments as he condemned the scourge of anti-Semitism and spruiked the Albanese government’s response to the threat.

In its current form, the legislation will strengthen existing laws outlawing the promotion of “force or violence” against protected groups, and create new crimes for “threatening force or violence against targeted groups and members of groups”.

The Australian understands Labor is planning to act on recommendations made by a Senate inquiry, which advised that the criminal offences be expanded to include “urging violence or threats of violence being directed at associates of protected groups”.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim backed Ms Spender’s amendments, saying that existing laws were not sufficient to fight hate and anti-­Semitic speech. He pointed to the failure to bring to account protesters who shouted anti-Jewish slogans during a rally outside the Sydney Opera House two days after the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023.

“A key feature of the new amendment is that the promotion of hatred on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or other protected attributes must be intentional, not inadvertent, and the intention must be proved ­beyond reasonable doubt, the highest evidentiary standard,” Mr Wertheim said.

“This is a reform which we have called for over many years and it is not radically different from existing criminal laws against racial hatred in Western Australia, which have been successfully enforced by juries. The reform is well overdue and a most welcome development.”

Anthony Albanese failed to mention anti-Semitism in his first caucus address of the year on Monday. The Prime Minister told Labor MPs he was filled with a “great sense of optimism” in an election year, drawing criticism from Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council director Colin Rubenstein.

“If it is true that PM Albanese failed to address the growing threat of anti-Semitism and associated terrorism in his first caucus speech of 2025 this would seem to indicate a glaring disregard for the national significance of this anti-Semitism explosion, leaving Jewish Australians feeling abandoned in the face of rising hate,” Dr Rubenstein said.

Ms Spender, whose seat has a large proportion of Jewish voters, said last month she would move amendments to strengthen laws to “hold the hate preachers who plant the seeds of violence to ­account”, and called on Labor and the Coalition to support her.

Ahead of parliament resuming on Tuesday, Greens anti-­racism spokeswoman Mehreen Faruqi threw her party’s support behind the hate crimes bill.

Opposition legal affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said the bill needed to be “strengthened to include people who urge or threaten attacks against places of worship”.