Last-ditch push to beef up hate speech laws in wake of antisemitic attacks

A new bid to stamp out hate speech would impose criminal penalties on people who promote hatred over race, religion, gender and other factors, in a crossbench move challenging Labor and the Coalition to toughen the law.

Independent MP Allegra Spender will put the proposal to parliament on Tuesday in a call on both major parties to strengthen draft laws that criminalise incitement to violence but do not ban serious vilification amid growing fears about antisemitism.

Allegra Spender visiting the scene of an antisemitic attack in Dover Heights in her electorate of Wentworth last month.Credit: Kate Geraghty

Spender, whose eastern Sydney electorate of Wentworth has a large Jewish community, said the government bill to tackle hate speech was too weak because it did not prevent clear cases of public speech that sought to provoke hatred, such as calls for a “final solution” against the Jews – echoing the language of the Holocaust.

Her amendment has gained support from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and Equality Australia, an advocacy group for LGBTQ Australians, while also meeting some of the concerns set out by disability groups in their reaction to the draft law the government unveiled in September.

If adopted, Spender’s amendment would make it a criminal offence for a person to commit a public act with the intent to promote hatred towards another person or group.

Labor had initially promised to outlaw serious vilification, but dropped it from the draft government bill because Christian and Islamic groups, in particular, could not agree on a balance between free speech and protections for religious beliefs.

With the hate speech laws tipped to be debated in parliament on Tuesday, Spender has put her amendment to both major parties in the hope they will join crossbench MPs in widening the scope of the draft laws.

The sanction on promoting hatred would apply to speech that targets a person’s race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, nationality, ethnic origin or political opinion.

“This law doesn’t constrain people’s opinions, but it does restrain people from promoting hatred because we’ve seen that promotion of hatred leads to real-world violence,” Spender said.

“I’m a very big advocate for free speech but if you are trying to vilify groups to drive hatred, I think Australians want to see a line drawn on that.

“I think we need to have laws against extreme expressions of words that can really create an environment where hatred and violence can flourish.”

The proposal revives a debate on vilification and free speech more than a decade after the Coalition first tried to overhaul Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act because its MPs believed it went too far by making it unlawful to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate people over race or ethnicity.

Tony Abbott dropped the attempted changes to 18C as prime minister in August 2014 and Malcolm Turnbull sought another way to amend the law as prime minister in March 2017, but was blocked by the Senate.

Spender’s amendment does not specify vilification as an offence and instead would make “promoting hatred” the key act, while also saying it must be intentional. The amendment also says there must be an intention to harass, threaten, intimidate or abuse a person or group.

The Coalition is yet to decide whether to support Labor’s hate speech laws and has not indicated a position on Spender’s amendment, but has put forward its own amendment so the bill covers hate speech directed towards places of worship.

The government says its draft law already covers places of worship, given it seeks to protect groups on the basis of religion, but appears to be willing to accept the Coalition suggestion. Spender said she was willing to support the Coalition amendment. The Coalition is planning to push for its separate proposal to impose mandatory prison terms for terror offences.

Equality Australia chief Anna Brown said the hate speech laws needed the stronger sanctions in Spender’s amendment.

“We know that hate is not just about urging violence – hate is the spark that can escalate to violence,” she said.

Executive Council of Australia Jewry co-chief Peter Wertheim said Spender’s amendment matched state law that had worked well for years.

“This is not a radical departure from what we’ve seen elsewhere, for instance in Western Australia,” he said.

“The provisions in Western Australia have been in place for more than a generation and they have been tested in front of juries, which have convicted and imposed stiff sentences.

“And they have broad public support.”

In one example of the use of the Western Australian laws, a jury found a man guilty of six racial hatred charges in 2011 and a judge sentenced him to three years in prison.

The man, Brendan Lee O’Connell, 40, was sentenced in the District Court in Perth over his altercation with two Jewish men at an IGA supermarket in 2009 during a Friends of Palestine protest.

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