Labor’s promised hate speech bill will not deal with ‘hate speech’

Labor has scrubbed criminal penalties for seriously vilifying minority groups from its upcoming hate crimes bill, watering down its proposed laws just months after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese vowed to introduce stronger measures to protect people from hate speech.

Sources familiar with Labor’s promised hate speech bill said it had been significantly weakened in the final stages of drafting and was now starkly different from Albanese’s original pledge, which he made earlier this year following months of concern about inflamed antisemitism.

A minority of demonstrators at a rally at the Opera House in October 2023 chanted anti-Semitic slogans.Credit: Lisa Maree Williams

Sources, who spoke anonymously as they were bound to confidentiality in order to be briefed, said it will not use the words “hate speech” nor introduce a serious anti-vilification law, which was a key aim of the bill. Instead, it will focus on acts and threats of violence.

Albanese promised to strengthen hate speech laws and criminalise “doxxing” in February as community tensions ran high over the war in Gaza and anti-Zionist activists published the names and details of almost 600 Jewish writers, artists and academics.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus will introduce both sets of laws on Thursday. He said the anti-doxxing laws will impose a maximum six-year prison sentence for maliciously using personal data, which will increase to seven years if a person or group is targeted because of their race, religion, sexuality, gender, nationality or disability.

But his office refused to provide any detail about the hate crimes bill before it was tabled in parliament. The softened legislation will disappoint those who had demanded strong action on hate speech, such as LGBTQ advocates and Jewish representatives, but should satisfy stakeholders more concerned about freedom of religion and speech, such as Christian groups.

This masthead revealed in May that Dreyfus was drafting a hate speech bill that would impose criminal penalties for serious instances of vilification based on a person’s race, sexuality, gender, disability or religion.

Walking away from that creates another political dispute for Albanese, who will be forced to clarify how he plans to get tougher on hate speech if the bill does not allay community concerns, particularly around antisemitism.

The hate speech laws were intended as a compromise to faith groups, who were dismayed after Labor ditched its election promise to introduce a civil anti-vilification law through a now-abandoned religious discrimination act. The government also spent the last fortnight tied in knots over its commitment to LGBTQ questions in the census as it tried to avoid a divisive debate.

Jewish groups have been seeking assurance from the government that new laws would address concerns about the antisemitic phrases chanted by protesters near the Sydney Opera House following Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion welcomed the Albanese government’s commitment back in February, saying: “We have called for an end to the impunity and we are grateful that the government has listened”.

LGBTQ groups have also been pushing for stronger protections, particularly since the government walked away from its election promise to remove a controversial part of the sex discrimination act that allows religious schools to discriminate against staff and students.

Equality Australia chief executive Anna Brown in May said: “With attacks on the rise, especially against trans people, there is an urgent need for national laws to protect LGBTIQ+ communities from hate speech and vilification.”

Victoria’s anti-vilification laws, for example, prohibit behaviour that “incites hatred, serious contempt, revulsion or severe ridicule” of people based on race or religion. The threshhold for the federal law would have been much higher, but people consulted on it were at odds over the balance between free speech and making the protections strong enough to win prosecutions.

The Australian Christian Lobby has previously pushed back on any laws that would criminalise the legitimate exercise of freedom of speech or religion, saying that would violate human rights.

Albanese committed to stronger hate laws in February, saying: “I’ve asked the attorney-general to bring forward legislation in response to the Privacy Act review, including laws that deal with so-called doxxing, which is basically the malicious publication of private information online ... I’ve asked, as well, the attorney-general to develop proposals to strengthen laws against hate speech, which we will be doing. This is not the Australia that we want to see.”

But he did not directly mention hate speech or anti-vilification measures when asked in question time this week about the government’s plans to enact comprehensive vilification protections for LGBTQ Australians. “The government will be introducing legislation this week to create new criminal offences and strengthen protections against hate crimes,” Albanese said.

“These offences will protect the community, including the LGBT community and other targeted groups, from the threat of force or violence and from those who would urge violence against them, which we know is only too real.”

Stakeholders were also recently informed the government had changed course on its plans after originally being told the bill would deal with serious examples of vilification.

The laws will focus on incitement and strengthen existing sections of the criminal code that already prohibit urging violence against minority groups. The existing laws have not led to prosecutions, and minority faiths, including Muslim, Sikh and Jewish groups, have for years sought stronger anti-vilification measures.

While the Coalition has typically opposed legislative curbs on free speech, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has this year joined the political push for stronger hate speech laws, citing rising antisemitism.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.