Controversial legislation that would see “hateful conduct,” including speech, criminalised is currently being considered in Australia in the wake of December’s Bondi Beach attack.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labour government is preparing to debate the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026 during parliamentary sitting early next week.
The Bill is a wide-ranging piece of legislation 144 pages long that combines measures targeting “hatred” and “extremist conduct”, with reforms to migration and gun control law, including introducing the country’s largest gun buyback scheme since the one implemented in the wake of the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre.
Critics of the legislation have described it as a ‘Censorship Bill’ and argued that its implementation is being “rushed” by the Labour government, with just over two days set aside for public consultation.
It comes in response to the December 14 Islamic State-inspired terror attack on Bondi Beach, which targeted a Jewish Hanukkah celebration and saw 16 people killed, including one of the perpetrators, and 40 people injured.
On Tuesday, the Albanese government released the draft text of the Bill, with Mr Albanese describing it as a “comprehensive package of reforms which create serious offenses for hate preachers and leaders seeking to radicalise young Australians”.
Among the offences the Bill seeks to create is a “racial vilification” offence, which would criminalise “publicly promoting or inciting hated towards another person or group on the grounds of race, colour or national or ethnic origin, or spreading ideas of racial superiority, where that conduct would cause a reasonable targeted person to fear harassment, intimidation or violence”.
Criticisms of the racial vilification offence have included the argument that as the draft legislation stands, it is a “reasonable person” test, meaning that no one actually has to have faced harassment or intimidation for a criminal offence to have occurred.
The draft Bill states that as far as this offence is concerned, it is “immaterial” whether the conduct “actually results in hatred of another person or group of persons” or whether it “actually results in any person feeling intimidated, fearing harassment or violence, or fearing for their safety”.
A ‘carve out clause’ was additionally included in the text, which exempts conduct that consists only of “directly quoting from, or otherwise referencing”, a religious text for the purpose of “religious teaching or discussion”.
Commenting on the clause, US Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers said that a statute that “imprisons you for calling to deport jihadist extremists — but provides safe harbor if you *are* a jihadist extremist — would be deeply perverse”.
“Let’s hope this isn’t what Australia intends,” she wrote on social media platform X.
“This could be a clumsy effort to avoid the disgraces seen in Europe+UK, where citizens are jailed for quoting the Bible or even praying silently.
“But the problem with ‘hate speech’ laws — one problem of many — is that they’re enforced by the kinds of people who coddle actual violent zealots, so long as they seem subaltern,” Ms Rogers commented.
‘Hate groups’ will also be outlawed if the Bill is passed, in a manner similar to terrorist organisations.
The Minister for the Australian Federal Police could list an organisation as a ‘prohibited hate group’ if they are satisfied that the group has “engaged in, prepared, planned or assisted in a hate crime relating to race, national or ethnic origin”, or has advocated “hate crimes relating to race, national or ethnic origin”.
The Bill would create a list of offences related to such groups, making it illegal to direct the activities of the group; be a member of the group; recruit for the group; provide, receive, or participate in training involving the group; or get funds to, from or for the group.
Maximum penalties for these offences, if introduced, could range from seven to 15 years imprisonment.
Meanwhile, the Bill would make amends to the existing Australian migration law, enabling the Minister for Home Affairs to refuse to grant or to cancel a visa on the basis of “hate motivation conduct and offences relating to the spread of hatred and extremism”.
A person could also be permanently excluded from returning to Australia where they had refused a visa or had a visa cancelled in relation to the new offences.
Director of the Free Speech Union Australia, Reuben Kirkham, told Sky News Australia that the proposed laws would not curb antisemitism, as is one of their stated intentions, but rather would have a “chilling effect” on freedom of speech.
“Censoring people isn’t going to tackle antisemitism. It will likely make it worse, as the Jewish community will be falsely blamed for new censorship laws,” Mr Kirkham told Sky News.