Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

This happened despite the fact that the Labor Party took every step that it could. At that time, the shadow minister for homeland affairs said:

... we will be pressing ahead in the Senate with our proposals to remove the sedition laws from this legislation ...

Now, five months later, it appears that Labor has had a change of heart, because the shadow Attorney, speaking to Steve Price in Sydney last week on radio, had this to say:

If you cross the line of encouraging others to commit acts of violence, you should be able to say that that is unlawful. That’s inciting violence and it should be contrary to our laws.

This is precisely what the government acted on last year, and the Labor Party ran a dishonest scare campaign in relation to that matter. This is another example of the Labor Party wanting to walk both sides of the street when they test the political waters.

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