Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Earlier this year, almost 600 Jewish writers, artists and academics found themselves the targets of a cruel and malicious act. Their names and personal details were published online by activists. They were part of a private WhatsApp group, a forum where they could support each other in the face of a rising tide of antisemitism many had never experienced before. This space, meant for safety, solidarity and questioning and sharing views, was cruelly violated when a 900-page transcript of their private conversations, along with their personal information, was leaked by one of the group's members. This transcript, containing the intimate details of their lives, was then published online, and the consequences were devastating. In the words of one Jewish member of the WhatsApp group:

Imagine you wake up one morning to find your name, photo, contact details, and workplace published on social media, where you are wrongly accused of all manners of sins in an antisemitic online campaign that spreads on the internet in what seems like milliseconds.

Death threats follow. You are afraid to leave the house.

You lose your job, friends, or customers. Or you are shunned by colleagues. Or all of these things happen based on the false information disseminated online.

This is not an isolated case. This person reflects the broader experience of many in that group. The doxxing unleashed a wave of antisemitism, and what makes it most harrowing for the community is it echoes some of the antisemitism and some of the vilification of the Jewish people for generations, starting with the 1930s, when people were outed for being Jewish and targeted in various ways, including through their businesses. We know where that ended; that ended in the Holocaust. Members of the group were labelled as a cabal of Zionist conspirators reminiscent of the antisemitic tropes that have plagued Jewish communities for centuries. No-one should be vilified in this country. No-one's privacy should be breached in this country on the basis of their religion, their beliefs or their sexuality. No-one should be subject to what has happened to these people. Despite the clear harm caused by this act of doxxing, and despite the undeniable malicious intent behind it, this behaviour was not illegal under Australian law. This is a profound failure of our legal system. Alongside leaders of the Jewish community, I have called loudly and repeatedly for change from the moment this came out.

We need laws that recognise the severity of doxxing and treat it as the criminal and intimidating act that is. This bill does that, and so takes an important step forward. I thank the Attorney-General in particular for his work in driving this. He creates two new criminal offences specifically addressing doxxing. The first offence makes it illegal to publish or distribute someone's personal data in a way that is menacing, harassing or harmful. The second provision goes further, making it a crime to publish or share the personal information of members of a group where the group is distinguished by a protected attribute such as race, religion or sexual orientation. These offences come with significant penalties, including a maximum sentence of up to seven years imprisonment. These are serious crimes and they will now be treated by such as the law.

This legislation and the new offences it introduces have been welcomed by people in my electorate and by leaders of the Australian Jewish community. It's a significant and necessary step in criminalising some of the most egregious acts of antisemitism and hate speech we have witnessed over the past year. However, while this legislation is a positive step, it is not sufficient in its own to stem the rising tide of antisemitism and hate that we are seeing in our country. It is vital that we continue to build on these reforms. In particular, I will continue to urge the government to deliver on its promise to introduce further protections against serious vilification as part of changes to the Criminal Code, as the Attorney-General committed to earlier this year. This has support of leaders of the Jewish community and of the LGBTQ+ community, another very important part of my community. We need robust, comprehensive legal protections that not only punish the acts of serious vilification but also deter them. I'm making a submission to the Senate inquiry in relation to this bill at the moment because, while I support where the bill is going, it is not going far enough, and we need greater protections for Australians of all beliefs to make sure that this sort of hateful vilification is not acceptable in this country and carries punishment. This is not just about protecting one community. This is about upholding the values of tolerance, respect and safety for all Australians regardless of their backgrounds or beliefs.

I respect these legal frameworks. I respect the work that has been done on doxxing and I want to extend it in relation to vilification hate speech. But I think we have a deeper thing we need to do in this country—that is, we need to reflect on what is happening in relation to how we treat each other and how we behave. We need to guard against it—every single one of us in our country—in terms of how we behave.

Let me give you an example. I have students who come to see me every term, and this term I had a group of year 10 and year 11 students from many of my schools around my community. I always ask the students: 'What's important to you? What do you want me to know? What should be on my list?' One young woman stood up and said, 'I'm worried about going to university in two years time.' She is a young Jewish woman in my community and that was one of her greatest concerns—whether she would be welcome, whether she would be safe and whether she would be able to participate in university in a way that any other Australian student should anticipate participating in university life. This was absolutely devastating to hear, and she was not alone in this group of about 16 kids. This was one of the biggest concerns that this young woman had. This, for me, is one of the reasons why I'm most concerned about the attitudes and some of the behaviour we are seeing across our community.

I see this in my schools. I had a young man in a similar forum last term tell me about his experience of walking down the street, wearing his school uniform, and being concerned about whether he was safe wearing his school uniform, which shows he goes to a Jewish school. He told me of a person driving along the street, slowing down, pulling over and swearing at him about being Jewish, and then making a Nazi salute—in the streets, in my community. This sort of behaviour is unacceptable. It is un-Australian. As a non-Jewish member of the community, it's shocking to me that people would think that this is some sort of behaviour that can fit within this country.

We can change the laws. We need to take much stronger action to change the behaviour at the universities, and to change the mindset of our universities. In my community, we need to make sure that all of our kids are standing up against antisemitism and, frankly, any kind of hate or any kind of vilification. There is no place for this.

We need to all reflect on ourselves in terms of how we can make sure that, in all of our actions and in all of our words, we are bringing people together and we are trying to build on the strength of this country. My mum came out to this country, like many people, as a 10-year-old Italian who didn't speak English. She had a wonderful life and found a wonderful acceptance in the Australian community. I think that acceptance and that sort of equality is what we need to continue to build. It is up to everybody; as well, it is up to us and what we do in our legislation. It is up to me and others to constantly lead and constantly call out the behaviour that we see and say, 'This is unacceptable.' I will continue to say that antisemitic behaviour—basically, vilification, hate towards anyone on the basis of their characteristics—is unacceptable in this country and is un-Australian.

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