Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and Pacific Island Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Islamic terrorism is nothing new. On September 11, 2001, we saw the awful events in America. Another incident was the bombing in Oklahoma by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who were two hardline white supremacists. These laws here today must target both Nazi sympathisers and Islamic extremists.

Here in Australia in 2008, Abdul Benbrika was convicted of directing planned terrorist attacks on the MCG and the Crown casino in Melbourne. He had been removed from his mosque because of his radical beliefs, but he went out there to use his influence to target young people. That's something important about the need to target hate speech.

Back in, I think, 2008, I was out there saying that we need to target hate preachers. The reason for that is my background with Victoria Police. When I look at laws and legislation, I'm looking at how police can find a conviction. I've had concerns in the past. For example, going back to September 11, you had radical preachers out there talking about how the September 11 attacks were justified and saying that it's a good thing when infidels die. It's not actually going far enough to be incitement or threats. That's why this legislation here today is very important: to make sure we capture people who are trying to influence younger people to commit hideous attacks.

We look at what's happened in recent times. It's even been reported in the news overnight that, again, our Jewish Australian community has been targeted. Young Jewish teens had to escape from a ute trying to hit them in St Kilda East as the offenders drove away doing Nazi salutes. Antisemitism has got much worse since 7 October, when those awful attacks happened in Israel. Two days after, we had statements and awful chants made in the Sydney Opera House by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Then it went further, with weekly protests at universities, with chants targeting the Jewish community—and no action was taken. You then had Neo-Nazis with their chants and their salutes, trying to get more members to join them. All of this just breeds more hate. Anything goes. We've seen the hate escalate against the Jewish community, going from chants to the bombing of a synagogue in Melbourne in a terrorist attack. We heard from authorities of that plan from overseas, which is quite unbelievable. And then we had the awful atrocity at Bondi. My thoughts go out to the victims.

I'm very much in support of targeting hate preachers and hate groups. We've got all the advisers here today. One thing, though—and I'm putting my detective hat on here—when it comes to social media, I notice the proposed hate speech laws are going to target comments made on public social media platforms. What about private WhatsApp groups—for example, I'm on one with 200 members—that you are invited to join? When it comes to this Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026—and I've heard this before—the government is really rushing this through.

We've recalled parliament early, but for members to work out if this legislation goes far enough—for example, when it comes to targeting those using social media—it really needed a lot more time and effort. Our Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security was only given a very short time to make its report. Even with the legislation, we only got to see it this morning.

Again, my thoughts are with the victims of the Bondi massacre.

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