Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026. On 14 December last year, Australians experienced the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil at Bondi Beach. Fifteen people were murdered by terrorists with hate in their minds and guns in their hands. The impact of that day will stay with us for a very, very long time.

But it must also be a turning point. This attack did not happen in isolation. Australia has witnessed an alarming rise in antisemitism, hatred and extremism in recent years. We have seen this at Bondi and at countless attacks on Jewish institutions, including attacks on synagogues in my home state of Victoria and a neo-Nazi rally in front of the New South Wales parliament.

This bill is focused on a practical package of reforms. It is designed to stop the spread of hatred, disrupt extremist networks and protect social cohesion in our communities. Firstly, the bill will introduce new aggravated offences to ensure that very serious penalties apply to those in positions of influence and authority who commit hate crimes. What leaders say matters. When religious leaders, preachers or other figures of influence use their authority to encourage violence against protected groups, the harm is profound. These individuals, who are trusted by others, and their words carry weight. That's why this bill introduces aggravated offences that specifically apply to offenders who seek to radicalise children. This bill sends a clear message: exploiting young people to spread violent ideologies will be punished severely.

Secondly, this bill seeks to increase penalties for hate crime offences by increasing the maximum penalty of imprisonment for base offences from five years to seven years and from seven years to 10 years for offences which involve an added threat to the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth.

Thirdly, the bill requires courts to treat radical or ethnic hatred as an aggravating factor for Commonwealth crimes. This means, if the motivation for the hatred of a group or a member of a group is based on race or ethnic origin, courts must consider that when deciding the sentence.

Fourthly, the bill will create new rules in the Criminal Code that allow certain organisations to be officially listed as banned hate groups. Once an organisation is listed, it will be a crime to run it, belong to it, recruit people to it, raise or receive money for it, support it in any way or take part in training connected to it.

Organised hate groups are dangerous because they recruit, fundraise, train and spread propaganda. Left unchecked, they create an environment where violence festers and is normalised. This bill gives the government the ability to disrupt these groups before they cause further harm. The bill will also strengthen and expand the prohibited hate symbols offences in the Criminal Code to further protect Australians from the significant harm caused by the public display of these symbols.

Finally, this bill will strengthen Australia's migration laws to better protect the Australian community from noncitizens suspected of engaging in hate motivated conduct or extremism. This bill enables a proportionate and targeted response to hate motivated conduct and extremism to safeguard our national security and social cohesion in this country.

There are a number of reasons that I support this bill. But I want to take a moment to also reflect on the missed opportunity that we have had this week, here in parliament—a moment in time that we've had to actually do something that'll protect so many Australians—relating to the antivilification measures that were contained in previous iterations of this bill that were removed.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attack at Bondi, the coalition argued that there needed to be stronger laws to combat antisemitism, and we agreed. There should absolutely be stronger laws. We responded with a proposed law that included an antivilification measure which would've criminalised serious forms of antisemitic rhetoric and the promotion of racial supremacy.

I remind those opposite that that measure that was in the bill was recommended by the special envoy for antisemitism, Jillian Segal, and countless leaders within the Jewish community. The coalition cannot claim to stand with the Jewish community on one hand and on the other hand refuse to support laws specifically designed to protect the Jewish community from racial vilification. You cannot do that; it is absolute hypocrisy to see that. But that hypocrisy is not new from the opposition.

We saw the coalition call for urgent action, saying, 'Bring back parliament the week of Christmas,' and then, when we called back parliament in January, apparently we're rushing. We're rushing when we take a couple of weeks to get those laws right. The coalition are calling for the full implementation of Jillian Segal's report, but, when they have the opportunity to actually support it, there are more backflips over there than at the Olympics. The absolute hypocrisy from those opposite is incredible. Why not give Jewish Australians and so many other Australians extra protections?

The coalition owes all Jewish Australians an explanation as to why it called so strongly for the full support, for the full implementation, of Jillian Segal's report and then backflipped like nobody's business when it had the opportunity to actually do something that was going to actually protect them. It's absolute weakness from Sussan Ley—absolute weakness.

Words absolutely matter. Hateful words about someone's race don't just wound an individual; they normalise hatred towards an entire community. I don't know where the coalition think hatred starts. It feels like they think it starts just at the part where you get hatred that turns into violence. But there are a whole bunch of things that happen that lead to somebody ending up being violent, with hate in their hearts, towards another group. It starts with the small things people say to vilify other groups that really normalise that hatred towards another group, and it goes unchecked.

Vilification laws could actually hold some people accountable for the things that they say that normalise that hatred and targeted attacks towards other groups. But you didn't want to do that. You didn't want to do that because you are seemingly okay with the vilification of groups, the damaging attacks on groups of people in Australia—other Australians. As long as it doesn't lead to violence, go for your life. Jewish Australians, like all Australians, deserve to be safe, feel safe and be respected in this country. Antivilification laws would have helped achieve that objective. The Leader of the Opposition, Sussan Ley, and the coalition failed all Australians when you failed to rise to the occasion. Words absolutely matter, but so does action. You had the opportunity to rise to the occasion and you failed. You failed all Australians this week, especially those of us who belong to communities that are targeted and attacked all the time, and we won't forget.