Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

What happened at Bondi Beach on 14 December last year was an appalling and horrific act of hate and violence that has shattered our Sydney community and the country and no-one more than the Jewish community. We continue to stand in solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters in their grief. Yesterday, in this chamber, we were able to pay our respects and condolences to those whose lives were taken. From today our job as public representatives is to do everything in our power to stop this kind of violence from ever happening again.

The Greens have long pushed for strong gun laws. This is an evidence-based, tried and tested response that reduces gun violence. We were pleased and proud to support the gun reforms that passed today, and we made them even stronger. We will always work to get dangerous weapons off our streets. I have never been silent on what needs to be done to combat hate, racism and extremism. I've spent my political life focused on antiracism and on fighting extremism and the far right, but this bill is not the way to do it. This bill is not a responsible response. The sham process that the government has undertaken on this bill is as appalling as the bill itself. That there wasn't even a pretence of consultation for some of the most extreme changes to our criminal laws shows just how little the government thinks of the community.

From the beginning the draft bill was quickly exposed to be deeply flawed, divisive and dangerous. It was clear that these laws were designed to protect some and not others. With this bill the Albanese government has thrown Muslims and migrants under the bus. After Labor was forced to back down on the dangerous vilification section of this omnibus bill, they made a terrible, last-minute deal with the coalition to make other parts of this awful, rushed bill even more divisive and more dangerous. Labor did a deal with the coalition—the coalition who want the right to be bigots. This bill will have a chilling and draconian effect on political debate, on protest, on civil rights and on people speaking up against human rights abuses perpetrated by Israel or by any other nation-state. This is not social cohesion. This is not unity. This is not equality. This is deeply disappointing but not surprising, and this is not the first time that Labor has betrayed communities.

Over the past month, the Bondi tragedy has been politicised by large sections of the media and politicians. The anger, frustration and sadness at the weaponisation of this attack have been reiterated to me countless times by many of my Jewish friends. In what should have been a time for solidarity and kindness, this horrific tragedy was seized upon to clamp down on, demonise and silence a movement of peace and justice. The vile murderers who perpetrated the attack had no connection to Palestine, were not Palestinian and had no link that we know of to the pro-Palestine movement, but politicians and the media saw the perverse opportunity to remove a thorn from their side. There seems to be a concerted effort to force some kind of sick binary, as if one cannot both be against the terror attack at Bondi and show solidarity with Palestine. This is a disgusting lie meant to smear and silence.

Let me say this clearly and unequivocally: standing against a genocide is not antisemitic. Being outraged and protesting the killing, starvation and torture of hundreds of thousands of people is not antisemitic. Calling for this government to combat racism in all its forms is not divisive. Calling for this government to end its complicity in genocide is not divisive. However, it is divisive to pretend to care about international law while inviting the President of Israel, a state committing genocide in Gaza, to this country. It is divisive to design laws that say to all but one community, 'Your safety does not matter.' It is divisive to celebrate multiculturalism and then to introduce laws that blatantly scapegoat and demonise migrants.

We know that these laws are not being introduced in a political vacuum. They come after over two years of Israel's genocide in Gaza, after two years of draconian crackdowns on protestors. The absolute lengths that have been gone to to silence Palestinian and Palestine solidarity voices have been immense, aided by a predominantly right-wing and pro-Israel media and political class and also by the Labor government. This bill is yet another example of the Albanese government's authoritarian crackdown on supporters of Palestine. This censorship was on full display in recent weeks with the Adelaide Festival board uninviting Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah from Adelaide Writers' Week, with her mere existence as a Palestinian apparently a problem for them. This was a racist decision that has resulted in the entire festival being cancelled and the board finally being dragged to issue an unconditional apology to Randa. These are, indeed, dangerous times, when there is a whole-of-government assault on basic human rights.

The laws that we are debating today are flawed, fraught and near friendless. The NSW Council for Civil Liberties has said the laws will irreparably damage our democratic and legal system. The Human Rights Law Centre has stated that the bill risks crystallising and perpetuating an invidious public discourse which casts migrants and refugees as a presumptive threat to national security. The Jewish Council of Australia criticised both the process and the content of the bill, noting that the fight against antisemitism is not served by rushed legislation, which is not evidence based and which may lead to the targeting of religious and migrant communities. The Islamic Council of Victoria has stated that the bill risks exacerbating existing patterns of overpolicing, racial profiling and disproportionate public, media and police scrutiny of Muslim communities under the guise of countering hate and extremism.

Community groups and legal experts have been near unanimous in their assessment that these laws are fundamentally flawed. They provide for extraordinary ministerial powers, with limited guardrails and protection. They provide a clear pathway for governments to shut down protest and political dissent. They rely almost exclusively on criminal penalties that decades of evidence tell us do not succeed in combating hate. They unfairly and inappropriately target the Muslim community while at the same time exceptionalising one form of hate for protection and ignoring other forms of hate such as that faced by LGBTQIA+ people, disabled people and other marginalised groups. We cannot work backwards to amend a bill that is so fundamentally messed up.

One of the most concerning aspects of the bill is the proscription of hate groups—the provision by which the minister does not need to provide an individual or a group procedural fairness, dispensing with the rules of law and natural justice. Greg Barns SC spoke today, describing this provision as 'the sort of stuff you get in authoritarian countries'. The retrospectivity of this provision is terrifying—allowing the consideration of conduct that occurred before this bill will even commence, which could result in imprisonment for 15 years, when the conduct at the time wasn't even illegal. The provisions can and will easily be used to shut down protest and political activity that the government does not support. We have seen in the UK the danger and absurdity of misuse of proscription and terrorism laws, with thousands of people arrested for engaging in peaceful demonstrations against genocide and in support of Palestine action. I am yet to find a single legal expert, academic or human rights expert in favour of these provisions.

It is clear from the context of the bill, and the speeches that were made here yesterday, who these laws will protect and who they will target. Some of the things that were said in here yesterday about Muslims and Islam were shameful, disgraceful and vile. Of the faith groups consulted prior to the bill being provided publicly, it was only the Australian National Imams Council that was not shown the bill—knowing full well that Islamophobia has risen drastically in recent years, with Muslims being physically attacked, spat on and verbally abused in public with increasing frequency and ferocity. I know firsthand that this hate has reached new levels for the Muslim community. The government's briefing records very clearly show that the Muslim community has been left out in the cold—but then, we have always been the government's lowest priority.

Extremism in any form should never be tolerated. Exceptionalising one form of bigotry over another does not make anyone safer. My friend, Barbara Bloch, a member of Jews Against the Occupation 1948, told me:

I would like this parliament to mourn the loss of these lives, investigate the circumstances that allowed these heavily armed men to make their way to Bondi, undetected, and commit those acts of savagery. Then, please take a deep breath and also consider the impact of these laws not ONLY on Jewish lives but also on others—and remember that for Palestinians both in Australia and in Palestine/Israel, their struggle is also not over.

At the end of the day, we cannot criminalise our way out of hate and racism. Expanding the carceral system is not the way to keep people safe. We know this system is used against First Nations people. We know how the system has been used against activists and protesters. We know who this legislation is going to target if it is passed.

Discrimination and racism are institutional and structural in our country, and we must root them out as such. It is not just about one individual here or another one there; it is about overhauling the system and changing society. The National Anti-Racism Framework provides a road map to move towards an anti-racist society. It does so in a way that acknowledges the deep roots of structural, institutional and systemic racism, including antisemitism and all forms of racism in this country, and it rightly places truth-telling and First Nations justice at the heart of anti-racism work. This framework has been gathering dust on the government shelves for over a year now while racism has been getting worse and worse. The Prime Minister should today announce funding for the framework and begin its implementation. Combating hate and extremism must be work that is grassroots and community led, with significant commitment to and investment in community to change hearts, minds, behaviours and attitudes.

Let me say this: despite what many of those in here would have you believe, hate and extremism is not some problem that is imported here from afar. We saw that clearly and devastatingly in the Christchurch mosque massacre, where 51 Muslims were murdered in cold blood while praying by an Australian white supremacist who was radicalised right here in this country. Violence, too, is not imported from far away. Australia was built on the genocide of First Nations people, with colonialism and oppression continuing today. We also know that a woman is a murdered by an intimate partner every eight days in this country. The inclusion of migration law changes in this legislation does nothing but demonise migrants and feed far-right, white supremacist rhetoric that migrants are the problem.

The utter hypocrisy of the Labor and Liberal parties is here on full display. To pretend to celebrate multiculturalism, praise migrants when it suits them and then propose laws like this is just disgusting. The Bondi attack has devastated the nation. Our response to it should be carefully considered to show compassion, care and solidarity at a time of crisis. We should, as a society, try to achieve the structural and cultural change needed to reject hate and extremism and weed it out at its roots. This legislation definitely does not do that. Scapegoating migrants does not make anyone safer. Undermining the right to protest does not make anyone safer. Criminalising those who raise their voice against injustices is just plain wrong. Saying that one group is worthy of protection while others are not does not make anyone safer. The Greens vehemently and strongly oppose this bill.

Do you know what? This is the last thing I will say. No matter what you try and do, we will not be silent in the face of genocide. We will continue to call out hate and racism wherever we see it, and we will continue to fight against injustice, inequality and an imperial system. (Time expired)