Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

At Bondi, on 14 December, two evil men, drawing on a perverted distortion of Islam that is the foundation of the terror organisation ISIS, committed a terror attack on our shores. For the record, ISIS is funded by Iran. Every part of its existence is to be abhorred. No Australian who shares in our nation's vast democratic success, shares in our collective wealth, which thrives in the fertile environment that is enabled by our democratic values, and benefits from our laws and the peace they bring can ever support ISIS or any organisation that harbours support for ISIS in any form. I don't think there would be any dispute here in this chamber or around the nation of the moral righteousness of that statement.

But it is a fact that one of the antisemitic, ISIS inspired gunmen—one of those evil men—who shot 15 fine citizens that afternoon, Sunday 14th, in Bondi was born and raised here in Australia. He was known, in some glancing way, according to reports, to the intelligence agencies of this nation. The other man, his father, was not a citizen of this country. Their actions and the actions of others like them tell us that something is wrong with our current laws. We must learn from Bondi that threats to our society come from both within and outside our nation and our population. That father-and-son act of terror demands that we face the reality of the country we are today.

We have to confront, through the myriad horrific images of people in Bondi on that fateful Sunday evening in December, the reality of our time. It's horrifying. People are scarred at a distance from media engagement, just by looking at the images of what happened in Bondi. There's a massive national provision of support for the mental health of the people who watched those images. But we have to look. We cannot turn away. It's horrifying for me that, in the moment when we could have confronted and responded to this challenge of our time, acted in unison, protected the best of what we are and been clear that we align together against the malign actors who would take this nation into the darkness of hate, there has been wholesale failure here in this parliament by too many who have not read the signs of these times.

I listened to many of the speeches yesterday on the day of condolence for the loss of life in Bondi. One of the words I heard very frequently in the speeches was well-intentioned and said by people who cared, who shed tears as they spoke. I don't doubt the sincerity, but how many times did people say Australians 'should' be able to do something? You 'should' be able to walk down the street; you 'should' be able to do this. Our job is not to wish and ponder and hope. Our job is to legislate, not to decry the reality and wish it were otherwise and do nothing. 'Should' isn't going to cut it. We actually have to do stuff, and the stuff we have to do here is to legislate. And we need to do it in a timely way in response to the challenges we face.

Reality must be faced, and our laws must meet that reality. We live in a time when foreign countries are involved in the attacks on our way of life. We can't just let that reality pass us by. It's part of the emboldening of the two gunmen on Bondi. The firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue, according to our ASIO public reporting, was advanced by Iran and their proxies, who they funded in our country. The Iranian ambassador was sent home, persona non grata. That is a serious diplomatic act. It was an extraordinary historical moment, but these are extraordinary times, and it gives shape to what it is that we're doing here tonight and why we have to do it. Senators, we cannot continue to do business as usual in a world that has changed.

That is why we need legislation that gives powers to this parliament and the parliaments that follow to protect the good people of this nation from the evil ones, be they born here or born somewhere else. These laws are needed to protect us from the ones filled with hate, from the ones spewing their vile hatred into our community. That is why I speak in support of the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026 this evening.

The bill before us is about addressing what became obvious to every Australian as we watched those images. Action is required now—not next month or next year but today. I noted the contribution of Senator Shoebridge just prior to my rising. There were many principles in there. He's a lawyer and a barrister, who obviously cares about the law—and I see Senator Scarr over there with the same respect and regard for the law. There's a degree of caution that we always want to apply, and we need to apply that. But there's application in a time of peace, order and long-term consideration, and there's action required in response to what we saw in Bondi. That's no time to sit back and navel gaze. This is a time for leadership, and the place where leadership has to happen for our country, this democratic nation, is right here in Canberra in this place. That is what this bill is about this evening.

It's vital and it's necessary that we pass this bill to tackle hateful groups. We cannot keep waiting while the next extremist individuals start or continue brewing a concoction of fear and hatred that targets decent, ordinary, law-abiding Australians. We've seen, under the current structure of laws, malign groups that have strategically flouted the law by staying just—ever so marginally just—under the current test of criminality. We cannot allow that to continue. Sadly, the resistance that we're seeing to the necessary change to protect the people of Australia, surely our first responsibility—we've seen members in this parliament seek division, find division, push for delay. I said yesterday:

… if not now, then when?

Hate will only spread and further entrench itself throughout our community the longer we wait in calling it out and the longer we wait in bringing about the legislative changes necessary.

The criminal amendments that are located within this bill will combat hate. They will dismantle extremism. They will ensure that violence clearly intended against individuals or groups based on race or national or ethnic origin is prevented before it starts. These amendments will include aggravated offences for leaders who promote or threaten violence against protected groups and for adults who radicalise children. It's got to stop, and it has to stop with legislation that needs to be passed in this place—and passed tonight.

This legislation offers increased penalties for existing hate speech offences involving the advocacy or threat of force or violence, because that needs to happen. This legislation has requirements for courts to consider hate motivation at sentencing and to consider the designation of organisations that fuel violence or hatred on the basis of race, nationality or ethnic origin as prohibited hate groups. 'Your time's up'—that's what this legislation says. 'You've played a dastardly game. The cost is a permanent stain on the history of this nation, but your time's up'—that's what this legislation says.

This bill will increase protections for our community from the risk of harm posed, particularly by noncitizens who engage in extremist conduct. Yet this parliament must acknowledge that this bill is not all of what was requested from the Jewish community, who urgently seek our response and protection. This bill, which was offered in one form last week and has been changed through amendments and agreements, doesn't contain many of the elements that would provide people with stronger protections from groups that want to spread hate.

The laws that tackle racial vilification have long been an ambition of many in our parliament. This would have occurred in this parliament if the coalition and the Greens had done what was really being asked of them by this nation in this most horrific moment: the largest terrorist massacre of Australians in our history. Of course, we have to continue to tackle hate at its source, and I urge the coalition and the Greens to look to their hearts and deeply consider whether they will continue to allow the filth to be espoused on our streets.

What we know is that hateful words metastasised into violence and into destruction. In our social media, these tropes, this hateful speech and the invitation for people to write hateful responses has turned what once was a source of connection into a social sewer. We're all swimming in it. That has got to change, and we can all do our part with regard to that.

In closing, I want to refer to a piece of correspondence that I received from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. A lot of the resistance to this antivilification that led to that section of the bill being removed is arguable but not defensible in this historical moment. I received with this letter a copy of Pope Leo XIV's first papal document. It's called Dilexi te. In Catholic theology, the term 'option for the poor' is for people discriminated against or suffering in any way. The Pope said:

… God has a special place in his heart for those who are discriminated against and oppressed, and he asks us, his Church, to make a decisive and radical choice in favor of the weakest.

This legislation could have been absolutely a choice, a radical choice, in favour of the weakest. But it is weakened and, mark my words, we will need to return and attend to the racial vilification dimensions of this legislation that were so abruptly ripped from it because of inexplicable political resistance that should belong in another time.