Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026. December the 14th, 2025, is a date that will forever be etched in the story of our nation. It was the first night of Hanukkah, a festival of light, family and celebration, that soon became a night of unspeakable, ISIS inspired, antisemitic terror. Fifteen innocent people were murdered and so many more were injured simply for being who they were.

That sort of targeted violence didn't appear out of nowhere. Antisemitism rarely announces itself with sirens. It accumulates, it normalises, and it spreads. As chief minister of the Great Synagogue, Rabbi Dr Benjamin Elton, said:

It is not just the Jewish community that is in mourning, our entire country is in mourning, and now is time for a national soul-searching.

Now, more than ever, we need unity across our nation. What happened at Bondi demands that we confront both the motivation of this violence and the method by which it was carried out. Our bill deals with both.

Earlier today, during our firearms bill, we debated the 'how'. This bill, in particular, deals with the 'why'. We know the motivation behind this atrocity was fuelled by hate, with antisemitism at its core. For Jewish Australians, that hatred is not abstract. It is lived. Last year, an annual report released by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry recorded more than 1,600 anti-Jewish incidents in just a single year: Nazi swastikas painted on the fences of a Sydney synagogue in January 2025; firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne in December 2024, while people were inside—an attack ASIO has linked to the Iranian government; a pig's leg thrown into a Jewish business in Sydney in August 2025. Just last night in Melbourne, a group of Jewish teenagers were allegedly abused in a drive-by incident by some vile people yelling, 'Heil Hitler,' out of a ute, almost running one of the boys over. Absolutely no-one should have to face any of this. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry's research director, Julie Nathan, put it perfectly:

We are now at a stage where anti-Jewish racism has left the fringes of society—

and become part of the mainstream—

where it is normalised and allowed to fester and spread …

That is why this bill matters. We're making sure visas can be refused or cancelled for people who promote hatred or support terrorists or prohibited hate groups. Where a visa is refused on these grounds, permanent re-entry bans will apply unless the decision is overturned.

We're introducing a new framework to ban organised hate groups, which allows us to go after these right-wing Nazi organisations. We're increasing the maximum penalties for hate based threats and violence, from five years to seven years for base offences and from seven years to 10 years for more serious cases. We're making it a serious crime for extremist leaders to use their position of authority to preach violence—up to 12 years imprisonment. We're introducing tougher laws for those who try to radicalise children. We're making racial hatred an aggravating factor when sentencing federal crimes. And we're strengthening the law against the public display of Nazi symbols and symbols from other prohibited organisations.

We know these laws won't erase hatred. We know there will still be those individuals with appalling and vile views. But they will make it harder for that hatred to be organised and spread, and harder to recruit. We're already seeing this in practice. Last week, Neo-Nazi group the National Socialists Network—the NSN—one of Australia's most prominent white nationalist organisations, announced it would fully disband. That disbandment includes co-projects like White Australia, the European Australian Movement and the White Australia Party.

We've also seen criticism of this bill from groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir, who are deemed a terrorist organisation in the UK, Germany, India and many other countries. These reforms will make it harder for groups like theirs to operate. The National Socialists Network was directly called out last year by the director-general of ASIO, Mike Burgess, for the harm they pose to Australia. If the Nazis are taking a step back because of our stronger laws, you have to ask yourself, 'Why would anyone want to vote against this bill?' If radical organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir are complaining, that tells us something very important. Why would anyone vote against legislation designed to weaken organised hatred and protect Australians?

Last year, a childcare centre in south-east Sydney was set on fire and spray-painted with vile, antisemitic graffiti. We've seen synagogues and Jewish schools armed with security guards. We've seen cars set on fire and shops in the suburbs being vandalised with swastikas. This hasn't just been going on for the last two years; we've seen this kind of hate for decades now. Personally, I was raised Catholic. I grew up in a largely Anglo-Celtic community. We never had to face anything like this. I cannot imagine what it must be like to send your children to a school where security guards are part of everyday life, or what it must be like to explain to your children why their faith means extra precautions and why other children have to think about these things at all.

This is a time where we rise above politics, where we come together and act. This is what good governments and oppositions should do. We saw it after Port Arthur, after the Hoddle Street massacre and after the Lindt cafe siege. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chair, Peter Wertheim, has repeatedly implored for new protections and unity. He said:

How much worse do things need to get before we as a nation finally have the courage to tackle the deliberate promotion of antisemitic hatred that is the heart of the problem?

Those were his words.

Yet, even in a moment like this, there are those in this parliament who would rather play politics than focus on keeping Australians safe. Just last week, on 14 January, we heard Senator Bridget McKenzie single out Western Sydney as a so-called part of Islamic extremism, on ABC Radio National. She did it again today during our firearms bill debate, saying that Western Sydney suburbs are the cause of this shooting event. That's nearly three million people. To smear an entire region, to reduce millions of Australians, to a stereotype—just think about what that means. I've raised my kids in Western Sydney, like many others, and I've raised them there for 15 years. I've still got friends, family and relatives living in that area. I visit my duty electorates of Fowler and Lindsay regularly. The place is full of mums, dads, families, everyday Australians. To dismiss all of that with one sweeping label isn't just reckless. It's also lazy. It's lazy language, lazy politics and even lazier leadership which only deepens division further. Have a think about what you said. We all need to do better. Senator McKenzie needs to write those words.

We need to look instead to the bravery of those who showed us the very best of Australia during a dark period. That's what we need to do. Look at the courage and quick action of police officers, first responders and healthcare workers and at the selfless acts of everyday Australians who stepped forward to help others in moments of fear and chaos. Just days ago in Melbourne, a Muslim community leader, Imam Ismet Purdic, and his wife were allegedly hunted on the road in a racially motivated attack. Horribly, three strangers shouted racist abuse, threw rubbish at their car, blocked their path and forced them into a service station where his wife was threatened and he was punched in the face. Yet his response wasn't anger or division. He said:

My message for all of us in Australia is just to stay together to help each other to stay safe, and not to allow anyone, doesn't matter … his religion or beliefs, to break this peace, security and all [the] good values we believe in.

…   …   …

We must, as Australians, fight against hate, Islamophobia, antisemitism … we must stay together.

That's the Australia we know. That's the Australia we must stand up for and protect. That is why these reforms matter—to draw a clear line in the sand that hate won't be excused or allowed to grow unchecked. I commend the bill to the Senate.