Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the committee's advisory report incorporating additional comments on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Prohibited Hate Symbols and Other Measures) Bill 2023.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—I note that the bill will amend the Criminal Code Act 1985 to create offences for publicly displaying prohibited Nazi or Islamic State symbols and trading in items bearing these symbols, to create offences for using a carriage service to deal with violent extremist material, to strengthen the offence of advocating terrorism and to remove the three-year sunsetting of terrorist organisation listings so that listings will operate until a decision is made to proactively delist an organisation. Amongst other things, this bill will implement prohibitions on the public display and trade of hate symbols. The committee agrees that the public display and trade of symbols that represent ideologies of hatred, violence and racism cause significant harm to many Australians. These ideologies are incompatible with Australia's multicultural and democratic society.

The committee notes evidence from the AFP that the Nazi hakenkreuz and the double sig rune are the most prevalent symbols that it observes in its investigations. Further, the AFP emphasised the importance of clearly defining which symbols are prohibited to ensure its officers can enforce criminal laws. In light of this evidence the committee is comfortable with the bill's prohibition of two Nazi symbols—the hakenkreuz, which is also known as the swastika, and the SS sig rune.

The committee had concerns with prohibiting the Islamic State flag, which is generally identified by its reference to the shahada and the seal of the Prophet Mohammed. These are central tenets of the Islamic faith which have been misappropriated by Islamic State. The committee, therefore, recommends that the bill be amended to remove the Islamic State flag from the definition of a prohibited hate symbol. The committee proposes an alternative approach for the government to consider to achieve its policy intent. The committee is of the view that the intent of the bill—prohibiting the public display and trade of symbols that promote extremist ideologies—may be better achieved by an approach that prohibits symbols associated with all proscribed terrorist organisations rather than targeting the Islamic State flag in isolation.

The committee considered much evidence from the militaria and collectables community in relation to the offence of trading of items bearing a prohibited symbol. The committee recommends that these offence provisions do not come into force for a period of six to 12 months so that collectors have a window in which to dispose of part or all of their collections if they so wish.

The committee supports the other measures in the bill to create offences for using a carriage service to deal with violent extremists material, to strengthen the offence of advocating terrorism and to remove the three-year sunsetting of terrorist organisation listings. The committee notes evidence in relation to the carriage service offence that the proposed journalistic purpose defence may not extend to editors, producers and others involved in the news and current affairs reporting process. The committee has, therefore, recommended that the bill be amended to address this issue.

The committee notes that the submission from the joint clerks on the issue that the bill seeks to enable the committee to report its comments and recommendations directly to a minister. The committee considers that this is not appropriate and recommends that the committee only report to the parliament on its activities as per its existing practice. Subject to these amendments, the committee recommends that the bill be passed by parliament.

On behalf of the committee, I extend my thanks to those who participated in the inquiry—all the witnesses who gave evidence at the public hearings and those who provided submissions. I also thank the secretariat for all their hard work on this particular inquiry—and many others of course. In such a short time frame the work they did was exemplary. I extend my thanks to them and to all members of the committee—the deputy chair and members of the committee. It was a difficult bill to work through and a difficult report to work through, but we worked in good faith to try to find very good recommendations that we think will improve this bill and will be in the national interest. I thank opposition members and government members of the committee. I move:

That the House take note of the report.

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