James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last week, I was doing my regular phone canvassing program and I spoke to a lady who's now retired but spent her life as a nurse in Australia, having grown up in the United Kingdom. She also happens to be Jewish. As many members of parliament do, I was speaking to local residents to see if they have any issues or concerns they want to raise with their local federal member of parliament, and she said to me, 'I'm shocked to say that the thing I want to raise with you is that I'm Jewish and, for the first time in my life, I genuinely feel uncomfortable living here locally in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide.'

Watching the news, following some of the protest movements and invocations at these atrocious events that are occurring in our country right now, is making some Jewish Australians, for the first time ever, feel something in our community that they thought was to be left in history and another part of the world. It's quite heartbreaking that Jewish Australians, like the lady I spoke to last week, are feeling that way. I have a fantastic community servant in my electorate, Andrew Steiner, who is a Holocaust survivor and established the Adelaide Holocaust Museum. He was a young boy in Budapest and lost many members of his family to the Holocaust. As a young man he made it out, probably escaping a fate of death at the hands of the Schutzstaffel in Eastern Europe. Now, in his early 90s, he's seeing things that remind him of the childhood that he remembers with great horror and the terror that he fled.

We have an opportunity here, as a parliament, to send a message which we hoped we'd never have to send. We're banning the swastika, when we never thought any human being that knew anything about what that symbol means in a certain context would want to invoke it. Unfortunately, as a parliament, we have to take action because, in the year 2023, there are people that want to glorify and relive the most horrific elements of what the Nazi regime, which is represented by that symbol, did. They attempted to wipe out an entire race of people—genocide—and they had a good go of it, with six million dead. Unfortunately, in the modern era, there are people that want to promote that, celebrate it and, one fears, perhaps even call for its occurrence again. We've seen it in our own country at some of these events—people uttering slogans and statements that are very much calling for or seeking a second form of holocaust. I made comments about that in another debate, and I won't relive the horror and horrendousness of some of the things that have happened, but I also fear what may be yet to come. The current situation in the Middle East is far from over, and there are people, right here in our own country, who are elevating and extending some of the vile and disgusting things that they're saying and the behaviour that they're displaying.

As a parliament, we have to stand up and send a very clear, united message that we won't stand for that, that we don't support that. One way we can do that is to unanimously support this important measure through the parliament. I hoped that we could've done it a bit sooner than this, and we did attempt to—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 16:43 to 17:01

As I was saying, it is in some ways regrettable that we need to pass this legislation. It seems unfathomable that in 2023, nearly 70 years after the awful horrors of the Nazi regime in Europe during the Second World War, there would be anyone living in our community who would want to invoke and celebrate Nazism and display representations of the horrors of the Nazi regime. But regrettably we've seen, particularly in the last six weeks or so, that that is indeed the case. There are some awful invocations of that era that I thought was left well and truly in history and in another part of the world. There are Jewish Australians in particular who are for the first time feeling so uncomfortable living somewhere where they should never expect to have visited upon them the sort of treatment that was visited upon Jewish people through the 1930s in Germany and, as the Third Reich expanded, more broadly in Europe. We know that the persecution of Jewish people had endured through history well before Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, but the most vile manifestation of antisemitism was beyond question the Holocaust.

I reflected on the principles of free speech when this legislation was first mooted. I thought about whether or not people have the right to hold opinions, despite how appalling and outrageous they might be, and say what they want and what they think in a free society. People have that right. But this is beyond the principle of free speech because, by using these hate symbols, this is the glorification of criminal activity, of genocide and of vile, disgusting behaviour and seeking to inspire it in other people. That is beyond the principles of free speech. That is seeking to relive and celebrate previous crimes and to inspire new crimes into the future, and we absolutely should have no ambiguity about standing up against that.

Regrettably, we do need this legislation. I appreciate the hard work of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and I know that they made sure they looked at a whole range of things that are important to look at. Firstly, we obviously respect the use and display of these symbols that we are seeking to ban in one particular category. In certain religions, the swastika is an enduring, important symbol for that religion and that culture, and it's not the fault of those people that it was adopted by the Nazi regime. We certainly are making sure that, on religious grounds, that is not captured.

It is also important that the stories of the horrors of the Holocaust are told—it's more important now, unfortunately, than ever. So, again, we do not want restrictions in the teaching of history or in the depiction of the Nazi regime in culture, film and on the stage et cetera. We don't want these laws to cover what is an important part of keeping the memory of one of the most appalling, awful chapters in the history of humankind alive so it is a lesson for people today. We are, indeed, in debating this legislation, remembering that lesson.

I've been to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and I've been to the Dachau concentration camp. I was very proud to work with former Treasurer Frydenberg in securing a significant investment in the Adelaide Holocaust Museum and, in particular, giving students access to visit that very confronting display of that horrible period of human history, because we know how important it is that our next generation understand what the atrocities of the past were, so that we never see them repeated again.

The fact that, in the last few weeks, we have heard things said and seen placards, depictions and slogans at rallies and events—things that I am still in a degree of shock about and that I never thought I'd see in my own country—goes to show, regrettably, that Holocaust education, as well as Holocaust commemoration, is as important now as it has ever been.

It is regrettable that we need this legislation, but it is important that we pass it. I think the parliament coming together—I hope, unanimously—to legislate the banning of these vile, hateful symbols will send a very powerful message to anyone that is partial towards them or the disgusting, appalling ideology that underpins them: that the Australian parliament is absolutely united against anyone that has any sympathy for the Nazi regime or the crimes that they committed and that we stand in great solidarity, particularly with Jewish Australians, who right now in particular are feeling very uncomfortable, even in their own country. This sign from the leadership of our nation, the parliament of our nation, is a great opportunity for them, hopefully, to have an experience of hope in what's been a very difficult few weeks for them. I commend the bill to the House.

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