Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's an honour to follow my friend the member for Moreton on this bill, the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024, a bill that the opposition is supporting. It provides me with an opportunity, in commencing, to acknowledge the member for Moreton's service and our very great friendship, despite our disagreements on some quite fundamental things over the years. The member for Moreton is a very fine man, and I hope he has a wonderful retirement with his family. I look forward to the next instalment of his writings and so on! I've very much enjoyed the opportunity to serve with him.

I want to provide a bit of context for why this bill is important at this particular time. This week I did something extraordinary that I've never done before, and it indicates where we are as a society; I sent an open letter to the Jewish students of Australia as they returned to school. I did that because the level of hate against Jewish Australians is something we've never experienced in this country before, and it is a sad feature of this country. The public discussion about these things would have had a particular effect on the Jewish school students of Australia. So I wrote to them that often you would be returning to school perhaps feeling a bit anxious, nervous and excited, as you would at the beginning of any school year, but this year, because of the discussion your parents may have been having at home, the things you have seen on television and, if you are in a Jewish school, some of the things you would have seen, like increased security presence, you may feel extra anxious. If a child is not at a Jewish school, they may be feeling well accepted and supported, and others will be feeling alone and isolated.

I wanted to tell them, importantly, that it's going to be okay and that people in positions of leadership like me are working hard to make sure that they're safe and that the community is protected. Importantly, I said to them that, at this time of increasing hate, you can't let the haters win. This is an important time to stand proud, remember the beauty of the Jewish tradition and never be a bystander. If there are bullies or bad people, stand up against them, and, if things get tough, remember you're not alone. Parents, teachers, grandparents and even great-grandparents are people they can lean on. I concluded with these important words. I said: 'You're precious to your family, you're precious to our community, and you're precious to our country. We're counting on you to play your part, do your best, have fun and be proud of who you are. I wish you a year of great learning, wonderful friendships and countless opportunities. Australia needs you, and I know you'll make us proud. Go well.'

The fact that any student in Australia today is going back to school in an atmosphere where there are lots of hate symbols in our community and attacks on their schools underscores, in my view, the need for this bill. This is a bill that, once passed, can touch on some of the most fundamental principles that our society stands for: the protection of individual freedoms, the promotion of social cohesion and the responsibility of government to provide the necessary boundaries that safeguard our community from harm. Hate speech, hate crimes and acts of violence motivated by prejudice are abhorrent. They strike at the very heart of our shared values of respect, of dignity and of equality. They divide our communities, they foster fear and they undermine the very fabric of our multicultural society. As a nation, we must be united against hatred in any form. This bill seeks to strengthen our legal framework to address these challenges, proposing to expand the definition of hate crimes, increase penalties for offences motivated by hatred and introduce new provisions to better protect vulnerable communities.

These are very fine and laudable objectives. While I welcome the government bringing this bill forward, coming in the last sitting fortnight, it does epitomise, sadly, this government's failure to prevent the spread of antisemitism in our country and to treat this very serious issue with the priority it deserves. Since 7 October 2023, the Jewish community has been repeatedly attacked. Homes, cars, family businesses, synagogues and childcare centres have all been attacked. Whether these instances are of the graffiti of someone's property, the firebombing of a childcare centre or an arson attack on a synagogue, the community look to their leaders, the federal government and the Prime Minister for support. Sadly, every time the Jewish community has looked to this Prime Minister and his government for leadership, there has been a void. For months, we've had the Prime Minister and his ministers failing to acknowledge antisemitism without mentioning Islamophobia in the same breath to offset the other, just as the Teals can't mention antisemitism without mentioning hatred against LGBTI Australians, as if standing up to acknowledge Jewish Australians' experience of antisemitism would somehow diminish the experience of Muslim Australians or LGBTI Australians. Hatred against Muslim Australians or LGBTI Australians is bad and needs to be called out. But, at a time when the perpetrators of antisemitism are running rampant across our country, when it's resulting in armed guards outside Jewish schools and helicopters over Jewish suburbs at night-time because the security and safety of the community is so fragile, it is appropriate for the government and everyone in leadership to stand up and focus solely on the problems of antisemitism.

Instead, unfortunately, this government has failed to support the Jewish community adequately. Small, family-owned businesses have been defaced with antisemitic slurs, cars have been torched, a preschool was firebombed in Maroubra, and, of course, there was the dreadful firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne. Antisemitic displays have been left unprosecuted. Universities were permitted to be used as encampments that served as a hotbed of antisemitic action, with weekly protests with clear antisemitic sentiment just allowed to carry on. Just last week it came to light that a possible terror attack was averted—and we should all be thankful that it was averted—with a caravan of explosives found in Dural in my electorate of Berowra.

The need for stronger protections against hate crimes could not be clearer. What Australians are seeing today is an increasing indifference to the current penalties that apply to people who commit these abhorrent crimes. We saw this in protests that occurred last year. People were just thumbing their nose at the law. Criminals currently have a level of confidence that they can commit these acts without any serious repercussions. While the government has been floundering domestically, we've also seemed to abandon Israel on the international stage, further fuelling active antisemitism at home. In the wake of October 7, the instinct of this Labor government was not to stand with Israel, which had been the target of this horrific atrocity, but it was to call on Israel to exercise restraint. This was followed by a series of votes in the UN in which Australia, under the leadership of this Prime Minister, reversed what's been the longstanding bipartisan position on the State of Israel.

The Albanese Labor government's soft, slow and contradictory response since October 7 worryingly let antisemitic sentiment fester in our community. It appears that this bill at least seeks to resolve some of the government's failures. This bill is an attempt to try and bring these matters on, albeit not as urgently as we in the coalition would have liked. The bill looks to modify existing offences particularly under division 80 of the Criminal Code. The existing provisions already make it an offence to urge violence on an individual or group on the basis of race or religion. For months, the coalition has been calling on the government to take action and prosecute those caught spouting antisemitic sentiments under this division of the Criminal Code. With the continued rise of antisemitism in Australia, we're at the point where we can no longer wait to test existing laws. We need these provisions to make it easier to prosecute people who try to spread hate in our community. In a sentence, that's what this bill is actually about.

The changes will lower the threshold for prosecution for those who urge violence on individuals or groups and ensures that criminals can be held responsible for their actions. The bill also provides amendments so that, instead of intending that the violence occurs, it only needs to be proved that the person was reckless as to whether the violence would occur. This bill removes the good faith defence for those urging violence because we, like the government, believe no-one can urge violence in good faith. The current good faith defence provides redundant protections, and we think it is right that those protections should be removed. It's also important to note that this bill was first introduced in the last sitting week of September 2024. At that time, the coalition was ready to debate this bill, work to secure its passage and provide the additional security and safeguards that our community so desperately needed. Instead, like every opportunity the government has had to combat antisemitism, they didn't take it then. Instead, they sat back and chose not to act. There was no urgency from this government late last year to pass these laws.

Since then, what have we seen? We've seen the continued firebombing and vandalisation of cars and businesses in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs. We've seen the firebombing of a synagogue in Melbourne. We've seen the attempted arson attack on a synagogue in Newtown. We've seen, as I said, the discovery of the caravan filled with explosives in my electorate, not to mention the countless accounts of lower-level antisemitic attacks on Jewish Australians, who are just trying to go about their lives. The coalition is taking a constructive approach to this bill. While we support the bill, we believe it can go further, and the shadow minister for home affairs and the Leader of the Opposition have foreshadowed that we would be making some amendments to this bill. We want to make it a hate crime to urge violence towards a place of worship, punishable by five years, or seven years in the case of an aggravated offence. Perpetrators that engage in behaviour that incites fear need to be caught and deserve to face the full brunt of the law, and this is particularly so, we believe, when people are attacking a place of worship—a place of communal gathering, a place that is sacred to people. It doesn't matter if we're talking about a synagogue, a mosque, a church, a temple, a gurdwara, a mandi—all places deserve protection, and all places would get that specific protection under the enhanced amendments that are proposed by the coalition.

We sincerely hope that the government will support the amendments that we've put forward, which have been put forward in good faith. The evidence is clear that those amendments are needed. This legislation alone is not enough to combat the attacks that the Jewish community is now facing. For some time now, the opposition has been calling on the government to introduce additional measures through a multifaceted, multi-agency approach. We are still waiting for this to occur. It was the beginning of January, following the arson attempt at the Newtown Synagogue and the graffiti that had occurred at the Allawah synagogue a few days beforehand, that I called for the urgent convening of National Cabinet to see the state and territory leaders and the federal government come together to ensure that a series of laws could be drafted to ensure there was a complete stop to the escalation of these incidents.

My leader—Peter Dutton, the opposition leader—had been calling for National Cabinet for more than a year. What we saw out of National Cabinet was disappointing. We know, because he posted it on his social media account, that the Acting Tasmanian Premier, Guy Barnett, took stronger measures, tougher laws and harder penalties including mandatory minimum sentences to that National Cabinet meeting. But instead of that being the outcome of the National Cabinet meeting, all that came out of it was a database which, in some respects, mirrors the database that has been collected by the Jewish community for decades now. It was a very disappointing occasion.

As with all Australians, the Jewish community deserve to go about their daily lives free of fear and discrimination. I'll continue to advocate in this parliament and elsewhere to see that occur. The fight against antisemitism and hate speech is not just a Jewish issue; it's an Australian issue. What has occurred particularly in recent weeks has been a test of our values. It's been a test of our commitment to diversity and a test of our resolve to stand up for what's right. The Jewish community has done what it has always done—shown remarkable resilience in the face of adversity. They shouldn't have to battle this alone. It's the responsibility of all Australians to stand with the Jewish community and to speak out against this hatred as we speak out against hatred when we see it directed against other communities in our country. We must work together to build a society where everyone can live free from fear, one of President Roosevelt's famous four freedoms.

While I support the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024 as an important step in the fight against hate, including antisemitism, I will continue to call on the government to complement this legislation with a much more comprehensive strategy to address the root causes of hatred and antisemitism that we're seeing. Those items include the items that have been put forward by the shadow minister for home affairs and the Leader of the Opposition, including tougher penalties and mandatory minimum sentences for the commission of these hate crimes and the commission of terrorist offences.

I know the usual arguments about mandatory sentencing and mandatory minimums. They usually apply when you're talking about people engaging in small crimes like shoplifting, but these are some of the worst crimes—terrorism and crimes motivated by hate. We cannot have a situation in this country where people are committing these crimes and then not doing jail time. There is no deterrence set. If it deters even one person, it will have been worthwhile. I also support and I'll also continue to encourage the government bringing forward not just the AFP Operation Avalite but the suite of federal intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies working with state government agencies to provide the most coordinated approach to dealing with these matters.

Of course, we have seen the hatred on our campuses continuing, as we saw at the Queensland University of Technology in recent weeks, and as we've seen through some of the appalling performance of vice-chancellors before parliamentary committees in this place. The need for a judicial inquiry into antisemitism on campuses was necessary last year and remains necessary this year, and we will continue to pursue it.

I hope the government will support our amendments to this legislation. I hope they will come on board and support some of those other measures. In this legislation, the parliament needs to stand together to send a clear message to those spreading hate and violence in our country that that has no place in Australia.

See this speech in context