Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

It's a matter of sadness and concern that we've come to this—that this legislation should be necessary. The fact that we're debating this bill, the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024, today is a sign of just how seriously the social fabric of this nation has been torn and the extent to which division and vilification have been normalised in public debate.

The wild west that social media has become has not helped, aided and abetted by the intransigence of the digital giants. They should be responsible for the content they allow to be published. The idea that age assurance or verification, for example, will protect children from the deluge of pornography and toxic misogyny available at the click of a cursor or the swipe of a device is a victory for hope over expectation and a reward for corporate irresponsibility. That's a matter for other legislation, but I make the point to indicate how much of the antisocial behaviour we confront is linked and how hard it is, indeed, to address one problem just as another pops up elsewhere. Technological change aggravating social and cultural division is so rapid that we struggle to keep up. But try we must, and in doing so we must separate the right to free speech from hate speech and hateful online behaviour. They are not equivalent.

Hate speech, at its core, is about dehumanising, silencing and infringing on human rights. Freedom of speech is critically important, and I've worked in countries where it does not exist, but it is not absolute. We have been a socially cohesive nation. Our multiculturalism has been a success story and the envy of much of the world. But as I've said many times since entering this parliament, our social cohesion is being challenged as never before in my lifetime: homes sprayed with graffiti, communities vandalised, a synagogue just outside Goldstein firebombed and a caravan found packed with explosives and antisemitic materials in New South Wales. The fault lines of war in Gaza have reached into Australian society. In the wake of the 7 October Hamas terrorist attacks, which have had a profound impact on the Goldstein community, the government says this bill is a further step designed to 'address the rising incidence of hate speech, in particular antisemitism and Islamophobia'. The bill would create new criminal offences and strengthen existing offences to protect the community from harms caused by those who foster hatred and violence.

I note, however, that the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, while welcoming the legislation as a step in the right direction, says it still falls short of the reforms that are needed. The ECAJ argues that there should be the opportunity for criminal prosecution for people calling for a final solution against the Jews and describing Jews collectively as innately bloodthirsty, treacherous criminals and monsters. The executive council argues this legislation does not do that. It was not so long ago that we were passing legislation to strengthen the outlawing of Nazi symbols and memorabilia. Yet it's been a matter of just a couple of months since the firebombing attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne and only a matter of months since a restaurant within the Goldstein electorate hosted a gathering attended by prominent neo-Nazis.

It is appalling that Nazism has any support in Australia in the 21st century. It has absolutely no place in our suburbs. As I've said many times in the last 15 months, my absolute priority is the safety, security and wellbeing of the Goldstein community. I sincerely wish that this legislation was not necessary. But, unfortunately, the language of hate has become even more extreme and more prevalent in recent years, as have the threats of violence that go with it. As the explanatory memorandum accompanying this bill notes, public discourse has increasingly been weaponised with hateful rhetoric aimed at attacking groups in the Australian community. Urging and threatening force or violence against targeted groups or members of targeted groups undermines and erodes Australia's shared values. The harm caused by this conduct can be profound. It's an attack on the dignity of targeted groups and members of targeted groups which affects the physical and psychological wellbeing not only of those targeted but of the whole community. It can also lay the foundation for violence and extremism.

This is in line with last year's admonition from Mike Burgess, the Director-General of Security, when he found it necessary to state publicly that words matter and that ASIO had seen direct connections between inflamed language and inflamed community tensions. Less than a year later on 5 August, ASIO found it necessary to raise the national terrorism threat level from possible to probable, with the Prime Minister noting that more Australians are embracing a more diverse range of extreme ideologies. In November 2023, in the days after a frightening confrontation outside a synagogue in my electorate, I moved the following matter of public importance: the need for the parliament to support social cohesion and take steps to ensure the safety, security and wellbeing of those affected communities at a time of international conflict when communities in Australia are directly affected. Nothing has changed. In fact, it's worsened, as demonstrated by ASIO's decision to elevate the terrorism threat level.

As I said in my MPI speech a lot more than a year ago, Australia has a limited ability to influence the course of events in Israel and Gaza. What we can do and have a responsibility to do is articulate multipartisan calm, encourage empathy and, at all costs, take the politics away. The risk of cataclysmic global conflict is higher than at any time since the height of the Cold War in the early eighties or perhaps the Cuban Missile Crisis of the sixties. Now we're confronted with a conflict which directly affects our own communities and threatens to tear apart the hard-earned gains of Australian multiculturalism—the envy of the world. Since then, I've engaged with Jewish and Palestinian organisations, met university leaders to encourage them to take robust action to address antisemitism on campus, publicly encouraged the government to appoint an antisemitism envoy, pressed the Prime Minister to fast-track security grants for religious institutions and engaged with the government to act to address doxxing, among other things.

Unfortunately, and not just because of the conflict in the Middle East, social cohesion overall has eroded in recent years. The Voice to Parliament, for example, should have been an opportunity to bring the community together to right a historical wrong and forge a way forward for greater equity and equality for First Nations peoples. In fact, the opposite occurred. The lack of groundwork and preparation for the referendum, the failure to explain the value of amending the Constitution to provide for constitutional recognition and the opposition of some in the 'no' case provided an opening for division.

It was not so long ago that the existing protections against discrimination now acknowledged by the intelligence community as one of the gateways to community tension and worse were under fire. A decade ago the Attorney-General of the time, George Brandis, argued for the removal of section 18C from the Racial Discrimination Act, declaring, 'People have the right to be bigots.' It was only persistent and cogent opposition from Jewish and ethnic community organisations that convinced the Abbott government to reject the arguments of former senator Brandis and other enthusiasts—among them my predecessor, the former member for Goldstein. In a submission to a 2016 inquiry into the Racial Discrimination Act, and specifically section 18C, by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, he argued:

… the law is inconsistent with human rights, operates anathema to liberal democratic values and is utterly inconsistent with a free society.

As the inquiry prepared to bring down its report in 2017, the former member for Goldstein declared he'd like to see the committee abolish the existing definition of 'racial discrimination'. That was not the view of the committee, which was much more persuaded by the views of community representatives, ALP members on the committee, the ECAJ and others. The ECAJ argued in its submission that any amendment to the part of the Racial Discrimination Act where section 18C is located:

… would send a strong and dangerous message from Australia's political leaders that a degree of racism in public discourse is to be considered acceptable.

…   …   …

The threat to public peace and order posed by home-grown and imported forms of racism are of an entirely different order to the dangers posed by bad policy ideas. It is naive to suggest that racism can always simply be left to sort itself out through public debate.

Subsequent events, especially those of the last 15 months, have indicated this, and that is why we now have this legislation before us today. It may be one step in the right direction rather than completely up to the task. I note the member for Wentworth's amendment to create a new offence of the promotion of hatred, which, in these troubled times, I will support.

As I've said many times since entering this parliament and before, hate speech is not free speech. We must all work together across these aisles and across this nation to bring people together, not tear them apart. I will support this bill.

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