Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024 but also to seek this parliament's support in passing my amendments to address some of the remaining deficiencies in the act. In recent weeks and months, my community of Wentworth has witnessed a horrifying increase in antisemitic incidences. These violent and destructive attacks have targeted houses, vehicles, places of worship and even a childcare centre. Almost daily, the Jewish community is being violently targeted by criminals. These attacks target Jewish Australians, but they have frightened my whole community; my whole community is frightened. People in Wentworth have been forced to install additional security cameras, dread going away or leaving their kids home alone and now live in a community patrolled 24/7 by police helicopters. A woman spoke to me recently, saying she was meant to be going overseas for a wedding—a very important, personal reason—but she was very afraid to leave her adult daughter at home because of what was happening. It is overwhelming.

This is not an Australia I recognise. Yesterday, I was very proud to put forward and get support from the entire parliament in the House and the Senate on a motion that unanimously acknowledged the insidious rise of antisemitism in Australia and condemned it unequivocally. I think that is absolutely critical. This is why, to be honest, I have been working hard in the parliament and in my community—to make a real difference on antisemitism. Some of the things I've been focused on include, firstly, getting the right people there. I'm lobbying very hard and delivering Australia's first antisemitism envoy. I'm calling to make sure that the laws are right. I called for, and we've successfully delivered in this parliament, strong anti-doxxing laws and the outlawing of Nazi symbols and gestures. I helped make sure security services are right both by ensuring we deliver tens of millions of dollars of enhanced security for the Jewish community and also by making sure that the policing is coordinated. I was calling for a national approach to policing, which the government announced before Christmas, and I meet every single week with Strike Force Pearl in Sydney, as well as with my local police, to understand what is happening in terms of policing and make sure the policing is right for the community that I'm facing.

We've also been pushing to make sure that education is right. There are two elements. One has been advocating for and seeing the success of $8.5 million given to the Sydney Jewish Museum, because that is a critical facility for educating people in this space. I have invited every single high school in my electorate to come together to talk about antisemitism and hear the testimonies of the Jewish schools about what they're doing and feeling and how we can better make sure the whole community and the young people in it are standing up against antisemitism. I also think a critical part has been around community cohesion. We have invited all the faith leaders of Wentworth together to talk about the mutual problems and challenges faced by faith leaders and to share some of those challenges with each other and build that community. Finally, I've worked very closely with the Australian Union of Jewish Students to put pressure specifically on university vice-chancellors to stamp out antisemitism at the university. I was doing that work before 7 October with my colleagues the co-chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Josh Burns and Julian Leeser.

This work is ongoing and absolutely critical. It's a huge part of what I do in parliament, and that is because I'm really concerned about the rise in antisemitism. I was concerned before 7 October. And I can see the impact on my community every single day. This impact isn't just the violent occurrences. I've run student forums every single term and invite students from all my schools together. I always have two students from all my schools together to talk about issues. In one forum very recently, two students talked about their experience of antisemitism in the streets of my community. They were walking down the street. Someone saw that they had Jewish school uniforms. The car slowed down and did a heil Hitler sign and swore about the Jewish people. That's what the kids in my community are dealing with, and it is absolutely shocking. The day before yesterday I spoke to a friend of mine whose kids are a similar age—young primary school kids—and he said: 'It's getting really hard. We're trying to shield our kids from the antisemitism, but they don't understand why there are police constantly outside the schools, or why the guards have increased. They don't understand why they can't go on excursions anymore, why they're not playing sport with others, or why they're being told not to wear the school uniform in certain public places.' This is absolutely tragic. I am proud the parliament unified against yesterday to say that we condemn this antisemitism, but we need to collectively be taking strong action. This legislation is part of the strong action that we need to take, as well as stronger sentencing, stronger policing, education and making sure those who have perpetrated these crimes are actually prosecuted.

Let me come to the legislation. Whether we like it or not, the community is looking to us as lawmakers to draw a clear line in the sand. Australia has, for many decades, struggled with balancing freedom of speech and the protection of safety and civil liberties. Striking such a balance is no trivial issue. But today, overseas conflicts, polarising political debates and leaders, and tough economic conditions, mixed in with the apparently anonymous impunity of the internet and social media, have created an environment in which hate and division are festering. Australia's social cohesion is showing not only cracks but also chasms. While we have strict criminal laws against things like destruction of property and vandalism, and the perpetrators behind these crimes are being pursued by law enforcement, these incidents are not random. They're not isolated. They're the result of the festering hatred and animosity that is first allowed to germinate in dark corners of the internet and chat rooms, gradually manifesting in speeches, gestures and placards, until it ultimately spews out onto the streets in acts of violence. It is the cumulative impact of insidious, vitriolic statements, slogans and expressions that have absolutely nothing to do with robust debate, the exchange of ideas or the scrutiny of power.

Let me give you some examples. In March 2023, protesters at an anti-trans rally held signs calling to destroy 'paedo freaks'. The royal commission into disability outlined instances of people's photos being posted online for the purpose of drawing vile comments and public humiliation. In 2023, an online sermon called for the final solution in relation to the Jews, echoing the words of Hitler. These acts have a very human element to the people who they're targeted towards, and demonstrate a clear gap in our legal framework. As the director of security at ASIO, Mike Burgess, repeatedly said: words matter.

Let me move on to the changes and their deficiencies. Within this context it is commendable that legislation has been brought forward by the government. The current bill will modestly improve the existing federal Crimes Act by lowering the fault element for existing offences from intent to recklessness, as well as by introducing a new offence for threatening force or violence. But we should be listening more carefully when the people and groups that this legislation is designed to protect continue to protest its inadequacy. This was amply highlighted by the submissions to the Senate inquiry. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry highlighted in their submission that despite gradual changes over time to the Criminal Code:

… there remains an environment of relative impunity with respect to the promotion, advocacy or glorification of racial and religious hatred and violence …

Equality Australia and Rainbow Families, representing the LGBTQIA+ community, stated that, in addition to protections against targeted threats of violence, federal regulation needs to 'hold hate to account and prevent it spreading'. People with Disability Australia expressed disappointment that 'this bill does not criminalise serious forms of vilification perpetrated against targeted groups, as originally intended'.

For these communities and others, the amendments the government has put forward are positive, but they do not go to the heart of hate, the promotion of hate and the impact that it has on our society. They make illegal only the most extreme acts—if, indeed, they can ever be proven beyond reasonable doubt—but do nothing against the tidal wave of hatred, abuse and harassment that people in our community are subjected to daily. Incidents that make them feel insecure, unsafe and unwelcome in their own home, in their own country, and in the place they were born. Enough is enough.

Our federal law is inadequate and our state and racial vilification acts represent a hodgepodge of overlapping legislation that creates different classes of offences and different standards of proof depending on where you reside in Australia. In the internet age, when state borders are irrelevant to the flow of information, this just isn't going to cut it. Legal and human rights organisations have acknowledged that we have a gaping hole in our legal framework, and I and many others believe it's time for a nationally consistent approach. That is why I am moving an amendment to this bill that will create a new offence of serious vilification and promotion of hatred, and I urge this parliament to support my amendment. I'm also suggesting in the amendment that the term 'intersex status' be replaced with 'sex characteristics' to better reflect the preference of the LGBTIQ community and the direction of not only various state laws but also international human rights recommendations.

I acknowledge that this is a really difficult area to legislate, and I am not naive to the challenges. People are rightly concerned about the protection of freedom of speech in such a robust and flourishing democracy as we have here, and so am I. But let me make some reassurances. This amendment will not remove your right to speak freely or to protest. How do we have some certainty around this? The amendment is based on legislation that has been in WA for the last 20 years. In fact the Western Australian crimes act has had a similar offence for the last 21 years. It's these sections—sections 77 and 78 from chapter 11 of the WA Criminal Code—that are actually the inspiration for my amendment. The provisions in the WA Criminal Code have not resulted in the curtailing of free speech in WA. They have not led to censorship. But they have put behind bars people who would seek to stoke hatred. In 2011 a Western Australian man, Brendon O'Connell, was found guilty under the new section 77 of harassing a young Jewish man in 2009. But, to demonstrate the law's necessary limitations, there are also precedents where these sections have been rejected in instances of minor offensive slurs, because that is not the intention.

I want to talk about this point a bit further because this is really critical. The amendments I have put forward are designed to stop the promotion of hatred and the promotion of harassment—the people who are out there promoting it. To be convicted of this, it has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, which is our highest evidentiary proof, that you had the intention to promote hatred in the community. That is a really high bar, and I genuinely believe it is appropriately so. When people ask me about the concerns about free speech, which I acknowledge, I say, 'Look, do we want people who are intending to promote hatred?' That is their goal. Is that something that we should be protecting without any guardrails? Or should we also be considering what happens to vulnerable communities when people are promoting and really intending to increase hatred against a group and there is little recourse that these individuals have—certainly not under the criminal code? That is a real challenge and a real question. Australia has always had some appropriate restrictions on free speech. Defamation law is one of them. You can't defame somebody. There are all sorts of things. There are appropriate guardrails around this, and I think we need to be really clear on this.

I value our incredibly diverse community of people from all parts of the world. Fifty per cent of our country either was born overseas or had a parent born overseas. My family is half-half—half born here; half born overseas—when it comes to my parents. Australia has every religion, we have so many different languages spoken at home and we are welcoming of people of different sexualities and genders. This is the country that we're trying to protect, and I really question whether people trying to promote hatred in different groups in our community should go unfettered. I think there should be guardrails around this, and that is why I am seeking support from the parliament on this.

Finally, in our country we will often disagree vehemently. We will disagree over conflicts overseas. We're a multicultural nation and we will always have people on different sides of any conflict, but I do see that my community is unified in the sense that they do not stand for hate and intimidation of others based on their religion, sexuality, ethnic background or ability status. That cannot be tolerated in this society. (Time expired)

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