House debates

Wednesday, 5 February 2025

Bills

Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024; Second Reading

4:38 pm

Photo of Adam BandtAdam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens support this legislation, the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024. It will mean that a number of people in our community who in many instances are currently, tragically, targeted by violence will gain some extra protections. People in the LGBTQIA+ community, disabled people and many others who are the subject of violence and threats of violence far too often will now be better protected under this legislation and new offences will be put in place. The expanded list of protected attributes is welcome recognition and a strengthening of our laws to protect these communities. The addition of disability as a protected attribute is long overdue and a much-needed step to combating the ableism and discrimination experienced by disabled people, and, in too many instances, tragically, as the disability royal commission exposed, violence.

Criminal law alone will not stop hate. Indeed, many experts tell us—and the Greens agree—that if that is all you do, and if you simply do things like attack the rule of law and introduce minimum mandatory sentencing, as the coalition wants to do, you don't make society safer. What we do need is a national human rights act that extends these protections, and we also need the government to urgently fully fund the implementation of the National Anti-Racism Framework to tackle all forms of racism and to invest in responses to hate that are grassroots and community led.

We have seen—not just in recent times but going back over many years, including into the previous government—the rise of white supremacists and the far right in this country, Neo-Nazis, and disturbingly that has been happening for a number of years. We are now seeing antisemitic attacks in Australia, which are to be condemned. We also know that over many years there has been widespread, and continues to be widespread, Islamophobia in our country, including leading up to the attacks. Racism and violence have no place in our country. They have no place in our country, and we as politicians need to call out that hatred and racism and do what we can to stop it.

Indeed, as I mentioned before, going back a few years, I remember during the pandemic we saw Neo-Nazis marching and gathering in the Grampians in Victoria, seeking to feed off and encourage fear in our society. It was something that we called out at the time. There was a parliamentary inquiry, and, sadly, that parliamentary inquiry in Victoria found that there had been a rise in right-wing extremism and, indeed, that it was something that ASIO and our security agencies had been warning previous governments to take seriously for some time. We do need to work out how we can get to the root of hate in our society and stop the rise of these elements that aren't just simply about promoting fear online and in words but, in many instances, threatening violence or tragically committing violence.

When you are extending criminal law, you must always be careful that you get it right because, when you try and legislate criminal law in haste, there is room for error and unintended consequences. We believe the bill as it stands at the moment has got the balance right, and it's been through an extensive and exhaustive Senate inquiry process. There have been people who have looked at it from the perspective of both ensuring that it doesn't attack the rule of law but also ensuring that it targets that hate that we all want to target, so the Greens support this bill as it's presented here in the House.

I watch with some concern the opposition, especially as we head towards an election, use every opportunity they can to seek to divide and whip up fear. As they have done for many, many years, the opposition are out there with their attack on judges and the judiciary, calling for mandatory minimum sentencing and to take away the power of judges and the power of the judiciary that is long established in our rule of law and in the separation of powers. The coalition seems to believe that the parliament is in a better position than judges to hear and decide cases. The separation of powers is there for a very real reason, and it's about understanding and respecting the independence of the judiciary and saying to the judiciary, 'Together with juries, your job is to find out whether someone is guilty and then to work out, in those instances, what is the best kind of sentencing to apply.' The coalition attacks the rule of law. They do it regularly. They always do it. I've been in this place long enough now to know the coalition tries to gain votes by punching down all the time. That is what they do. They punch down, they seek to whip up fear, they seek to divide and they seek to attack the rule of law time and time again. That makes society less safe.

I hope that, with the Greens' support, together with, as I understand it, the support of other members of the crossbench, this bill could pass as is. Perhaps it could have some other minor amendments to fine-tune it, but the bill could essentially pass as is. I urge the government, especially as we head towards an election, not to go and work with the coalition to alter the balance of this bill but to stick with this bill that has got the balance right and to pass it because there are the numbers there in parliament to pass it.

I also urge the government to look seriously at having a human rights act in this country and to look at the national antiracism framework. The government was provided with a very good and clear blueprint for how we can combat racism in this country in all its forms. It's got the backing of the commission and it sets out in a lot of detail what it would take to actually start to get to the root of some of this to try to stop this kind of hate—stop the antisemitism and stop the Islamophobia—at its source. It's about what we need to do to get to the bottom of that. The framework, in many respects, and the report that led to it pull no punches. They talk about the injustices that exist in this country, and the violence and the dispossession, and they say, 'Here's what needs to be done to address it.' We haven't yet heard a full response from the government or a commitment to fully implementing that framework. Together with legislation like this, that has to be part of tackling hate in this country. I urge the government to seize this opportunity—not to go and do what the Leader of the Opposition wants to do, which will ultimately make us less safe and not tackle the root causes, but instead to pass this bill basically as is and to then commit to fully funding and implementing the framework.

I'll end where I started: the Greens support this bill and the protections that it gives to those who have been the target of hate crimes and acts of violence. There is no room for violence in our society. Over the last few days and weeks I've been reading the accounts of young men, for example, who get an invitation to go and meet what they think is another man only to be lured into a situation where a number of people descend on them and beat them. For many in our community and for many in the LGBTIQ+ community, that has echoes of violence that has been received in the past, and it's something they had hoped might have been prominent decades ago but was on the decline. There are now many who are feeling fearful about acts and threats of violence. It's not just amongst the queer community, of course; it's amongst First Nations communities as well. We've heard reports from members of the Jewish communities about feeling the fears of threat and violence. We hear from members of the Islamic communities as well. We hear it from members of many communities, but everyone should have the right to feel safe in our society.

Parliament should come together and pass this legislation. We should not have amendments on the run that could potentially have unintended consequences that haven't been through the Senate inquiry process, like substantial amendments that talk about expanding, for example, the scope to include minimum mandatory sentencing. I hope the government sticks to what is said to be Labor Party policy, which is to oppose minimum mandatory sentencing. We've seen them walk away from that once before in this parliament. I hope they don't do it this time. We should pass this legislation essentially as is and then commit ourselves to coming together as a parliament to stamp out all forms of racism through a fully funded and implemented antiracism strategy, as has been recommended to the government.

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