Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Obviously, we're now debating the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Prohibited Hate Symbols and Other Measures) Bill 2023. We've been unable to have the second reading stage. We are in committee for the next 30 minutes, so I will make a number of comments in relation to the bill.

In commencing my comments, I welcome the capitulation by the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, on accepting the coalition's longstanding calls to rectify what was a severe omission in the bill, and that is, of course, the banning of the Nazi salute, which the Australian Labor Party has now belatedly agreed to. It is disturbing, however, that it took the Attorney-General and the government so long to make a decision on such an important matter, which should, quite frankly, have been clear from day one. You have to ask: how do you bring forward a bill to ban prohibited hate symbols but then not ban the Nazi salute? The Attorney-General of Australia and the Labor members on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security fought against the banning of the Nazi salute every step of the way, and there are, quite frankly, no words to explain why they would do this.

The original bill introduced in June of this year by the Attorney-General was glaringly deficient in what it proposed to ban. It narrowly defined what were to be banned symbols and, as I've said, glaringly omitted the banning of the Nazi salute. For more than eight months now, the coalition has been calling for the banning of the Nazi salute. It was in March of this year that the coalition introduced legislation into the House of Representatives so that the parliament could ban the Nazi salute.

The government, the Australian Labor Party, under Mr Albanese, blocked this. Why on earth would a responsible government do this? Therein lies the answer: clearly this government is far from responsible. In May, in our contributions to the inquiry into the bill that we had introduced into the Senate, the coalition again called for the prohibition of the Nazi salute, and again, under this Attorney-General, the government said no. There are really no words to explain why a government would take this position.

After the horrendous 7 October attacks by Hamas on innocent Israeli civilians and the abhorrent rise of antisemitism in Australia, the coalition again recommitted to move amendments to the bill we have before us, to ban the Nazi salute. The Nazi salute is one of the most powerful symbols of antisemitism in our country. It symbolises the industrial murder of over six million Jews and countless others. All Australians are diminished by the sharing and glorification of an ideology which is characterised by genocide, mass murder and other forms of persecution. Quite frankly, I would have thought the banning of the Nazi salute would have been an issue on which this place should unite. Yet for months the Attorney-General of Australia, Mark Dreyfus, and his colleagues have failed to back in the Jewish community and pass simple laws that say the Nazi salute is never appropriate.

The Attorney-General himself said on no fewer than five separate occasions this year that he would not take this important step and ban the Nazi salute. In an interview on 8 June 2023 on the ABC, the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, said:

We think that it's really a matter for state police to deal with the Nazi salute and that's why we've left that for the state law.

In an interview on the same day, 8 June 2023, with Gary Adshead on 6PR, the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, said:

… it's a matter more appropriately dealt with by state and territory law.

In an interview on 8 June 2023 on ABC News Breakfast, the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, said:

… we think it's better dealt with by the state laws …

Then he performed an Olympic-grade backflip. Despite saying to the coalition they were wrong and despite blocking the coalition's moves in both the House and this place to ban the Nazi salute, the Attorney-General, for some bizarre reason, does an Olympic-grade backflip. On 28 November 2023, the Attorney-General of Australia finally accepted that he had got it wrong. He had made the wrong call. He had advised the Albanese government to do the wrong thing. He backflipped, accepted the very reasonable calls of the coalition and announced his reversal—not by way of press conference, though. He announced the reversal of his position via X, formerly known as Twitter. I have to say, on behalf of the coalition, I am glad that the Attorney-General of Australia accepts that the position taken by him and the Albanese government, those members opposite, was the wrong position and that he acquiesced to the right calls of the coalition and the opposition leader, Peter Dutton. There is no place in our society for symbols which are directly linked to one of the most heinous regimes in our history.

There are still some gaps in this bill. We saw on the weekend Neo-Nazis protesting down the main streets of Bendigo, giving the Nazi salute. The bill before us would not stop the display of the flag that the group uses as its logo or other Neo-Nazi symbols such as the black sun, which is another symbol of the National Socialist Network that it uses in Australia. We know that the symbol used by the National Socialist Network in Australia will not be banned under this bill. We also know that Neo-Nazis continue to develop and now utilise additional symbols, more than just the double-sig rune and the hakenkreuz. It is for this reason that I foreshadow that the coalition will be moving an amendment to allow for a review of these laws—which, in our view, should be conducted by a pre-eminent member of the Jewish community—to ensure that these laws are doing what they are meant to do.

We may well find as a result of that review that these narrow laws, as drafted by the government, need to be expanded to properly deal with antisemitism in Australia.

I have to also comment that it is disappointing that it has taken eight months for the Attorney-General of Australia to get this bill to the Senate for debate. For reasons that are unfathomable, the government dragged its feet at every single step while alleging that it continued to work on the issue itself. When the coalition moved in the House of Representatives on 22 March this year to ban the Nazi salute and other symbols, the Leader of the House, Mr Burke, said this to the House of Representatives:

… I have clarified with the Attorney-General that there is work being done within his department that has been going on for some time that goes to these exact issues.

That was a statement made on 22 March 2023. But documents now provided through a freedom-of-information request show that drafting instructions for this bill were not sent to the drafting office until 22 days after the Leader of the Opposition moved to ban Nazi symbols and the Nazi salute on Friday 14 April 2023. So it would appear that work on this bill was not contemplated by the Attorney-General and his office until after the coalition moved in the House of Representatives on 22 March this year to ban the Nazi salute and other symbols. Why would the Leader of the House make his statement that the work was ongoing? If work was ongoing, this is a government that is ridiculously slow to act if drafting instructions were only given 22 days after we had moved in the House of Representatives on 22 March this year to ban the Nazi salute and other symbols.

As I've said, though, this is something that the coalition has been calling for for a very, very long time. It is something that, for some bizarre reason, under the Attorney-General of Australia, the Albanese government has fought kicking and screaming every step of the way. They are the ones that have to answer why. As I said, on 28 November 2023, the Attorney-General of Australia finally did admit that he was wrong. This legislation could have been brought in a long time ago had the Attorney-General heeded the calls of the coalition. So I ask the minister: Why did the government change its position? Why were you so strong on opposing the prohibition of the Nazi salute for eight months on spurious constitutional grounds only to roll over?