Ley will work with Labor on softer hate laws, as fears brew they won’t take on radical groups
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley will work with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to pass a watered-down hate crimes bill that would overrule the Nationals and conservative Coalition supporters, but there are fresh concerns that softer laws will make it harder to crack down on radical Islamist groups.
Ley and Albanese are due to negotiate this week after Labor withdrew a key element of its legal response to the weekend’s Bondi massacre, which would have criminalized inciting hatred. The Coalition, the Greens and many civil society groups have argued that this part of the bill could have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.
Albanese split the bill in half to salvage political support ahead of this week’s two-day parliamentary session. A bill focusing on gun restrictions will now be passed with the support of the Greens. The second bill gives the government extraordinary new powers to jail people linked to “hate groups” and separate powers to block the visas of hate-oriented activists.
Ley’s critics, including Andrew Hastie, opposed any deal with Labour.
But Ley told shadow cabinet colleagues at an hours-long meeting on Sunday evening that the opposition must be constructive as families of Bondi victims look to parliament for leadership. Albanese and Ley will also meet with the victims’ families on Monday.
Some Coalition sources, who are not allowed to speak publicly, said the opposition would oppose Labor’s gun laws but would work with Albanese to make relatively minor changes to Ley’s hate crimes bill. National MPs were unwilling to engage Labor on any bills.
National Senate leader Bridget McKenzie said her party was still concerned about the unintended consequences of the hate crimes legislation Ley plans to pass.
“Nationals support changes [the] “The Immigration Act, which makes it easier to deport Islamists from our country and stop them coming,” he said. “The rushed process, lack of consultation and genuine concern about unintended consequences will cause the National party chamber to consider other matters this morning.”
Both Albanese and Ley returned to Canberra on Monday under political pressure over their response to the world’s worst killing of Jews since Hamas’ 2023 attacks.
This imprint’s Resolve Political Monitor shows Albanese’s performance rating has fallen 28 percentage points since the Bondi attack in early December, from -6 to -22.
Meanwhile, Ley continues to grapple with the resurgent One Nation. This imprint’s Resolve Poll shows the minor party on 18 per cent support and the Coalition on 28 per cent. Newspoll showed One Nation outpacing the Coalition for the first time, 22 to 21 per cent.
Politicians will spend Monday giving condolences over the Bondi attack before moving on to legislative debate on Tuesday.
A critical part of the proposed reforms gives the government new powers to ban groups that espouse hate. The government has previously stated that the law would crack down on neo-Nazi groups and the Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir.
According to the proposal, groups deemed to be involved in new crimes that criminalize promoting hatred would be defined as hate groups.
But the government now faces a higher bar for targeting Hizb ut Tahrir, having shelved these new crimes on Saturday under pressure from the Coalition and the Greens. Neo-Nazis will be easier to spot because they display hate symbols such as swastikas and meet one of the other thresholds to be determined.
Albanese acknowledged on Monday that shelving proposals to ban hate had made it “more difficult” to ban radical groups, but argued the laws were still enforceable.
Leading constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey said the backtrack on anti-defamation provisions had made the test of banning hate groups even tougher for Labor, as it now had to prove the groups were inciting violence rather than promoting hatred; this is a higher threshold.
Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said: “If Hizb ut Tahrir cannot be banned because of these changes then there is a serious problem with the bill and Parliament needs to work together to fix it.”
“For years, Hizb ut Tahrir has praised acts of terrorism and sought to normalize the most extreme forms of Jew hatred – and both the Government and the Opposition have now called for their ban,” he said.
The Jewish community and the Coalition called on the government to use existing terrorist group designation laws to crack down on Hizb ut Tahrir; It was revealed that this imprint was using pro-Palestinian front groups to spread its violent messages in 2024. However, neither Hizb ut Tahrir nor neo-Nazi organizations meet the definition of a terrorist organization.
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Paul Sakkal is the chief political correspondent. It has previously covered Victorian politics and won the Walkley and Quill awards. Reach him securely on Signal @paulsakkal.14Connect with: excitement or email.
