Media Releases

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) welcomes the passage through Parliament of Hate Crimes legislation yesterday, and thanks both the Government and the Liberal Party for their hard work and good faith in putting together a workable compromise to allow it to pass.

AIJAC Executive Director Dr Colin Rubenstein said, “We are very pleased that the hate speech bill has passed through Parliament. The surge of antisemitism over the past 27 months and the horrific Bondi terrorist attack demonstrated that strong national action is desperately needed to counter this hatred. The new legislation is a very important and constructive start, although there is much work still ahead of us.

“The outlawing of hate groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and neo-Nazis; stronger action against hate preachers; and reform to immigration laws to better allow the cancellation of visas for those spreading hate or extremism are all important steps in combating the surge of antisemitism we have seen over the past 27 months. We look forward to seeing the implementation of these important measures.

“We are mindful that both sides of politics had to face down critics and take some political risks to achieve the positive outcome that we now have, and we express our thanks to both the Government and the Liberal Party for their principled hard work and good faith efforts to unite in furthering  Australia’s national interests over the last few days.

“We also hope that we have not seen the last of the original proposed provision, withdrawn by the Government,  to make severe hate speech a federal criminal offence – notwithstanding current Liberal opposition to this and Mr Albanese’s statement that there will be no further attempt to legislate such racial vilification provisions this term. We understand that some aspects of these provisions were complex and contentious, but we hope that the Parliament can work cooperatively together to formulate legislation that achieves a balanced version of the much-needed restrictions on severe hate speech,” Dr Rubenstein concluded.