The Squiz 

Australia’s Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus is overseeing the creation of new hate speech laws which will include criminal penalties for those who seriously breach them. Our current laws impose civil penalties for people who vilify others based on race, sexuality, gender, disability or faith, and reports say the government wants to go further to protect the community “from those who promote extremism, hatred or seek to incite violence”.

Why is this coming up now?

It’s because Oz – like many other countries – has been dealing with an uptick in hate speech in real life and online. A lot of that has to do with the war in Gaza, with reports of cases of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia rising. That escalated over the weekend with anti-Semitic graffiti (which we won’t repeat here…) being spraypainted on Melbourne’s largest Jewish school, Mount Scopus Memorial College, which prompted Jewish leaders to call on the Albanese Government to “push back against this wave of extremism”. Elsewhere, there have been questions over whether recent protests at uni campuses have breached hate speech laws. And on Friday, Elon Musk’s social media platform X also came under fire… A judge ruled it’s subject to Queensland’s anti-discrimination laws, meaning it could be held liable for hosting anti-Muslim hate speech.

Yeesh. There’s a bit going on, then…

Yep – and the move to strengthen our hate speech laws hasn’t come out of the blue, with PM Anthony Albanese flagging it in February. So what’s taken so long? Yesterday, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said “identifying those gaps and making sure that we feel that we have appropriate penalties in place” has taken a while. Coalition leader Peter Dutton has also indicated he’s in favour of strengthening the hate speech laws. But given there’s no date set for when we might see the reforms legislated, Coalition Senator Michaelia Cash said existing criminal laws should be enforced. In the meantime, Rowland wouldn’t get into what criminal penalties could be on the cards under the new laws – she said they’re still under “active discussion”. So it’s a case of TBC…