By Zac de Silva and Tess Ikonomou
Further measures to combat hate speech are unlikely to be pursued, even if a royal commission into anti-Semitism calls for stronger laws.
Hate speech laws were rushed through parliament late on Tuesday night with the aim of restricting radical groups’ scope to incite violence against people based on their faith.
They also make it easier for the government to deport extremists or deny them entry to Australia.
The laws were quickly drafted in response to the December 14 anti-Semitic terror attack at Bondi Beach that left 15 people dead.
Asked if Labor was prepared to make changes to the laws if they are recommended by the royal commission, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke indicated the government wouldn’t pursue further measures.
“The massacre itself didn’t create the political will,” he told ABC radio on Wednesday.
“I’m not sure how even a royal commission will on hate speech laws.
“And I wish that were not the case, I’ve just got to give you my honest assessment.”
The government’s bill went through with the support of most Liberals during a late-night Senate sitting, but the Nationals voted against it after raising concerns about its potential impacts on freedom of speech.
The cross-party agreement was only reached after last-minute negotiations between Labor and Liberal leaders and weeks of fractious political debate.
Greens justice spokesperson David Shoebridge, whose party voted against the measures, said there were real concerns the laws would target political criticism, particularly from those who opposed Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“We couldn’t support the hate speech bill because the government hasn’t said what conduct they want to ban, which groups they want to ban, who they’re targeting,” he said.
“It would have been reckless, it would have been a sort of betrayal of basic sense of democracy to ram through legislation last night with such broad, ranging impacts, when every legal expert we spoke to said it was reckless and dangerous and they didn’t know the scope of it.”
Liberal senator Alex Antic also crossed the floor to oppose the bill, while NT senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who sits in the Liberal party room, abstained.
Thomas Sewell, head of the neo-Nazi group the National Socialist Network, is raising money to challenge the laws.
The group, which has been involved in a number of increasingly public stunts calling for a white Australia, has said it will disband because of the provisions.
Multiple Jewish groups have backed the hate crimes legislation as a welcome first step in cracking down on inflammatory language, but they believe it could go further.
Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said the measures to shut down hate groups, which would likely include the National Socialist Network and radical Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, were a good move.
The government was forced to strip out a number of tougher provisions, which would have created new criminal offences for racial hatred, to get the bill through parliament.
Mr Leibler said Labor should revisit the issue.
“I don’t think that we as a society can afford to abandon the possibility of strengthening hate speech laws,” he said.
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