Melbourne, 21 January 2026 – The Online Hate Prevention Institute welcomes the passage of the “Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026” late last night. The key hate speech provisions were unfortunately removed by the government prior to the bill being debated by the parliament. Without these provisions, while the new laws are welcome, they are incredibly narrowly targeted and miss the larger picture.
There are wilful blind spots that have become obvious in the speeches by many of our elected representatives in Parliament this week. Unless we confront those blind spots the antisemitism in Australia will continue to worsen and it is only a matter of time before there is another major incident. It may be another antisemitic incident, or the permissiveness we are seeing, and reluctance to address certain kinds of hate, may mean other parts of the community end up being targeted, not only minority groups but potentially politicians themselves.
Julian Leeser MP made the blind spots obvious when he reminded Australia that, “Bondi alone did not do this, but it has been accelerating in the 800 days between the Hamas attack on Israel and the Bondi attack” and went on to say that “Bondi represents a moment of choice” and asked if we will “tackle the sources and causes of antisemitism in this country” which he named as “violent neo-Nazi groups”, “radical Islamists” and “the cultural left” where he said “antisemitism is rife”. 1 Leeser was not scoring political points but putting a well-documented reality of left-wing antisemitism in the spotlight. Others spoke of the Nazis and the Islamists but were silently on leftwing antisemitism. Ignoring this problem as many are doing, as occurred in UK Labour under Corbyn, puts Australia at risk.
Another problem is the failure of some in the Liberal Party, National Party, and other right of centre parties, to recognise the danger in hate speech, and the legitimacy of prohibiting it. This too puts Australians in danger. As Julian Leeser explained in 2016, “While free speech is fundamental to Australian democracy, unlike the United States, Australia has never had a libertarian tradition of unrestrained free speech. The Australian tradition has always accommodated fetters on absolute free speech… I have always been a supporter of appropriate laws designed to prevent hate speech including s 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.”2 He also noted how the Liberal Party supported S 18C under the Howard, Abbott, and Turnbull Liberal Governments. The current opposition to hate speech laws is something that began at the Institute of Public Affairs, back when Tim Wilson worked there, and has since migrated into the Australian Liberal Party. It is a position that undermines social cohesion and multiculturalism.
The third problem is that after years of campaigns to protect pro-Palestinian speech, even when it supports terrorism or incites hate, many are now confused over what is lawful. After the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel, people justify the terrorism arguing those supporting the Palestinian cause were above the prohibitions of international law. Now we see the same logic use by those celebrating and justifying the Bondi attack, as shown in our new report (https://ohpi.org.au/bondi-report/). We need to stop this hate speech before it incites and justifies violence.
Asking if the speech is political is meaningless as almost all hate speech is political, including the examples our courts have deemed unlawful under S 18C. The real question is whether it is hate speech. Political speakers must find a way to advocate for their cause without incitement to hate. Without a criminal provision, individuals and impacted communities are left with the burden to bring forward cases, which results in a significant enforcement gap with much of the hate speech in our streets and online going unchecked.
[2] https://www.julianleeser.com.au/news/section-18c-way-forward/