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After a frantic campaign and political confusion, Labor’s new “hate speech” laws passed Parliament, sparking warnings about government overreach, weak safeguards, and future expansion threatening free speech and civil liberties.

Labor’s shocking “hate speech” laws passed Parliament last week.

Before weighing in, a big thank you to Australian Family Coalition (AFC) supporters who contacted their local MP and senators. In just a few days, over 1700 supporters contacted their representatives, sending more than 20,000 emails.

This was a strong return to AFC campaigning, despite being unexpected and at short notice. Your voices swelled the torrent of communications flowing into pollies’ offices.

I heard from one senator last week that she’d received over 30,000 emails on the Bill.

Was the Bill Really “Gutted”? Not Even Close

There was another issue that played into the unfortunate outcome.

Days before the original Bill was due to be put to Parliament, Labor announced it would split its legislation, putting the firearms component into a separate Bill and removing the “racial hate” element from the remainder.

This prompted a large number of conservative commentators to spend that weekend effectively declaring “we won” and “mission accomplished”. It goes without saying that: (1) we had done nothing of the sort, and (2) this false info was extremely unhelpful.

Now, let’s talk about the laws as passed, and where to next.

I’ll start by politely disagreeing with MP Andrew Hastie’s assessment that the Bill was “gutted like a fish”. True, some of the worst elements – such as the new individual “hate speech” offences – were removed, so that’s something.

But let’s be honest: it’s nowhere near enough.

I can’t understand how any parliamentarian, given hundreds of pages to swallow in mere days, could either wave something through or sit it out.

Nor can I understand the logic used to defend supporting the Bill.

Several arguments have been used to justify passing this legislation. They don’t withstand scrutiny.

MYTH 1. Failing to support Labor’s legislation meant they’d do a deal with the Greens instead and pass something worse.

The Greens supported the firearms legislation only, but vocally opposed everything else.

The Bill could have been killed off, with Labor left completely friendless.

But it was allowed to pass – and anyone claiming that things are now settled is kidding themselves.

The Greens had concerns with the legislation but, now that it’s carried, can we imagine that they’ll pass up the opportunity to expand them to cover sexuality and “gender orientation”? Not a chance.

MYTH 2. The laws were needed to stop radical Islamists, or to protect Jewish Australians.

The new laws give the Government greater ability to cancel visas. But if the Government is all about keeping radical Islamists out – and protecting the Jewish community – explain this:

The only visa cancellation that has made the news since last week is that of influencer Sammy Yahood – an Israeli Jew. The irony.

Likewise, I’ve heard ten times more media and political commentary about a handful of Neo-Nazis than I have about the dark forces that inspired horrific events like the Bondi attack or the Lindt siege in 2014.

To highlight the ridiculousness further, the Bill’s full title was the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026.

In all its 56 pages, the word “antisemitism” appears only twice outside the Bill’s title, and only then to ensure that future reviews of the Bill consider whether it successfully addresses “antisemitism, hate and extremism”.

Only TWICE, when the Bondi attack was purportedly the spark that led to this Bill and to Parliament’s early recall.

This Bill was a con.

MYTH 3. The Bill has adequate protections.

Another furphy. I’ll give you one example as to why.

For the Attorney-General to designate a “hate group”, the legislation requires a number of steps. But most of these are putting “ticks in the box” – such as advising the Leader of the Opposition, who gets zero say in the matter.

And we’re told the Attorney-General can only act after receiving advice from the Director-General of ASIO – which is itself a political appointment.

Examples abound overseas of calls for churches and Christian organisations to be designated as “hate groups” because of their stance on man-woman marriage, or for defending biological reality.

No-one – not a single MP – can guarantee that our new laws are safe from abuse.

There is nothing stopping a proposal that our own organisation, the Australian Family Coalition, be declared a “hate group” – with all the attendant consequences.

So what to make of all this?

It’s true that some of the worst elements of the Bill were removed, but that still doesn’t justify voting for this awful piece of legislation.

The new laws give a frightening amount of power to the Federal Government, with many longstanding rights thrown out the window.

Worst of all, just like Government efforts to regulate online communication, it’s the new framework that’s the biggest threat.

Just like Australia’s anti-discrimination laws (which are now decades old), these new laws are a Trojan Horse that can be easily weaponised, abused, and expanded.

This email is already long enough, so I won’t dissect the political fallout from all this just now.

For the moment, we should acknowledge those few MPs and senators who did the right thing and voted ‘NO’.

And while many people will be disappointed at those who voted for or who abstained – and that’s completely fair – please remember one thing above all else: these are the Albanese Government’s laws.

Compared with proposals like their failed “Misinformation Bill”, we are getting a clear picture of the openly anti-democratic path Labor are taking us down.

Whatever the political landscape ends up looking like, we need to get off that path NOW.

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Republished with thanks to The Australian Family Coalition. Image courtesy of Adobe.