Malik Report Would Embed Islam’s Privileged Status in Australian Law: Independent Review
Education researcher Dr Terry Harding warns the Malik report’s recommendations could silence critics of Islam, reshape the school curriculum, and give one religion leverage over Canberra.
A detailed independent review of the Albanese government’s ‘Islamophobia’ report warns it could restrict free speech, rewrite counter-terrorism laws, and compel Australian schoolchildren and parliamentarians to undergo mandatory Islamophobia training — all to combat a phenomenon the report itself cannot define.
Dr Terry Harding, an education researcher and former Queensland director of the Australian Christian Lobby, released his comprehensive review of Special Envoy Aftab Malik’s report in February 2026. He concluded it amounts to “a step towards the legal weaponisation of the term ‘Islamophobia’ against the Australian people.”
The Malik report, delivered to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in September 2025, contains 54 headline recommendations across 12 Commonwealth departments.
Harding’s analysis counts around 180 individual changes and adjustments embedded within those recommendations.
Professor Greg Craven, former vice-chancellor of Australian Catholic University, has previously told The Australian that Malik had failed to prosecute the case that “Australia is an anti-Muslim hellhole.”
Free Speech at Risk
Harding’s central concern is that the report seeks to combat an undefined term with enforceable law. Malik acknowledges that there is “no universally accepted definition of Islamophobia,” yet he proposes sweeping legal and bureaucratic machinery to detect and punish it.
Harding writes that this would effectively arm the term ‘Islamophobia’ as a legal instrument capable of cancelling any critique of Islam, and framing legitimate dissent against the world’s second-largest religion as hate speech.
Recommendation 16 invites particular scrutiny, according to Harding. It would empower the Home Affairs minister to refuse visas to anyone deemed to be “promoting hate speech.”
Harding warns that this provision could bar entry to Australia for critics of Islam, including terrorism survivors, academics, and public intellectuals — naming figures such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Douglas Murray as examples.
Victims of Islamist violence who had found refuge in Australia could, he argues, be silenced under the same provisions if they described their experiences.
Senator Malcolm Roberts raised similar concerns during a December 2025 Senate Estimates hearing.
“How can you call for extensive legislation and a large bureaucracy to combat something you can’t or don’t define?” he asked Malik directly.
Malik declined to provide a definition, describing ‘Islamophobia’ instead as racism. Roberts subsequently described the report as “one-sided propaganda.”
Children and Classrooms
The report’s education recommendations — which include 57 changes across pre-school, school and tertiary levels — are among the most extensive in the document. They include integrating Islamic history and ethics across multiple Key Learning Areas of the school curriculum, requiring all universities to incorporate Islamic studies as an “essential component” of higher education, and mandating teacher training on Islamic theology and the Abrahamic religions.
Harding notes that religious education in state schools has carried ‘opt-in’ status since 1872. The Malik recommendations, by contrast, would make Islamic content compulsory for all Australian students regardless of faith. “The Department of Education must never become an agency whose aim is to proselytise our students into a state-preferred religion,” he writes.
Professor Craven called the proposal to reclassify Muslims under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 “outright silliness,” noting that Islam is a religion, not a race — and that “there are Muslims from Algiers, Israel, Malaysia and Australia.”
Parliament in the Crosshairs
Recommendation 54 targets the Parliament of Australia directly. It would require mandatory annual Islamophobia training for all parliamentarians and their staff, establish codes of conduct specific to Islam, and create an independent oversight body empowered to formally reprimand or suspend MPs for conduct deemed ‘Islamophobic’.
Harding points to the November 2025 Senate exclusion of Senator Pauline Hanson — who was removed following her protest against the burqa — as evidence of how the current system already operates.
He argues Recommendation 54 would go further, handing a religious group enforceable political leverage over elected representatives.
“No single religious group of Australians should be empowered to scrutinise and influence the Australian Parliament in pursuit of its own vested interests,” he writes.
Harding’s review also notes that Australia’s counter-terrorism laws would be reviewed under Recommendation 4 to investigate their “potential discriminatory application and effect on Muslim-Australian communities.”
He argues this risks impeding evidence-based investigations by placing the sensitivities of one community above the requirements of counter-terrorism work.
That concern gained weight when, weeks before the Bondi terrorist attack of 14 December 2025, which killed 15 people, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke disbanded a specialist AFP counter-terrorism surveillance unit, reportedly due to insufficient funding.
One Rule for One Religion
Harding’s overarching argument is that the report creates a two-tier system — extending protections, privileges and institutional advocacy to one religious group that are unavailable to others.
He notes, for example, that anti-Jewish incidents in Australia rose from an annual average of 342 in the decade before October 7, 2023, to an average of 1,858 per year across 2024 and 2025, citing Executive Council of Australian Jewry data. The Malik report addresses none of these concerns.
The Daily Declaration has previously covered the report’s threat to counter-terrorism law and its implications for free speech. Harding’s review adds a detailed department-by-department analysis of how the 180 embedded recommendations could reshape Australian law, education, policing and public life.
Malik’s recommendations have not been formally adopted by the Albanese government. They take effect only if accepted.
Harding urges Australians to contact their elected representatives and demand the report be scrapped.
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And here we go.
If we didn’t see this coming, we have been naive and blind. Just as Great Britain and most of Europe has been taken over by people committed to a Protection Racket, (including the King) Labor and the Greens will silence all critique of their new voting base.
I guess we are going to do the Contact Your MP again.
Even in doing this, we will be marked as Islamophobic. Proving their point.
I’m not Islamophobic, but I have a very rational concern for our safety and the direction of our country, especially under this corrupt government.
Communism and Islam seem strange friends, yet both are committed to the destruction of the West.
Taylor must commit to reversing any laws based off this report AND commit to pardoning and/or financially compensating anyone convicted OR charged /harassed under such future laws. He needs to commit to this NOW.
According to Christoper Hitchens, “Islamophobia is a word created by fascists and used by cowards to manipulate morons”. An anonymous contributor I stumbled upon, put it so succinctly he/she must be an Aussie of the old school: “Islamophobia is a bull****-buzzword and a perverse oxymoron invented to silence criticism of a religion followed by hateful and violent troglodytes”
Here’s a good idea. Lets pretend we are ignorant of 1400 years of Muslim hate toward (in descending order) Israel, Christianity, the West (which is a word used to identify that small part of the Christendom that remains after 1400 years of Muslim assault) and then everyone else that is not part of the Islam Ummah. Lets agree that we have it wrong and Islam really is a religion of peace …. really nice people with no evil agenda toward us. Lets blame ourselves for being so silly and so distrusting toward such a regime.
To help us understand just how Islamophobic we are, lets get a muslim to explain to Mr Albanese and his government, just how islamophobic we Australians are, and just how hurt muslims in Australia are feeling after being so misunderstood.
Lets get Mr Aftab Malik to share his unbiased opinion with our woke leaders. What could go wrong?
This just keeps getting worse 🤦♀️😡. This government has to go . 🙏✝️📖🇦🇺
Another greatly needed and revealing article!!!!!
thank you Phillip Hazelton..totally agree..
Trojan horse stuff. Wake up Canberra! How about teaching the Australian story of pioneering this great nation instead of pandering to a culture that had thousands of years to do something good in their home nations.
Blind Maddy can see the fruit that comes from this political , not religious ideology. The proof is there to be seen by all.
How has it come to this rubbish.
Am I the only one to not undertand ?According to my dictionary: “Phobia: an irrational, excessive, and persistent fear of something or situation”
So, the principal term here, is FEAR.
Since when has the experience of fear, any fear, been an offence? A punishable offence? We have here another highjacking of a word, changing its meaning and contributing to confusion.
What is NOT confusion though, is the justification of the existence of this ‘fear of Islam’! Yes, we have ground to be afraid. And it is mostly NOT irrational or excessive.
On the other hand, Antisemitism is mostly irrational and excessive.
For over 1, 400 years no non -Muslim has been allowed to visit the annual Haj at Mecca or know what happens there . The Haj is one of “The 5 Pillars ” of Islam which every Muslim must do at least once in their life. Someone risked their life to film it and put it on You Tube . I was shocked by :- in the great crush men sexually assaulting females; the enormous rubbish left when it is over; the thousands of copies of the Koran thrown into human faeces. I was not shocked by the ” stoning of the Devil which they claim resides in the Kaaba because the great majority are uneducated and obviously of low, inbred IQ who circle the stone shouting their Prayers (as in Marches in Australia and other Western countries ) which consist ONLY of “Death to Israel ” , “Death to America ” , and “Death to the West “. I have learnt about their Aim–“The Final Battle ” , ie the horrific Destruction of the whole World (by Nuclear War? ). They believe that on “The Final Day ” Mohammed will return to the mosque in Jerusalem to “Destroy the Cross ” . This is the Aim of Islam (especially Iran ) which they are desperate to hide from the stupid West with honey Lies ” We are the Religion of Peace which needs to be protected from Islamophobia and by special laws” .This is to forbid any in- depth examination of this Cult of Death or any debate which promises men who die in ” The Final Battle ” 72 virgins forever ! Thank God they have not fooled Trump, Rubio, Hegseth, the Pentagon or Israel , Netanyahu or Mossad, the only ones who fight for our Freedom of Speech and Religion. What is happening at present is not about oil , but, a desperate battle for our right to exist in peace and not be incinerated in a Nuclear War by Death Cult Nutters. I am so anxious, the situation is so desperate, I have become religious because only God can save us. I now read out loud every night the Psalms. I plan on reciting the Rosary which was prayed before the great Christian Victory in 1571, the Battle of Lepanto which smashed the Ottoman Fleet. I do not want to live in an Australia which will eventually ban the Bible and reading it be declared a Criminal Offense . No other non-Christian religion demands special laws and huge donations to protect its religion. Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, etc live in peace with us , integrate and become our friends . These Nutters should never have access to Nuclear weapons. All over the World they have planted “Sleeper Cells ” to overthrow our Western societies when the moment for “The Final Battle ” and ” Destruction of the Cross ” is unleashed. Do your own research while this is still not prohibited . Watch Ali Tabrizzi’s and other authors informative videos on Islam , and pray, pray.I pity secular Islamic Azerbaijan which has been hit by Iran because it is a sane country and friends with Israel, USA and the West–it just wants to pursue a normal life which the majority of Muslim countries do not ! Muslims should return to live in their country of origin where they can live according to the Koran and not demand Australia undergo a Revolution by Discriminatory Laws imposed on ALL non-Muslims.
Brilliant article. let’s pressure the Government to NEVER put these proposals into effect.
“Malik declined to provide a definition, describing ‘Islamophobia’ instead as racism.”
Let me help Malik out – to be Islamic is NOT a race – people from all different backgrounds & nationalities do claim to be Muslims.
Islam is much more a political ideology than it is a religion .
A central idea of the meaning of phobia, is an irrational fear. I would contend that any honest investigation of the impacts of Islam on many other nations around the world , would show that people’s concerns about Islam are well founded & not irrational at all.
I work in schools and the curriculum already contains information about talking to students about ramadan This is totally wrong, not for Australia, it must be stopped.
If only Christians and Churches would be willing to obey Jesus and reach out to the Muslims in our country and share the gospel with them they could make a real difference. We cannot go to Muslim majority countries to obey Jesus command to preach/share the gospel with all nations, so God has brought them here to hear the gospel.
If this Malik report is acted on it may become ‘hate speech’ to share the gospel with Muslims. Then it will be too late. So come on Christians do what Australia for Jesus is doing to share the gospel in multi-cultural areas. I have found they are a lot more willing to hear the gospel than locals are! Let’s get out there and win them to Jesus. And get involved in prayer groups to see God move amongst Muslims in Australia
As this article asserts, what is being introduced in Australia with this report, is already happening in Texas (and probably Dearborn) USA
as reported in American Thinker https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/03/converting_texas_to_islam.html
This is what could happen here, and like the Democrats, our left leaning Government will allow this to happen.
Hi – was there a campaign or wording that we can use to send to the Government to put pressure on them about this?