Fighting Antisemitism or Squashing Dissent

Ever since the brutal attack by Hamas on Israel in October 2023 there have been pro-terrorism rallies held in Australia, especially in Sydney & Melbourne, as well as celebrations by Muslim leaders, celebrating the killing of Jews. More recently there has been deliberate attacks targeting Jews here in Australia. As a result of these attacks many including Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called for new laws to squash this behaviour. Last week new Hate-Speech laws were passed with bi-partisan support.

Unfortunately, Australians have been conned into thinking that anytime something goes wrong, the government must fix it by passing new laws. If there is a fatal accident on a road, instead of investigating what actually happened, or acknowledging that sometimes accidents do occasionally happen (after all the last 10million car trips on that same road did not result in a fatal accident), we demand that the government lower the speed limit (even though there is no guarantee that such action will stop another fatal accident from happening in the future). If there is a mass-shooting we demand stricter gun-laws, ignoring the fact that murdering people is already illegal, and that our gun laws are already some of the strictest in the world, and that the person who carried out the shooting in most cases had obtained the gun illegally. What we fail to realise is that demanding that the government fix-it, is exactly what they want us to do, because it allows them to make more laws, that give them more power, and us less freedom, and that make no difference to the actual problem at hand.

In the case of terrorism and antisemitism we are making a similar mistake. I am in full agreement with those who despise terrorism and antisemitism. I also agree that this is something that government needs to address. But I do not believe the government needs to pass new laws in order to so. Currently in Australia acts of terrorism are illegal, inciting violence is illegal, racial vilification is illegal, vandalism is illegal, threatening to use violence is illegal, and we already have hate-speech laws. So, the question we need to be asking is why none of the existing laws are being utilised to prosecute these people; before we rush into introducing new laws.

The real question that needs to be asked is what should be done, or should have been done, to stop these attacks from happening. The most obvious thing, hinted at above, is to swiftly prosecute those who are breaking the law. Also, we must consider what difference it would make if Australia’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister were to stand-up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and stop spreading mis-information around the false narrative of moral equivalency between Israel & Hamas. It would also be beneficial to see who is organising these pro-terrorism rallies, and whether there is government money being used to support these rallies, and even the terrorist attacks. It would also be beneficial to see if there is a link between these terrorist attacks and the mass immigration policies of our current government. There are a lot of questions that need to be asked if we want to get to the root of the problem, and bring an end to these acts of terrorism and antisemitism. The fact that these questions are not being asked indicates that neither of the two major parties are interested in addressing the issue of terrorism and antisemitism; rather they are interested in increasing the power and size of government, and this crisis provides another opportunity for them to do so.

As for the laws themselves, I believe there are many legitimate concerns. All hate-speech laws have one thing in common, they are highly subjective. Who determines what constitutes hate? Who determines what constitutes harm? To make it worse this particular law lowers the standard of hate-speech to include reckless speech; which means if you say something that is determined to be hateful or harmful, even if it was not intended in that way you can still be prosecuted. This particular legislation expands existing federal law to include hate symbols. There is no way of knowing how far-reaching that may be. However, we have some indication of how far-reaching by what is included in the definition of offended groups; race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, disability, nationality, national or ethnic origin, or political opinion. It is clear that this law is designed to be used to prosecute people who dissent from popular opinion, or oppose the government agenda. In fact, it would be no surprise if in the future these laws were used to prosecute someone like me, writing a blog or opinion piece like this one. To make it worse these laws come with hefty punishments, including up to 7 years in prison. This means that in the not-too-distant future, Australians could face 7 years in prison for speaking truth to those in power.

Senator Gerard Rennick’s words I believe sum-up the reality of what these new laws mean for Australians. “A direct attack on free-speech… threatens freedom of speech by allowing government to censor or punish individuals for expressing opinions that might be deemed offensive… instead of combatting hate, these laws can be weaponised to silence dissent and supress unpopular viewpoints, ultimately determining democratic values and individual liberties.”