An aboriginal group that leads “invasion day” protests every year says new “hate speech” laws will ban celebrating Australia Day, and has called on the government to enforce them on January 26 if passed.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre said in a statement that Australia Day celebrations are “incompatible” with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026, and said the laws should apply to government support for January 26 events.
One Nation senator Pauline Hanson has raised similar concerns, stating while vowing to fight the bill earlier this week that the laws could result in Aussies going to jail for five years for saying Australia is the best country in the world, and losing their “ability to express pride in their culture and nationality”.
“The Prime Minister’s proposed anti-hate laws are intended to prohibit the promotion of racial supremacy. If the government is serious, then January 26 must be confronted for what it is; a government-funded national celebration that glorifies invasion and White dominance meets the definition of racial supremacy,” Campaign Coordinator Nala Mansell said.
“These laws must give aboriginal people the ability to legally challenge government funding and promotion of January 26 celebrations that elevate White Australia’s version of history above our survival and continual rights to our land.
“If [the proposed] anti-hate laws do not apply to January 26, then they are meaningless. The government cannot claim to oppose racial hatred while continuing to fund and promote it.”
The centre has an “invasion day” rally planned for Hobart this year, and at last year’s protest anti-Australian activists held signs saying “sovereignty never ceded”, “no peace on stolen land”, “land back”, “change the date”, “no pride in genocide”, and “always was, always will be”.
The new laws, which have been criticised by free speech advocates, One Nation and several Liberal senators for their potential to be used against critics of immigration policy, are expected to pass with the assistance of the Greens or the Coalition.
A new serious vilification offence covers the dissemination of “ideas of superiority” over another person or group of persons on the basis of national origin, sparking fears they will be used to crack down on patriotic speech.
“You could even go to prison for saying Australia’s the best country in the world because it could be interpreted as ‘disseminating ideas of superiority’,” Ms Hanson said earlier this week.
“We will not support a vaguely-worded law that could put Australians in jail for making a patriotic statement. I very much fear Australia is heading down a path where we become like the United Kingdom, where police come to people’s homes and take them to jail for a social media post.”
Non-partisan and non-profit group the Free Speech Union of Australia warned the new racial vilification offence was a “copycat” of UK laws that now result in 30 people a day being arrested for social media posts.
“The UK provisions are a lot less severe than this one. In the UK the speech actually has to be likely to incite racial hatred. In this case all it has to do is cause someone to fear harassment, which is a very low test. It doesn’t even have to cause racial hatred. There’s no defence (if you) didn’t intend to disseminate (offending material),” FSU Director Dr Reuben Kirkham said.
Header image: Left, attendees at a March for Australia rally in Melbourne (supplied). Right, attendees at the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre’s “invasion day” rally in Hobart last year (Facebook).
The post Aboriginal group says Australia Day illegal under new ‘hate speech’ laws first appeared on The Noticer.
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