Leaders of two of Australia’s most powerful Jewish groups have responded to the late-night passage of Labor’s “hate speech” bill by calling for the brand new laws to be strengthened.
The heads of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the country’s largest Jewish community peak body, and the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA), both said on Wednesday they were glad to see the legislation passed, but that a scrapped racial vilification offence should be re-added.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese removed the proposed new offence ahead of his deal with Coalition leader Sussan Ley to pass the remainder of the bill, which included “hate group” laws, new powers to refuse and cancel visas, increased penalties for “hate”, and a new offence targeting religious or spiritual leaders.
Legal experts have warned the new laws are open to abuse, are unconstitutional, and could be used by the government to ban rival parties and political opponents, censor speech and shut down a wide range of political discourse.
But ECAJ co-chief executive Peter Wertheim, whose organisation was consulted during the drafting of the legislation, said the racial vilification offence needed to be reconsidered, ABC News reported.
He said although the new laws moved Australia “further towards having effective laws against hate speech” a racial vilification offence was “something that we will need to think about in the future”.
“Some time down the track, if we don’t address this problem properly, it will send a message to the wider community that these sorts of behaviours, and particularly the vilification that proceeds violence, is not taken seriously,” he said.
“And who knows what sort of tragedies may await us if that message is taken up. This is not a political debate, it is dehumanisation. That’s what the essence of this offence would have been about and proscribed: dehumanisation.”
ZFA President Jeremy Leibler, the son of influential lawyer and political activist Mark Leibler, said the final Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026 “falls short of the comprehensive response many have hoped for”.
“The failure to progress broader vilification reforms is disappointing, but we recognise the complexity of that task and see this as unfinished work,” he said.
“This is a positive step and I want to recognise and acknowledge that both the government and opposition have overcome internal challenges and various pressures to get this legislation passed.”
Both Mr Wertheim and Mr Leibler said they hoped Mr Albanese’s upcoming national royal commission into anti-Semitism and social cohesion, announced in response to the Bondi Islamic terrorist attack, would result in stronger laws being passed.
Header image: Left, Mr Wertheim and AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett. Right, Jeremy Leibler and Israeli President Isaac Herzog (Facebook).
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