Australia’s new laws criminalize opposition to Gaza genocide

CANBERRA, Australia (MNTV) — Australia’s latest legislation to stop hate crimes allows for the outlawing of political groups and imprisonment of their supporters on the false basis that opposition to the ongoing Gaza genocide constitutes antisemitic hatred of Jews, reports World Socialist Web Site (WSWS).

Interviewed on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “7.30” program last night, Attorney-General Michelle Rowland made that clear. 

She confirmed that a group could be prohibited if it accused Israel of genocide and said Israel should not exist, and as a result Jewish Australians felt harassed or intimidated. 

The only newspaper says that it amounts to a ban on opposing the racist Zionist state of Israel itself.

This is a further bipartisan attack on dissent and basic democratic rights, conducted on the pretext of responding to the shooting that killed 15 people at a Jewish religious event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on December 14.

By conflating the reactionary terrorist attack with the widespread anti-genocide sentiment in Australia and globally, the legislation seeks to intimidate and suppress expressions of opposition to the ongoing mass killing of Palestinians being committed by the U.S.-backed Israeli regime and the Australian government’s complicity in the genocide, it says.

The Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and migration laws) Bill goes beyond the barrage of already sweeping “hate speech” legislation similarly rushed through the federal and New South Wales state parliaments last February by Labor governments in collaboration with the Liberal-National Coalition after a wave of dubious antisemitic events. 

Those laws criminalized “inciting racial hatred” or “advocating” or threatening force or violence against anyone based on race or religion.

Under the latest bill, political parties or groups can be outlawed on even flimsier grounds.

These go beyond “promoting” or praising any of these legislated “hate crimes.”

The definition of a “hate crime” is extended outside the existing federal and state laws to any conduct or threats that a supposedly “reasonable” person from any group alleges creates a risk to their “health or safety” based on their “racial, ethnic or national” origin.

The bill gives the minister in charge of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) the arbitrary executive power to declare any organization a “prohibited hate group.” 

The minister only has to be “satisfied on reasonable grounds” that the group has engaged in, assisted or plans to engage in or advocate a “hate crime,” even if no hate crime actually occurs. The words “plans to” amount to the creation of a thought crime.

Once a party or group is outlawed, anyone convicted of recruiting, training, donating or “materially supporting” the organization faces up to 15 years’ imprisonment, or 10 years. Any member, formal or “informal,” or anyone who has sought membership of the party or group, can be jailed for seven years.

To prohibit a group, no conviction of any crime is required, nor does the minister need to observe any of the basic requirements of procedural fairness.

That is, no hearing or even notice is needed, let alone an opportunity for a group or party to respond before being suddenly banned.

These provisions also apply retrospectively to conduct or threats made before the legislation commences. That means the bill specifically provides for banning groups for alleged actions or statements dating back to the commencement of the Zionist genocide in October 2023, or even earlier.

The newspaper notes that the AFP minister is supposed to act on the advice of the Australian Intelligence Security Organization (ASIO) director-general, who only has to assert that a risk exists that a group “may advocate for or engage in politically motivated violence, or engage in the promotion of communal violence, in the future.”