Hate speech law’s religious exemptions anger Jewish groups, Coalition

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s closest Jewish ally has warned that religious-text exemptions from proposed racial vilification laws would weaken a post-Bondi push to crack down on hate preachers, but the government insists the carve-out will not compromise its efforts to counter antisemitism.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Peter Wertheim welcomed Labor’s planned hate speech laws on Tuesday but said they had shortcomings.

Wertheim said invoking religion as an excuse to “dehumanise and mistreat others simply on the basis of who they are must surely be a thing of the past.

“None of the world’s recognised religions promotes racial hatred knowingly and deliberately, and to the extent that any religion were to do so, it would be thoroughly shameful,” he said.

His statement was released a few hours after Albanese instructed journalists to read the Old Testament to better understand the reasoning behind Labor’s proposed carve-outs in new hate speech legislation.

Religious groups, including Christian leaders, have for years sought to be excluded from anti-vilification rules because such restrictions may impede religious thought.

Nationals have raised concerns about tightening gun laws, while right-wing Liberals including Andrew Hastie have questioned whether the bill impedes religious freedom.

A key backer of Hastie, West Australian MP Ben Small, said the bill might allow Islamic extremists to keep preaching hate at the same time as making it harder to criticise extremism.

If Hastie and others fight against the bill, it complicates Opposition Leader Sussan Ley’s decision-making if she is inclined to back Labor’s changes in the name of national unity.

“The test for this legislation is whether or not it makes it harder for radical Islam to spread in Australia. This legislation fails that test by making it more difficult for secular criticism,” Small said, claiming that many of his colleagues opposed the bill.

In their current form, new offences for aggravated hate speech and serious vilification to be tabled in parliament on Monday would not apply to religious teachings or discussions, a move that provides legal cover for the government but could allow religious leaders to highlight controversial scriptures that discriminate based on ethnicity.

During a press conference on Tuesday morning, Albanese was asked to justify the government’s carve-out of religious texts within the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026.

“The laws will set a principle-based test for conduct and speech that incites racial hatred towards another person or group,” Albanese said. “We want to get the broadest possible support for this bill. I don’t know if you read the Old Testament, but I refer you to that,” he said before taking another question.

When asked again about the carve-out, specifically the government’s decision to allow potential hate speech as long as it quoted from a religious text, Albanese once more referred to the biblical text.

“I encourage you to read the Old Testament and see what’s there, and see if you outlaw that what would occur. So we need to be careful. We consulted with faith groups, not just with the Jewish community,” he said.

Under the proposed wording, new offences over the incitement of hatred and the dissemination of ideas of superiority or hatred of individuals or groups because of their “race, colour or national or ethnic origin” do not apply to conduct “that consists only of directly quoting from, or otherwise referencing, a religious text for the purpose of religious teaching or discussion”.

Certain translations of religious texts may otherwise have been deemed hate speech, including a controversial section of the Koran which has sometimes been translated to label Jews and Christians as “the worst of all beings”.

Some interpretations of the Old Testament have been used to discriminate against people of colour through an interpretation of wording in the Book of Genesis about Canaanites, whose genetic descendants include Palestinian, Syrian and Jordanian communities.

The government has repeatedly referred to potential High Court challenges to the legislation, which Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has said would push law to the “constitutional limit”.

Bureaucrats emphasised the defence would not protect people who used religious text to incite hatred or vilification. Rather, the defence would only apply if a person was merely quoting the Bible or Koran as they taught or engaged in a religious discussion.

“It’s a very narrow defence,” Attorney-General’s Department’s deputy secretary Sarah Chigdey said in a parliamentary inquiry into the draft laws on Tuesday.

The parliament’s security and intelligence committee started an inquiry into the draft laws on Tuesday. Officials from the Attorney-General’s Department could not confirm if chants such as “Globalise the intifada” would be criminalised, saying these cases would be a matter for judges to interpret.

Coalition frontbencher Michaelia Cash slammed the religious exemption and suggested it would allow Islamic extremists to continue to spread hate.

Greg Barns, SC, of the Australian Lawyers Alliance said the bill was too important, and the implications for civil liberties too great, to rush through the parliament in two days with only a few days for review this week.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.