Albanese’s big hate speech bill in jeopardy as bishops unite with imams to oppose it

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s closest religious adviser has thrown his weight behind growing demands to halt Labor’s hate speech reforms, in a last-minute intervention in the high-stakes dispute over how Australia should curb antisemitism after the Bondi massacre.

Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher – whom Albanese, a Catholic, meets regularly – on Friday co-signed a letter to Albanese with top Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh and Scientology leaders asking that he shelve the anti-vilification laws because they might crimp religious expression.

“A rushed legislative process of this nature undermines confidence, increases the risk of unintended consequences, and does not assist community unity or social cohesion,” the letter said.

The letter’s sentiment mirrored that of civil liberties groups, transparency advocates and legal experts. The religious leaders’ position revealed on Friday has reduced the anxiety of Coalition MPs worried they would appear unco-operative by opposing Albanese.

After Opposition Leader Sussan Ley described an emergency bill on anti-vilification and gun restrictions as nearly unsalvageable on Thursday, Albanese and his top lieutenants lined up to savage her on Friday.

“I think what is becoming increasingly clear is that it is Ms Ley’s leadership which is unsalvageable,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.

Earlier, Albanese accused Ley of “performative conduct” after the  killing of more than a dozen Jewish people in Sydney on December 14. “I haven’t been shouting, I haven’t been banging lecterns. I haven’t been engaged in performative conduct,” Albanese said, referring to Ley.

The increasingly personal debate is fuelled by anxieties that the whole emergency bill is in jeopardy.

The bill takes in a gun buyback, powers to ban hate groups, visa tightening, and a contentious new offence for promoting hatred that various civil society groups believe will hurt free speech.

Albanese and Wong’s sharp attacks on Ley and her motives contrasts with what senior government sources said was their plan to keep exploring a deal with the Coalition.

Top advisers to the prime minister were as late as Thursday asking the opposition in private which elements of the sprawling Combating Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026 they could support, indicating an openness to dropping the most controversial elements in the interests of national unity.

Albanese’s alternative is to work with the Greens, who want proposed anti-vilification laws to be broadened from protecting just racial hatred, designed to protect Jews after Bondi, to encompass LGBTQ and religious protections.

Such a move would trigger an even more complex set of trade-offs, and the same government sources, not willing to divulge high-level thinking on the record, said the cabinet was reluctant to expand protections, given how complex and wide-ranging the draft bill already was.

Complicating matters further is the deep feeling in the Jewish community, and the security establishment, that the Greens should not be kingmakers, given the bipartisan criticism that they contributed to the rise in antisemitism.

But Albanese is determined to get a deal done when parliament returns early for a special two-day sitting next week, his confidantes said, so drastically narrowing the bill to win over the Coalition or broadening it to secure Greens would be contemplated.

Failure to win support for his overhaul would leave Albanese exposed after a difficult summer in which he was pressured to back down on a royal commission.

The opposition’s sharp turn against the bill this week has again swung a spotlight on Ley’s tenuous leadership and her pattern of following the calls of a group of rebellious right-wing backbenchers.

A backbencher said on Friday afternoon that they were annoyed Ley did not attend a briefing on the laws to explain what MPs felt was her clumsy and confusing response.

Ley repeated her criticisms of the proposed laws on Friday, saying she would put forward her own crackdown on hate preachers next week that did not include lowering thresholds for hate speech.

“If Penny Wong was as passionate about eradicating antisemitism and dealing with radical Islamic extremism as she seems to be about me, then maybe the country would be in a better place,” Ley told reporters.

Albanese has been accused of playing political games from the moment he revealed he would put gun restrictions and unrelated anti-vilification measures into the same bill, making it difficult for Nationals, who oppose the gun changes, to back the package of reforms.

Jewish leaders feel cut out by Albanese. In private, they say the prime minister consults mostly with Peter Wertheim, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, who is widely respected, at the exclusion of others, before presenting the judgments of his old ally as the view of the entire community when other Jewish leaders have different concerns about the bill.

A major party deal would require both Ley and Albanese to climb down from their respective positions, a prospect which appears dim after a summer of acrimony.

One senior Labor MP said, “We’re all squeezed here, including the Greens.” Another two Labor MPs said it was obviously unreasonable to consider such momentous laws in one week, but one of the MPs said the Bondi killings necessitated such haste.

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