Free speech fears fire up Coalition resistance to hate speech bill

The Coalition is gearing up to try to block anti-vilification laws in response to the Bondi massacre as Labor prepares to speed the bill through parliament next week with the support of the Greens, and as key MPs Tim Wilson and Andrew Hastie reveal deep free speech concerns over Labor’s plans.

Coalition leader Sussan Ley convened a meeting of her most senior MPs on Wednesday in which she expressed serious reservations about the rushed nature of the bill and said the opposition could not be expected to vote for it, according to party sources familiar with the meeting.

She cited a lack of adequate explanation from bureaucrats on the scope of the bill during this week’s parliamentary inquiry.

Senior Liberal MPs have started contacting Jewish community leaders to explain their rationale for opposing the hate speech and extremism crackdown, which many Liberal and National MPs believe goes too far in limiting expression to protect minorities such as Jewish Australians.

Ley had repeatedly called for Labor to return to parliament before Christmas to pass emergency laws, and some of her colleagues are worried that the opposition would appear hypocritical and unconstructive if it rejected Labor’s emergency legislation.

The Coalition demanded parliament return early to pass counter-terror laws, enact the antisemitism envoy’s plan and toughen visa rules, but neither Ley nor any of her colleagues called for gun restrictions or anti-vilification laws that extended to the promotion of racial hatred.

A groundswell of MPs from the moderate and conservative wings privately fear that the attempt to outlaw promotion of hatred is too broad and will have a chilling effect on public debate. Media companies and citizens have only a narrow set of defences to avoid being charged, under the draft legislation.

Liberal MP Tim Wilson, a former human rights commissioner, said on Wednesday that he had worries about the racial vilification laws and “so should you”, laying out a series of sticking points and suggesting amendments to ensure the laws did not capture reasonable debate on cultures or religions.

He expressed concern about lowering the threshold from inciting violence to promoting hate, the lack of exemptions for good-faith public discussion and the subjective nature of allowing certain racial groups to decide whether speech is offensive.

“None of us know what our views may be in the future, how we may want to express them, or whether we may need to speak out for our safety and security – or against what threat. Freedom of speech is the primary means by which people defend themselves, particularly minorities,” he said.

“We are trying to undo the damage through law. We need courage and leadership to get the law right, because freedom is rarely recovered once lost,” the frontbencher said.

Fellow Liberal Andrew Hastie announced yesterday that he would vote against the bill because it impinged freedom of expression and religion, arguing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had shown contempt for parliamentary scrutiny by rushing the bill into parliament.

“This bill is an attack on our basic democratic freedoms,” he said.

Top Liberal MPs, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the shadow cabinet has not met, said they would spend the next few days working on amendments to the bill ahead of an emergency two-day parliamentary session next week.

But they acknowledged amendments would probably not be accepted by Labor and may not be sufficient to address free speech doubts, making it increasingly likely the Coalition would vote against the bill and leave the government to work with the Greens.

Coalition MPs with concerns also include Victorian James Paterson, a free speech advocate earlier in his career; frontbenchers Angus Taylor and Jonno Duniam; and right-wingers Michaelia Cash, Ben Small and Garth Hamilton.

The MPs say Labor’s beefed-up incitement laws passed last year have barely been tested and so the case for a much lower threshold around promotion of hatred is weak, though Labor will argue that the change is needed to take in Islamic hate preachers.

Shadow cabinet will probably meet on Sunday, but backbenchers will debate the bill before then.

On the Labor side, a senior government source said Albanese was happy to work with the Greens to pass the bill.

The Nationals reject some proposed sections of the bill restricting gun ownership, even though farmers are exempted from many of the limitations.

Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie said the government had crafted its bill as a distraction from its failure to tackle antisemitism and the gun reforms in particular were designed to appease Muslim constituents in western Sydney.

The free speech concerns were not shared by hawkish former Home Affairs Department secretary Mike Pezzulo.

Pezzullo, who was sacked for inappropriate behaviour reported by this masthead in 2023, said the hate speech laws probably should have been brought in after a group of men chanted antisemitic language outside the Opera House the day after Hamas’ October 7 attacks.

“[This is] the most consequential change in this area of law since 9/11,” he told a parliamentary inquiry into the proposed laws.“It’s absolutely the right thing to do.”

Labor senator Raff Ciccone, who is chairing the inquiry into the bill, said the Coalition was unable to form a coherent response to the proposed legislation because of its internal divisions.

“Unfortunately, there are politics being played out that I see in the media, not because of this bill, but because of their own other internal politics,” Ciccone said.

“On one hand, we [the government] get criticised for not doing enough, or wanting to recall parliament by the end of last year. And now that the parliament has been recalled, we get criticised.”

Greens MPs are deliberating their position after leader Larissa Waters spoke with Albanese on Monday afternoon. Sources within the party said a position had not been reached, but MPs were comforted by the government’s perceived willingness to extend the laws should next week’s bill pass.

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