Albanese facing pressure from his own MPs over call to drop racial hatred laws

A group of Labor MPs wants the prime minister to keep pushing for stronger hate speech laws, warning that Anthony Albanese’s plan to drop a new racial hatred offence to salvage support from the opposition could let radical preachers and extremists avoid prosecution.

Jewish leaders and Labor MPs are worried that Islamic hate preachers would be let off the hook under the federal government’s decision to remove racial anti-vilification elements from its post-Bondi package of laws. Legal experts say it would also become much harder to meet the legal threshold for banning groups such as Hibz ut-Tahrir.

Albanese shelved the controversial racial vilification laws on Saturday after the Coalition and Greens refused to support them on the grounds they could impinge on free speech, and Albanese has since told colleagues he would not try again to revive the proposals in this term of parliament.

The hate crimes bill was on track to pass after the Coalition party room agreed to support it with amendments.

In a marathon party room meeting on Monday afternoon, which also canvassed a Liberal/National split on gun restrictions, Coalition shadow ministers said they hoped to win Labor support for a proposal to review the emergency laws after two years to ensure they did not have unintended consequences.

The Coalition is also seeking to mandate consultation with the opposition for and listing and delistings of groups.

Frustrated Labor MPs who have long supported anti-vilification laws to protect minority groups across the board fear the watered-down package will leave Australia’s legislative framework with only cosmetic changes.

Labor MPs Josh Burns, Michelle Ananda-Rajah, Jerome Laxale and Deborah O’Neill all declared on Monday that the hate speech laws were paramount. One Labor member, speaking on the condition of anonymity to criticise Albanese, said: “The prime minister is going against the will of the caucus”.

Burns, a Jewish MP, used his condolence speech on the Bondi massacre on Monday to criticise the opposition for rejecting the stronger hate speech measures, which had been advocated by Jewish groups and in the report of antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal.

He said anti-vilification laws were the solution to stop bad actors dehumanising others, and claimed there were “people inside the Coalition right now who would be deeply uncomfortable with their position on … racial vilification.

“I genuinely hope that there are no incidents and that no one has to deal with this. If that’s the case, and we can all walk away and we’ve got enough done, so be it. But I fear that that may not be the case.”

Senator O’Neill, a co-chair of the parliamentary friends of Israel, spoke in a private Labor caucus meeting on Monday to say the nation needed to stop hate preachers’ violent rhetoric. “If not now, when? When will it be time?” she said later in the Senate. “Mark my words: [the laws] will be needed.”

Ananda-Rajah said of the anti-vilification measures: “I won’t let this go because … the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil compels us to leave no stone unturned and to confront the uncomfortable truths.”

Laxale said hatred based on race, religion, gender or sexuality had no place in Australia. “The response of this parliament, both from the government and the opposition, must be to root it out and pass laws to eradicate it,” he said.

Two other MPs from Labor’s left faction, who did not want to be named, said they wanted anti-vilification measures to be pursued later this term to protect other minority groups, going against the prime minister’s stated intention.

The sentiment among Labor MPs reflects irritation about Albanese’s political and policy response to the Bondi massacre, as well as the difficulty of tightening laws on hate speech from fringe actors without provoking backlash from other groups worried the laws would be applied more broadly to target them.

Albanese and Ley met on Monday, a day reserved for condolence speeches after the Bondi attack, after both sides had blamed the other for a breakdown in talks over a sprawling anti-extremism bill that Labor made public last week.

Albanese has tried to salvage the situation after a summer of criticism over his handling of a Bondi royal commission, splitting his planned reforms into two bills.

One bill will restrict gun ownership and pass with Greens support. The second bill tightens visa rules, increases penalties for existing hate crimes offences, and bans groups on the basis of spreading racial hatred.

Albanese and Ley have agreed to work together to pass this second tranche, although some in the Coalition, including the Nationals, remain concerned about the discretion that will be given to ministers to designate and outlaw hate groups.

The government previously flagged that groups captured by the legislation would include neo-Nazis and Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which this masthead reported had been using pro-Palestine front groups to spread its hardline message.

However, since the government shelved the hate speech offences on Saturday, it now faces a higher bar to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir. Neo-Nazis will be easier to pin because they display hate symbols such as swastikas, meeting one of the other thresholds to be designated.

Albanese on Monday conceded that shelving the proposals to outlaw hatred “makes it more difficult” to ban radical groups.

Leading constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey said the backdown on the anti-vilification provisions made the test for banning hate groups tougher for Labor, which will now need to prove groups are inciting violence rather than promoting hatred – a higher threshold.

Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said: “If, because of these amendments, Hizb ut-Tahrir can’t be banned, then the bill has a serious problem”.

Coalition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam suggested the vilification laws could be revisited later.

“They are the biggest shift in laws that govern speech in this country in more than half a century. And we can’t just whip through some bills and hope for the best. The government chose to pursue this. Let’s bring it back onto the agenda, let’s get it right, let’s not rush it,” he said.

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