State walks back attorney-general’s powers as Labor moves to support hate speech bill

The Queensland government has made an eleventh-hour tweak to its contentious hate speech and gun laws proposal, walking back previously unrivalled powers granted to the attorney-general.

The laws initially would have granted the attorney-general powers to regulate against phrases, spoken or written, and symbols deemed to be regularly used to incite hostility towards a group and which are reasonably expected to offend the public.

However, the cabinet voted on Monday morning to reduce the attorney-general’s reach to symbols alone, requiring banned phrases to instead pass through parliament.

Attorney-General Deb Frecklington said the tweak came after the state “listened carefully” to concerns raised during public consultation in February.

The changes come as the state’s Labor opposition conceded it would back the bill ahead of Tuesday’s parliamentary return, despite internal pressure and fears that some elements would go too far, and others would fall short.

Opposition Leader Steven Miles told reporters an afternoon meeting of his partyroom colleagues had come to the decision.

Miles said the decision was based on the sentiment from hundreds of submissions to the rushed parliamentary scrutiny process, and the statement of reservations from his colleagues involved.

“Labor supports the stated intention, the stated sentiment of the bill, and therefore will vote for it,” Miles said. He did not say if there was internal resistance to the stance.

“However, these laws put Queensland out of step with the rest of the country when it comes to gun law reform.

“They will leave Queensland with the weakest gun laws in the country.

“We have also carefully considered the government’s proposal to criminalise speech … [which] gives the government of the day extreme and unchecked powers.”

Flagged after the December attack on a Jewish Hanukkah event in Sydney, Frecklington introduced the suite of laws last parliamentary sitting.

The bill goes further than any other jurisdiction, with two phrases on the banned list – the common pro-Palestine protest chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “globalise the intifada”.

Warrantless police stop-and-search powers will be extended to anyone suspected of committing the offence, which carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail.

The laws also make gun law changes that stop short of a national buyback or mental health checks, broaden banned hate symbols and boost penalties for offences related to places of worship.

Dozens of civil society groups and legal experts raised concerns about the bill’s scrutiny and elements of the ban, in more than 300 submissions lodged in days.

Police conceded they would have to be selective in their enforcement at any large-scale protests.

Labor has faced grassroots pressure to oppose the laws, and MPs who spoke with this masthead after the bill’s introduction said the party was considering those calls.

On Monday, Miles said the opposition would – if given the opportunity – symbolically vote against specific elements of the laws that dealt with the criminalisation of the protest slogans.

But he conceded this was not a guaranteed outcome if the government were to use its control of parliament to fast-track that element of the bill’s passage.

The government intended to pass the bill into law this week. On Monday, Police Minister Dan Purdie said the hate speech laws would criminalise phrases that “led to people being murdered at Bondi”.

Purdie reiterated a call for Labor to outline its position on the third stage of the LNP’s “adult crime, adult time” laws. Miles said Labor would consider that bill after its introduction this week.

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