Australian Lawmakers Continue to Enact Hate Crime Law that Suppress Free Speech

University of Sydney constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey expressed to the New South Wales parliamentary inquiry into measures that exist to combat rising far-right extremism on 19 February 2026, that she’s concerned that the plethora of laws that have been enacted to combat hate over the last year or so, both at the state and federal level, are having an adverse impact upon free speech.

Twomey is hardly the only constituent in NSW who has been taken aback by the onslaught of new hate crimes and other auxiliary laws that the Albanese and Minns governments have been waving through parliament with bipartisan approval commencing this time last year, but the good thing about having the USYD lawyer on board is that all who are concerned know they’re right to be.

The constitutional lawyer further warned parliament that some people will feel “visceral anger” in understanding that their right to express themselves has been curbed, and the “real risk”, according to Twomey, is that someone will consider that if their ability to make their opinion rightfully known is gone, then perhaps they will have to use other means, such as violence, to get their message across.

In identifying this recipe that has the potential to provoke civil violence, which is not common in NSW even post-Bondi Beach massacre, Twomey is again no loner. Indeed, many have remarked that the recently enacted and exercised ability to completely shut down street protest in the wake of an act of terrorism was creating a social pressure cooker with no release valve.

The NSW parliament inquiry is considering preexisting laws that might prevent a repeat of the 8 November 2025 neo-Nazi rally at NSW parliament, along with new laws introduced in its wake that seek to crack down on such behaviour. And with such a proliferation of this type of lawmaking at present, there is a question whether it’s all that necessary.

Legislating hate into nonexistence

The laws being considered by the inquiry to crackdown on far-right actors are not the only severe new criminal measures contemplated by the NSW government.

The inquiry into banning political slogans (that upset Israel) recommended the state prohibit the phrase “globalise the intifada”, which has risen to national prominence only over more recent weeks due to the fact that NSW premier Chris Minns determined to ban it only after the New York Times remarked that the Bondi Beach massacre is what globalise the intifada looks like.

Prior to this, ‘globalise the intifada’ was not a popular chant locally. And this is an example of how the political climate in this country over the last two years has started to shift towards the absurd. The NSW inquiry also contemplated prohibiting the popular statement “from the river to the sea” in public as well.

The Crimes and Summary Offences Amendment Bill 2025 contains the laws to curb neo-Nazi behaviour in public in this state.

This bill seeks to repeal the offence of displaying a Nazi symbol, under section 93ZA of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), and replace it with the new offence of displaying Nazi symbols or otherwise engaging in conduct supporting Nazi ideology. These acts perpetrated near a Jewish place could carry up to 2 years imprisonment, however doing the same elsewhere would only garner a year inside.

Another provision within this legislation repeals section 93ZAC of the Crimes Act, which is a sunsetting clause that ends the offence of publicly inciting hatred on ground of race contained in section 93ZAA of the Act. This NSW Greens law sought to end the February 2025 passed offence after 3 years, as such incitement laws are ripe for overreach in terms of what they may capture.

However, as the banning of slogans law was first contemplated in this state late last year, Twomey explained that as there is an incitement to hatred offence on the books it should rule out the need for a prohibition on a specific phrase because it is hateful, as this law should capture it. Therefore, opening up a new type of law in NSW, an ability to ban phrases uttered in public, is unwarranted.

As for the overhaul of the Nazi symbol offence to specifically stamp out a repeat of the National Socialist Network’s parliamentary rally, the necessity for this law has too been diluted since the NSN disbanded in January this year, after the Albanese government passed hate group laws so pervasive that month that the Nazi group split straightway to avoid potential gaol time.

These nonsensical outcomes that are currently mounting are due to attempts to silence the fact that Israel is perpetrating a wholesale genocide in Gaza at heart, while local politicians are attempting to achieve this under the guise of the ‘combating antisemitism’ legislating mission.

Combating antisemitism is the new black

The first legislative onslaught to combat suggested rising antisemitism, both at the NSW and federal level, was sparked by the so-called antisemitism crimewave in Sydney and Naarm-Melbourne much of which was later shown to be a hoax staged by organised crime. Both of these pieces of legislation were passed in February last year.

The 2025 federal hate crime bill contained new criminal offences of threatening force or violence against groups, their members or property. A group is “distinguished by race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, disability, nationality, national or ethnic origin or political opinion”. These crimes carry up to 5 years prison, or 7 years if the impact is assessed more serious.

Mandatory minimum sentences were also rolled out for a range of terrorism offences.

The same month saw the Minns government enact a ban on unauthorised protests near places of worship and an unconstitutional move on power to accompany it. Further laws included the aggravated offence of publicly displaying a Nazi symbol on or near a synagogue, and an aggravated offence of graffitiing a place of worship.

The third major law reform was the 93ZAA offence of publicly inciting hatred on ground of race, which currently has a sunset clause. The Albanese government sought to pass a version of this crime in January this year, but so loud was the outcry about it that it was dropped. The issue with the offence is that it erodes freedom of speech and criminalises in a vague and subjective manner.

Albanese instead went on to pass two “combatting antisemitism” bills on 20 January, one of which installed a hate group regime, which allows the ASIO boss, with ministers in tow, to declare a group a hate group to outlaw it and trigger offences to criminalise its members, if it has engaged or advocated in politically motivated or communal violence or there might be a risk of this.

Meanwhile, back in NSW, the Minns government enacted the public assembly restriction declaration (PARD) law on Christmas Eve, following the Bondi mass shooting, which permits the NSW police commissioner to blanket ban street protests for up to 90 days in a designated PARD area, following an incident being declared terrorism-related.

The blind commanding the thugs

So, NSW and federal Labor governments have been on a lawmaking bonanza that has progressively over time become known as the effort to combat antisemitism, which has involved the mass enactment of the types of laws that the legal sector warns against because they are dodgy law, and they’ve been doing this against a backdrop of rising authoritarianism globally.

The scenes the public has been watching in disbelief over the last two years as European police forces have beaten up their publics for the crime of supporting the Palestinians, have recently been witnessed on Gadigal land in the Sydney CBD, when 3,000 NSW police officers were given the nod to brutalise 20,000 protesters, who were opposing the visit of Israeli president Isaac Herzog.

In a move perhaps fashioned on the second coming of US president Donald Trump, the NSW premier has repeatedly insisted that NSW police officers, in beating up parts of the public for the crimes of assembling and seeking to march, were doing exactly what they’d been asked to do.

And as all these overbearing laws are being enacted in a haphazard manner, there is a new populist political opposition on the rise in this country, with strong financial backing and links to the MAGA White House, so it might appear that Albanese and Minns are actually laying the foundations for the rise of future authoritarian power.