Antisemitism Moral Panic Used to Introduce New Laws Against State Sponsored Terrorism

Ever since former Liberal leader Peter Dutton took off his Home Affairs cap in 2021 and the Albanese government came to office in 2022, it’s appeared the government’s two-decade-long terrorism-law-enacting bonanza had come to an end. But with the recent introduction of “state-sponsored terrorism” laws by Labor, it appears this bipartisan rights-stripping legislative agenda may never end.
Introduced on 8 October 2025, the Criminal Code Amendment (State Sponsors of Terrorism) Bill 2025 reveals that the new addition to Australia’s gigantic terrorism law framework involves foreign nations engaging in terrorism. And attorney general Michelle Rowland having tabled the bill reflects the shift to terrorism laws being the domain of the chief lawmaker and not that of Home Affairs.
Indeed, Rowland’s second reading speech on the bill makes certain that the 26 August presser involving PM Anthony Albanese and ASIO head Mike Burgess insisting that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had sponsored two arson attacks in this country is the key reason for the new law, despite it being the most disputed assertion the spying agency has made in recent memory.
Following the 9/11 terrorism attacks in New York City in 2001, the UN Security Council issued resolution 1373 just weeks later, which stipulates that all state parties should enact terrorism offences into their national law, with appropriate steep penalties applying. And as then UNSW dean of law George Williams told Sydney Criminal Lawyers in 2017, this country went to town on this like no other.
Rowland too remarks that the new laws serve to list “foreign state entities as state sponsors of terrorism and” that it also responds to “state sponsored terrorist acts”, via a swag of new offences. But as she continued it was clear these new laws are intimately linked to ASIO’s assertion of Iranian interference, which many consider is a product of the manufactured antisemitism moral panic.
Any suggested terror attack in a storm
“These attacks were extraordinary. They were abhorrent. They have absolutely no place in a modern, multicultural and multifaith country like Australia,” Rowland said of two arson attacks that ASIO has pinned on Iran. “These two state sponsored attacks targeting Jewish Australians on Australian soil represent a turning point in our experience of terrorism.”
“And, while these attacks may have been targeted to one part of our community, they were attacks on our sovereignty and our collective way of life,” the AG added. And as she inferred that the two firebombing attacks on Jewish-owned property on Gadigal land in Sydney and in Naarm-Melbourne were state sponsored, she in no way presented any further proof of these claims.
The nation’s chief lawmaker suggested that the arson attacks allegedly sponsored by Iran were against “all Australians” and “must not go unchallenged”, and added that the parliament must act “swiftly and unequivocally” in combatting Iran’s foreign interference, which it appears became apparent to our spying agency via Iran’s archnemesis Israel and its spying agency.
As per usual, the counterterrorism legislation is being reviewed by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS), which is a committee made up solely of members from Labor and the Coalition, or the duopoly, and while it may involve rights-eroding terror provisions being trimmed slightly, the entire bill will be rubberstamped with no crossbench input.
“State sponsored terrorist acts in Australia add a frightening new complexity to this landscape,” suggested the attorney general in respect the two arson attacks that some in the community have considered might be the work of other foreign agents. The AG explained that such laws aren’t already in place, as it used to be the case that terror was not “the purview of state actors”.
The guts of the bill
Schedule 1 of the State Sponsors of Terrorism Bill inserts part 5.3A into the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), which contains divisions 110 to 114. Division 110 contains definitions pertaining to the state sponsored terrorism law framework, including detailed explanations of a terrorist act that targets an Australian, state sponsored terrorism and the ability for the AG to declare such an incident as terrorism.
Division 111 creates state terrorism offences. Section 111.2 contains engaging in a state terrorist act and carries life imprisonment. Section 111.3 holds the offence of knowingly providing or receiving training, which carries 25 years. The crimes of possess a thing connected to or making a document related to terrorism, sit under section 111.4 and 111.5 respectively and carry 15 years prison time.
A section 111.6 planning offence carries life. Section 111.7 to 111.10 contain offences similar to those cited in respect of training, possessing things and documentation and planning for terrorism, but these crimes are triggered by an individual engaging in them in relation to state sponsored terrorism crimes that they will not directly be involved in, with penalties remaining the same.
New division 112 contains further recently drafted criminal offences. The section 112.1 offence of directing state sponsored terrorism carries 25 years. Being a member of state terrorism, under section 112.2, carries 10 years. Recruiting is a crime, under section 112.3, which carries 10 years. Training state sponsored terror is a crime carrying 25 years and is contrary to section 112.4.
Funding state terrorism is a crime carrying 25 years under section 112.5. Providing support for it carries the same under section 112.6, while a mere association with state terrorism carries 3 years, under section 112.7. New division 113 contains two life offences regarding funding state terrorism against Australia or funding an individual involved in it. Division 114 carries other consequential reforms.
Amongst a number of amendments, schedule 2 of the bill inserts section 104.1A into the Criminal Code, which would ensure that state sponsored terrorism can be listed alongside other “listed terrorist organisations” in this country. The act of listing state sponsored terrorism means that anyone associated with it will face the particularly harsh penalties that apply to terrorism in general.
A legislative response to fabricated crime
A moral panic around a suggested rise in antisemitism just happened to appear at the same moment that Israel commenced genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. At first there were reports about rising antisemitic incidents, then former treasurer Josh Frydenberg hosted a Sky News documentary about it, which was prior to the so-called antisemitism crimewave in Sydney and Melbourne.
The crimes in Sydney were drawn out over October 2024 to February 2025, while perhaps the most significant incident involved the 6 December 2024 firebombing of the Addas Israel Synagogue of Melbourne. However, federal and NSW law enforcement revealed in March that the spate of crimes in NSW were actually staged by organised crime to present the spectre of a religious hate crisis.
After the AFP and NSW police explained that their investigations resulted in a finding that local organised criminals then based overseas had fabricated the “antisemitic crimewave” to stirrup a panic, in order to be able to offer law enforcement intel related to these crimes, which would result, due to assistance given, in sentencing discounts in respect of their own unrelated criminal matters.
The 26 August ASIO and Albanese government announcement then put it to the public that despite law enforcement agencies having wrapped up the NSW crisis in a staged antisemitic crimewave, two crimes, the firebombing of the Addas Israel Synagogue and the 20 October 2024 arson attack against Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Sydney’s Bondi, were likely sponsored by Iran.
To single out these two incidents and attribute them to Iran’s Islamic Republic Guard Corps is problematic as the Bondi incident also involved the prior accidental burning down of nearby Curly Lewis Brewery three nights prior to hitting the correct target, while the car used in the Melbourne synagogue attack, was also used in an unrelated shooting and another arson attack on a nightclub.
The anomalies involved in these incidents do seem to suggest that Iranian intelligence is allegedly carrying out these attacks in a slap-hazard way that might not be expected of an entity such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, while suggestions from the Jerusalem Post that Israeli intelligence was behind the intel tends to cast further doubt over the already suspect nature of these reports.
So, while Darth Dutton is no longer driving the antiterrorism legislating agenda in this country, new attorney general Rowland has ventured into the counterterrorism terrain for a stint of lawmaking on the basis of quite slim and unproven assertions made by our intelligence agency that many in the public consider to be politically motivated and tied to the Zionist agenda.