Tuesday, 4 March 2025

Bills

Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Enver Erdogan:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (13:52): I rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024. It is a piece of legislation that attempts to address an urgent issue in Victorian civic life. Sadly, we are witnessing an unprecedented rise in prejudice-fuelled hatred, violence and assaults on our streets. It is deeply shameful that Victorians of certain faiths feel unsafe visiting the CBD, attending places of worship or even visiting local shopping centres. Recent incidents, such as the firebombing of the Jewish synagogue in Ripponlea, underscore the urgency of this matter. I thank the member for Malvern and Shadow Attorney-General Michael O’Brien for the work that he has done on this bill, particularly for the extensive stakeholder consultation he has done.

While the principles behind strengthening Victoria’s anti-vilification laws and promoting social cohesion are commendable, legislation must be scrutinised on its practical impact. Unfortunately this bill has flaws that risk undermining social cohesion rather than improving it, and for that reason the Liberals and Nationals cannot support it in its current form. There are, however, aspects of this bill that we do support. We welcome the provision allowing Victoria Police to bring charges for prejudice-motivated crimes without requiring the approval of the DPP. Since its introduction in 2001, the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 has resulted in only four convictions, despite a far higher incidence of prejudice-fuelled crime. Victoria Police have sought to lay charges under this act only to be blocked by the DPP. Removing this barrier, except obviously for cases involving minors, where oversight remains appropriate, is a positive step. The bill also expands the list of protected attributes beyond race and religious belief to include disability, gender identity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation and personal association with individuals possessing these attributes.

The Liberals and Nationals fully support this expansion. These communities are some of the most vulnerable in our society and deserve legal protection from vilification and hate.

Turning to the bill’s criminal provisions, the legislation introduces two distinct criminal offences. Under the current Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 the serious vilification offence requires proof that a person has both incited hatred and threatened physical harm or property damage on the basis of race, religious belief or activity. The government is amending these provisions to separate these elements into two standalone offences, one for incitement and another for threats. Notably, private prosecutions will not be allowed for these offences, a decision I believe is appropriate. There is a risk that these legal changes could be exploited by activists engaging in lawfare, using the legal system to pursue political disputes rather than fostering social cohesion. The government has taken the right approach in preventing such a misuse. Both offences are indictable, carrying serious penalties – three years imprisonment for incitement and five years for threats – though they may be tried summarily in the Magistrates’ Court.

Regarding the incitement offence, the bill incorporates it into the Crimes Act 1958, covering incitement based on a protected attribute. It also repeals the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, consolidating the criminal provisions within the Crimes Act. We in the opposition in the Liberals and Nationals have no objection to this change, as it makes sense to integrate these provisions into a broader criminal law rather than maintaining them in a separate statute. The elements of the incitement offence are that a person commits an offence if (a) the person engages in conduct that is likely to incite hatred against, serious contempt for, revulsion towards or severe ridicule of another person or a group of persons; (b) engages in conduct on the ground of a protected attribute of the other person or the group; and (c) the person either (i) intends that conduct to incite hatred against, serious contempt for, revulsion towards or severe ridicule of the other person or group or (ii) believes that the conduct will probably incite hatred against, serious contempt for, revulsion towards or severe ridicule of the other person or group. As the member for Malvern said in the other place, this is a lower threshold than currently operates. Whether the conduct is likely to incite hatred et cetera is to be determined objectively. It is a lower threshold than the current serious vilification offences, which require proof that the accused knew their conduct would incite hatred and threaten physical harm et cetera. It sort of gets to the crux of the dispute, the slight disagreement, we are having with the government.

The government says the offence is not intended to capture mere contempt, distaste or ridicule or seriously unkind conduct or bad thoughts. The government argues that the offence has a high threshold, and rightly so. Given that the conviction could result in a three-year prison sentence, it is essential that the bar remains appropriately high. However, how the court interprets a law is beyond the control of both the government and the legislature. The threshold has in fact been lowered from previous standards; now it is sufficient for the accused to either have intended their conduct to have the prohibited effect or have been reckless as to whether it would. The offence applies to both public and private conduct, meaning it is no defence to claim, ‘I only said that in my own home.’ The law applies universally, regardless of location. Additionally, there is a significant increase in the maximum penalty, from the current six months imprisonment to a new maximum of three years.

There is room for debate on whether lowering the threshold is appropriate.

Many in the community, particularly vulnerable groups, feel that existing laws have not been effectively enforced and that too much harmful conduct has gone unpunished. Others argue that lowering the bar could have unintended consequences, and a lot of that we will be attempting to hash out in the committee stage of these deliberations.

We argue that the government has made serious errors from the start with this bill. The bill was introduced in the Legislative Assembly. As it was introduced in the Legislative Assembly, it included a defence for those who engage in conduct if they do so for a genuine political purpose. The new defence was never recommended by the parliamentary committee that originally examined Victoria’s anti-vilification and discrimination laws. The Legal and Social Issues Committee tasked with this review in 2019 made several recommendations in the 2021 report, some of which – such as a ban on Nazi swastika displays – have been implemented with bipartisan support. But at no point did the committee ever recommend adding a defence for genuine political purpose. This concept was not an initial discussion or in any consultation papers. It only emerged in a later government consultation paper late last year, seemingly out of nowhere. No-one knows where it came from or who pushed it. We argued against it, and I am very glad that the government has removed it. Of course we cannot rule out the possibility that Trades Hall Council had some involvement in it, given that would allow them to engage in vilification under the guise of genuine political expression. So we are glad that the government has removed this.

Under the previous version of this bill you could scream truly terrible things at Jewish Victorians, but as long as you threw in the occasional ‘Zionist’, then it was protected speech. At a time when we are seeing terrible violence on our streets, with Jewish families and children feeling unsafe in their homes, schools and synagogues, why would now be the time for the government to give a green light to this sort of hatred? We believe the bill as it stands makes Victoria a less cohesive place. This would make things worse, not better, and we would not vote for a bill that makes things worse.

It is not just Jewish leaders or Muslim leaders lately who have called out the problems of this bill. The Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli has urged the government to clarify this bill on the basis that it is highly subjective and ambiguous. I will note that the Victorian Council of Churches have clarified they have no position on the bill, despite what some in the Premier’s office have repeated to stakeholders. They have no position on this bill; they are not fully in favour of it or supporting it. So I think the Premier’s office might have over-egged the stakeholders there. I want to thank my colleague Michael O’Brien. It has been good to do a lot of the stakeholder work alongside him; meeting with Jewish community leaders, Catholic leaders, Christian leaders and representatives from the Islamic Council of Victoria as well.

This bill introduces a new offence related to threatening physical harm or property damage based on a protected attribute. The offence encompasses both intentional conduct where the accused intends for the person being threatened to believe the threat will be carried out and reckless conduct where the accused believes the person will likely perceive that the threat is genuine. Ironically, it does not require a person to actually believe the threat. The government has proposed a five-year penalty for offences involving property damage or physical harm, which is appropriate. It is only fitting that these more serious offences should carry a greater penalty than incitement.

Turning to the civil provisions in the bill, the government addresses public conduct, which is where these provisions apply. Public conduct is broadly defined, covering any form of communication to the public, including on social media. Given how toxic social media can be, I do not really have any objections to including this in the scope, despite the problems with the civil provisions in the bill.

Importantly, conduct can be considered public even if it occurs in a private property or in spaces not typically open to the general public, such as a school or workplace. Currently the law provides protection against incitement based on race or religion, safeguarding individuals or groups with a protected attribute from public conduct that incites hatred, serious contempt, revulsion or severe ridicule. Under the proposed civil provisions, the threshold for protection is lowered; instead of conduct that incites, it now covers public conduct that is likely to incite. This change reduces the standard required for legal protection, as the member for Malvern so eloquently put:

We are concerned that that lowering of the threshold in relation to the civil matter is again simply going to encourage lawfare and activist groups to try and seek out and prosecute their matters through tribunals and through the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, and we are concerned that this could lead to a clogging of cases that are really not about resolving issues; they are about trying to police the speech of others. It will not be necessary to prove the conduct actually incited hatred, for example – simply that it is likely to. That is the incitement-based protection.

He said:

The bill proposes a new harm-based civil protection that would restrict people from saying or doing things in public that harm others. The provision is:

A person must not engage in public conduct –

(a) that is engaged in because of a protected attribute of another person or a group of persons; and

(b) that would, in all the circumstances, be reasonably likely to be considered by a reasonable person with the protected attribute to be hateful or seriously contemptuous of, or reviling or severely ridiculing, the other person or group of persons.

This provision is a dangerous one. Legal tests must be objective. The concept of the reasonable person means they must be objective, but the government moves away from the reasonable person in this new harm-based civil protection, and now the reasonable person is with the protected attribute. This puts a completely subjective, not objective, provision into the law. How on earth can you try to predict what a reasonable person of faith thinks about criticism of said faith?

In my maiden speech in this place about these particular laws I said:

In terms of cancel culture, subjective laws on speech will lead us to a point of no return.

And I was right. Let me put this in another way: if you are driving 110 kilometres an hour in an 80-kilometre-an hour zone, you know you are breaking the law. If you are the person driving, you objectively know you are committing a crime. But under these laws, no-one will know if they themselves are committing a crime. How is one meant to know, when it is subjectively tested by the person with that particular attribute?

I will give another example: if you are in the northern suburbs and you are giving a talk after a Bible studies class that happens to be live streamed and someone takes offence, you have absolutely no idea if what you are saying is breaking the law, and even with the religious defence, the purpose defence, adding in proselytising and preaching, it does not stop you being dragged through the courts or to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission. It does not stop you getting dragged through that process, because someone has subjectively taken offence and because the reasonable person test is based on what a person with that protected attribute thinks.

Again, if you are breaking the speed limit, you absolutely know you are breaking the law, but under these laws you do not know if you are breaking the law. It is like the government has removed all speed limit signs from all roads in Victoria and then decides to give someone a ticket for driving at 50 kilometres an hour in a school zone that does not exist. That is what is going to happen under these laws. That is why I said in my maiden speech, in terms of cancel culture, these subjective laws will lead us to a point of no return, because you will have people with a protected attribute judging the offence of others that did not mean to cause offence and might not have meant to cause severe ridicule, but because the test is not of a ‘reasonable person’ they will not even know if they are breaking the law. This law is completely subjective, and subjective laws are bad laws.

The government seems to be intent on causing sectarian issues. The member for Malvern has been told by the government that it is simply not of broad faith, whether it be Christian, Muslim, Jewish or others – it can go deeper into Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian, Shia, Sunni or Orthodox to judge what the person with the protected attribute might find offensive. The opposition are seeking to have the bill amended to remove the words ‘with a protected attribute’ from this section. Our laws should be a shield, not a sword, and what this does is turn these laws into a shield rather than the way they are currently drafted as a sword. I believe that amendment is currently being drafted by parliamentary counsel; I am not sure if the clerks have received it yet. One of my colleagues who will speak on this bill later will circulate those amendments.

Analysis by the Institute of Public Affairs has found that:

… there is no way for a Victorian expressing a genuinely held political, religious or personal belief to know what a potential complainant could consider to be “hateful”.

My colleagues the Liberal leader Brad Battin, Nationals leader Danny O’Brien, Shadow Attorney-General Michael O’Brien and Shadow Minister for Police and Corrections David Southwick wrote to the Premier offering the government support for the passage of this bill if her government would agree to our changes, in a letter dated 19 February 2025 which points out concerns with this part of the bill. The letter says:

Such a law will foment dispute and discord, not social cohesion …

…

While we have some concerns with other aspects of the Bill, we can confirm that in the interests of improving legal protections for vulnerable Victorians, your agreement to such an amendment will facilitate the prompt passage of the Bill with the support of the Opposition.

Let us not forget that we are arguing about a part of the civil provisions that is not due to come into force until September 2027. If the government wants this bill to fail, it is on them. We can pass the criminal provisions now if that is the government’s intention, if the government wants to act on this as a matter of urgency. If, as they say, it is urgent to pass this bill, they would agree to the opposition’s amendments and pass this bill, but I do not think they want to do that. They want to weaponise this bill. They will seek to cause division out of something they claim is going to create social cohesion, which shows what a contemptible government this is.

The Premier says the opposition are discovering new reasons to oppose the bill, a point which will no doubt be repeated slavishly by every government speaker opposite. In anticipation I will point out a media release on 4 February, our media release on 19 October 2024 and our comments in the bill briefing earlier this year.

Basically every single communication with the government that we have had on this bill has expressed concerns about the subjectivity of the criminal provisions, yet the Premier says we are finding new reasons to oppose the bill. They are about something specific that we have had objections to every single step of the way. You have got to wonder if the government started out this process hoping that the bill would fail. You have got to wonder about the government’s genuineness in wanting to pass these laws when all it is doing is creating division.

We all agree with the criminal provisions of this bill. We could have bipartisanship, respond to growing antisemitism and hate within our community and pass this today if not for the Premier’s petulant clinging on to four words in this bill. So I do plan on moving two amendments on behalf of the Liberals and Nationals. One amendment deletes the four words ‘with the protection attribute’ from the reasonable person test and the other carves out the civil provisions of the bill. Given they do not begin until September 2027, I think these are reasonable amendments. We now have the opportunity for the Parliament to pass these laws in a bipartisan way. The only person in this entire Parliament preventing this from happening is the Premier. It is.

Another major concern the opposition had was the omission of the word ‘proselytising’ from this bill; in the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act it provides for a religious purpose which is not limited to proselytising. This would have set a dangerous precedent as it would have removed protection for people of faith, particularly faith leaders, to communicate their faith, and it would have made ministering through sermons a very dangerous exercise. This was just another attempt by this government to engage in an attack on faith and the role of faith in our society, and even the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission stated that the government’s changes were a narrowing. This is something that we raised consistently with the government, and we are glad that the government has moved to add proselytising and preaching back into the religious purpose defence.

But let us not pretend that the Victorian Labor Party is free of bigotry when it comes to conducting debates like this. I particularly want to talk about the disgraceful attacks by the Victorian Labor Party on our Liberal candidate for Werribee Steve Murphy, which were authorised by Labor Party state secretary Steve Staikos. They attacked Mr Murphy for being a devout Catholic and for being a member of the reputable charitable Catholic ministry organisation the Knights of the Southern Cross. They attacked him for his views, which are deeply connected to his faith.

The Labor Party is the king of spin and narrowcasting, saying one thing to one community while pretending they are for faith communities elsewhere. I will not let you get away with this. You come in here and you talk about social cohesion while simultaneously attacking individuals for their faith. It was a disgusting and contemptible attack to sow division in the community. Do not think I just sit on attacks like this that you – the Victorian Labor Party – make public and do nothing with them. I have spoken to countless faith leaders about these attacks, the same faith leaders Labor MPs grovel to for votes, grovel to with taxpayers money for grants, grovel to and invite to taxpayer-funded multicultural events run by the Premier’s department to celebrate Christian leaders while they are continuing to attack Christians in our community. Bob Santamaria would be rolling in his grave the way the Labor Party acts and the way the Labor Party has engaged in bigotry for political gain. You come here and talk about social cohesion while you are out there making political attacks based on people’s faith. You hold this bill up as a reason to create social cohesion in our community against disgusting attacks on people for their faith, while your party organisation is attacking people for their faith. It is outrageous and contemptible. The Victorian Labor Party should apologise.

The Premier should apologise on behalf of the Victorian Labor Party for attacking people for their faith while claiming to promote social cohesion – I mean, seriously. The Labor Party like to say they are for multicultural communities, but we have to remember faith is intrinsically linked to multiculturalism in this state. I will stand up in this place every day defending people of faith and faith communities from hateful bigotry like that we saw from the Victorian Labor Party. This is the same Labor Party that signed up dead people in my electorate to Labor Party branches for a branch-stacking operation.

You have got to ask: does the government – and I know the Minister for Multicultural Affairs did not answer my questions in the Parliament on this – disassociate itself from the attacks we saw on a person of faith using their faith to make political attacks? I still have not heard that yet. Does the member for Greenvale, where 80 per cent of people profess a faith – double the state average – agree with the Victorian Labor Party’s attacks on people of faith, on people for simply being Christian? I have not heard that yet. It was a disgusting attack. The government speakers that follow should disassociate themselves from it, and the Labor Party and the Premier should apologise.

If the government were serious about making our streets safe, they would reform our bail laws, they would reintroduce move-on laws that they themselves ripped up on behest of their union mates and they would work with us on real reforms. Other reforms we are yet to see; they are still stuck in the Minister for Police’s bottom drawer. They should not continue their attacks on Victorians of faith, and unless the government agrees to our changes and removes four words in this bill, the Liberals and Nationals will be opposing this bill. We could have bipartisan support. If the government is prepared to let this bill die because of civil harm-based provisions that do not apply until September 2027, that is on them. If the Victorian government want to see this bill fail, that is completely on them.

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (14:22): I rise to speak in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024. I am very proud to do so in my capacity as the Minister for Multicultural Affairs in Victoria, and I hope that my contribution is grounded in what this means for our diverse and multicultural communities here in Victoria, rather than some of the other performances that we are likely to see today.

When I commenced in this portfolio it was a time of deep distress and grief for many people in our multicultural communities. It was only a matter of weeks before the events of 7 October in southern Israel and the subsequent war in Palestine and Lebanon. These events have certainly shocked the world, and for many people here in Victoria there is still deep anger, grief and fear associated with this conflict. I know that many people hold differing views about this conflict. Difference of opinion is part of our society – it is part of our democracy indeed. But there is no denying that the last 16 months have led to division within our community. Division is always exploited by those who hate, and we continue to see that happen. Just a few weeks ago we saw Nazis unfurling hateful antisemitic banners on the steps of this Parliament, and when the Muslim community were generously opening their doors to the Victorian community, local mosques were targeted with hundreds of comments spewing virulent abuse online. That is exactly what this bill targets: it targets hate.

This bill reiterates the Allan Labor government’s commitment that hate has no place in Victoria, and for multicultural communities it is a significant and powerful step. Regardless of your cultural background or your religion, you belong and you should not have to suffer. There is no reason that someone should be fearful of wearing a kippah, a hijab, a turban or a cassock in public. We know that, sadly, many Victorians are fearful.

The 2024 Understanding Reporting Barriers and Support Needs for Those Experiencing Racism in Victoria reportrecorded that 76 per cent of people surveyed stated that they or someone in their care had experienced racism in Australia. The 2023 Victorian Antisemitism Report recorded that there had been a 228 per cent increase in antisemitic incidents, incidents that we have seen reported time and again. And since 7 October 2023 the Islamophobia Register Australia has seen an over 600 per cent increase in reported incidents. Just two weeks ago two young, visibly Muslim women, one of whom was pregnant, were targeted in a shameful broad daylight attack. It is incumbent upon government and everyone in this place to act against these insidious incidents.

On this side of the chamber we have acted consistently. This government was the first in the nation to outlaw the public display of the Nazi symbol. This was followed by the 2023 ban of the Nazi salute and other symbols and gestures used by the Nazi party, nation-leading reforms that have since been adopted by other jurisdictions. And last year we were the first state to release an anti-racism strategy, which demonstrates our commitment to dismantling racism at every level. The strategy addresses how we can tackle racism at a structural level, ensuring our laws, policies and workplaces are safe, accessible and non-discriminatory. All of these have been important steps on the road to an equal and safe society for every single Victorian.

This bill is another important part of that reform journey. It is a legacy of support not just for our multicultural and multifaith communities but for so many other Victorians, whether they are gay, queer, trans, a person with a disability, First Nations or women. It is a carefully constructed and extensively consulted-on piece of legislation. Vilification has such serious impacts on many Victorian communities. Not only does it cause serious and long-term psychological harm to individuals but it silences whole communities and prohibits them from fully participating in public life. Vilification ultimately serves to undermine social cohesion and the benefits that diversity and inclusivity bring to Victoria.

If I can take a few minutes to talk about a few aspects of the bill, the bill creates a legal and criminal framework to better protect all Victorians from the impacts of vilification and hate. It expands anti-vilification protections from race and religion to also protect the attributes of disability, gender identity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation and personal association with a person who has a protected attribute. The bill repeals the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2021 (RRTA) and moves criminal anti-vilification offences to the Crimes Act 1958 and civil anti-vilification protections to the Equal Opportunity Act 2010. I must say, in my very many conversations with multicultural and faith leaders in Victoria, this consistently comes up: that we need legislation that actually has teeth, because under the current framework very few prosecutions ever occur.

The bill retains the key features of the RRTA, including protections from racial and religious vilification, and improves how serious vilification offences operate, including by introducing new serious vilification offences. The bill improves how civil protections operate, including by modifying the civil incitement-based protection, introducing a new harm-based protection and retaining the civil exceptions with minor amendments. The bill makes a technical amendment to the Bail Act 1977 to ensure that bail decision makers can remand a person who is charged with intentionally performing a Nazi gesture.

There is an aspect of the civil protections part of this legislation that I would just like to touch on for a moment. The bill enables a representative body to bring an anonymous complaint to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission. This representative body could be a religious or community organisation, and they can bring that complaint without naming the person they are representing. That is actually a pretty important aspect of this bill. It is a major win for many in our diverse communities who may have been deterred from making a complaint due to the potential for negative recourse in the past. If we want to talk about the practical nature of the legislation before the chamber, I cannot think of a better example than that in the bill, because it actually empowers organisations and representative bodies to be able to act in this way for the first time.

I do want to take issue with some of the assertions that are being made about this bill, because the truth is that the process to get to where we are today has been a very long process and it has involved significant consultation. The bill will give effect – this is important context and history – to 15 recommendations, and I want to stress this, from a bipartisan 2021 Victorian parliamentary inquiry into anti-vilification protections. I want to thank the chair of that inquiry the member for St Albans, my good friend Minister Suleyman, and remind the chamber that there were a number of members involved in that important work and that bipartisan report that was tabled, including the member for Caulfield, the member for Brighton and the member for Lowan, who were on this committee and made these recommendations, alongside the very excellent members for Geelong, Buninyong and Clarinda. I think that that seems to be a bit lost on some of those opposite, that everyone was singing from the same song sheet when it came to the need to protect people in our community from vilification and hate. This report found that the current protections in place are absolutely inadequate and no longer fit for purpose. The inquiry held extensive hearings and heard firsthand evidence from people about their experiences of vilification. It also heard that vilification was common for many Victorians, including First Nations, Muslim and Jewish people, women, LGBTIQA+ communities and people with disabilities.

Of course I recognise the toll it can take to participate in these sorts of processes, and I want to thank everybody who contributed to that important inquiry which has led to the bill before us today. The value of these contributions has ultimately led to the reforms that we are seeing in the house. Add to that the years of work the bill has undergone since, the consultation that has occurred under the former Attorney-General for nearly two years and the most recent round of consultation which generated more than 2500 submissions. That has got to be up there as one of the biggest responses. More than 200 peak bodies and stakeholder groups have been part of this process. I know that particularly in my role as Minister for Multicultural Affairs I have had countless engagements and conversations with community leaders about the importance of these reforms, and I have received many letters of support from community members about why these reforms are so important to them. It is why when we announced that these reforms would be hitting Parliament last year we stood hand in hand with leaders from the Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities, because this reform is for them as Victorians who deserve to live without fear of vilification and harm. The community has been part of this process since the journey of these reforms began. I am very proud that we are delivering them here today.

Hate has no place in Victoria. It is really that simple. I want to extend my thanks to the Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny and the former Attorney-General and now Treasurer Jaclyn Symes for their hard work in bringing the bill to this place. We have got a chance today to send a clear message to our diverse, vibrant and proud multicultural communities that you matter. We will not stand for hatred or vilification of any kind. You deserve to outwardly practise your culture and your faith and to be respected by every Victorian.

I do take issue with some of the comments made by Mr Mulholland because, frankly, trying to work out the opposition’s objections to this bill has been like trying to catch smoke. The goalposts have been constantly shifting. It is really very simple: if you profess to stand with our multicultural communities, with our diverse Victorian community, then you must support this bill.

We do not want to give the green light to hatred. We do not want to signal to anyone here in Victoria that you do not belong. The government is bringing the legislation forward because we want to change that. We want to make sure that Muslim women, for example, can walk down our streets and not be the subject of violence and hatred. We want to make sure that young Jewish kids can catch a public bus to school without being abused. These are the real stories of what is going on out there in the community. I am very proud to be supporting this bill today, and I urge everyone in the house to do the same.

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:37): I rise to speak on this bill. It is a very serious matter at all levels and in all domains, because we are talking about hate in our community and we are talking about the iron fist of law inserting itself into human interactions and the necessity we find ourselves needing to do so.

How did we get here? There once was, I guess, a bit of a social contract in Australia that we did not bring ancient hatreds to the country, that we left them behind, that we believed adamantly in the notion of a fair go, we believed in the equality of all Australians. That social contract was a buffer, a preventer of excesses in our contact and engagement with each other. I do not mean to trivialise it, but in a small way it is like there is no law about getting out of the way of ambulances. There is no law because there is a sense that it is the right thing to do. You get out of the way of an ambulance; you do not need to write a law for that. The day we need to write a law for that, we have really diminished ourselves in a deep way. In the Roman Forum, the only thing holding the public back from the Senate were red ribbons. They did not put guards there because they knew the guards would not stop the people. It was the sense of what is right and what is wrong in a constructive society, a well-run and functioning society. But we find ourselves at a juncture where none of those things protect us anymore, none of those things are adequate anymore. In this conversation we should reflect how far we have fallen as a society where we are going to have to legislate to get people out of the way of ambulances. We are going to have to legislate about hate speech, of all things, because we cannot seem to manage that ourselves under our own free will, under our own morality, any longer. It is a very sad moment.

How did we get here? It is a bit of a cliché to talk about slippery slopes, and people get demonised for those words. But the fact is we did not enforce the laws that existed and we created an environment where things that should not be tolerated became tolerated.

We have seen over the last two and a bit years examples of where laws were selectively enforced or selectively not enforced, where things that should have been stamped out the instant they occurred were not stamped out, where people equivocated in their language around the issue and then we indulged it. I will not name the university, but I was at a university where some of the senior administrators literally had glee on their faces that they were having a pro-Palestine encampment, without any care about what doors they were opening. I can tell you I have had students from that university speak in depth about the discrimination that that opened the doors to. If they got into a lift, people were getting out of the lift because they were Jewish.

As we go down there, I think the abuse has become more and more common, but we let this stable door open a long time ago. It is now completely commonplace for people of faith to be demonised and for their faiths to be demonised on TV shows, on podcasts, on talk shows. People conspicuously demean, and we have allowed it and tolerated it – in fact there has been a great audience of people laughing on as we did it. But I think, for all that, the depth and the ardour of antisemitism in Australia that has emerged over the last two years has shocked me. I never imagined Australia could be like this. Nothing in my upbringing, nothing in my life experience, prepared me for how quickly it emerged, how the slightest indulgence led to more and more and more. There did not seem to be grown-ups in the room who had the perspective or the world view to get in front of it and shield those vulnerable communities. We have ended up with firebombings of a synagogue in Australia, car bombings, people attempting to blow up synagogues, primary schools where kids have racist graffiti at the entrance. How did it happen?

Laws are laws, and laws are fine, but everyone knows the law is an ass. We can pass whatever laws we want in here, but there is something much deeper and much worse at work when we have stooped to this, when we need to even pass laws about it. The law is a very, very blunt instrument. We are going to see that there are several good things about the bill, but we know it is a blunt instrument. There is no question it will have unintended consequences – foreseeable but unintended. A couple of the foreseeable ones – it will of course have an impact on freedom of speech. It will have an impact on it because people will now be more consciously self-censoring, not wanting to go too near the line. It will have an impact because of course people will weaponise it, because when you write a law, like when you write a contract, you are writing it for the worst-case scenario, not the best. Hope is not a plan. You hope people are going to use the law right, but you know you need to anticipate the worst. And the worst is there are activists on all sides, on the side of angels and the side of devils, who will weaponise this law. They will weaponise it for cruel and stupid purposes that will take us further down the drain. There are good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

We must as a Parliament be incredibly careful how we word this bill and what we put in place. The amendments that we are putting forward are part of that process and certainly very, very necessary.

If, as written, the bill allows people to consider a hateful crime on the subjective experience of somebody else, there is no end to where the offence will lie. The offence will go far beyond your ability to anticipate it, far beyond anyone’s ability to predict it and be completely drawn out of the mind of the individual who wants to have the complaint. And, yes, of course naturally large chunks will be legitimate ones that we want to stop – the blunt instrument. But that is not the worst case. The worst case is going to be much, much worse than that, where social discourse in Victoria will grind to a halt if we are not more careful with the wording. It is those four words in the amendment that we want to address that would enable us all to pass this with bipartisan support. As for the civil elements, I think as Mr Mulholland mentioned earlier, these do not come into law until 2027, and then I do not see why they form part of the legislation. It is pointless. And it is even more dangerous on that ground.

We have an issue here and now. I am quite willing to accept the limitations of the law as it is written here and now to address the issue that is here and now. I am not willing to wager on an if and might be, on something that has not been fully thought through as to the consequences and where they have not put the belt and braces on to that law. Ultimately what we are doing here is using the reasonable person test and using the ‘reasonable person with that attribute’ test. We are abdicating our responsibility to make law, and we are passing that law to the courts. We are encouraging activism within the court system where a judge will have to subjectively decide whether somewhere somehow someone, no matter if it is a minority of one, has decided something is hateful if it is reasonably so, however unreasonably that might be to the rest of society. That could put someone in jail for three years. That is how the law is written. It is a bad law. It should not be in this bill.

I really do support the amendment. If we can have the amendment, we at least put some belt and braces around this law. We can at least act now for those people who are most in pain, people who we have failed to protect. Both we as a state in our civil conversation and we as every Victorian as individuals have failed because we have lowered our standards so far. Our communities expect better, and we should do better.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:48): We often hear people say, ‘I support free speech, but I do not support hate speech.’ The question always arises: who interprets what is hate speech and what is not hate speech? This is sort of what this bill is trying to address. It is saying, well, in these certain situations for certain people with certain characteristics if we incite our severe ridicule, contempt, revulsion et cetera, then this should be something that is punishable by the law. However, one of the reasons that Western civilisation supports free speech is because we acknowledge that it is not there for discussing the nice things; it is there for discussing the things that are hard, the things that are really difficult to discuss and the things that go against what the consensus is.

I will bring you to a very historical example of what at the time would have been probably incitement of severe ridicule. It was back in the 16th century by a man called Galileo. Galileo picked up on the idea by Copernicus on the idea that maybe the earth was not the centre of the solar system, maybe the sun was. He was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615. Maybe the inquisitors these days might be called the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.

But in 1615 they inquired into his beliefs around this strange idea that went against everything that modern science and religion believed at the time, and they concluded that his opinions were heretical. Nevertheless, he believed he was right. And he was right, of course, as we know today – the earth does rotate around the sun. He wrote another book in 1632 called the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. In this book he ridiculed Pope Urban VIII for his belief that the earth was the centre of the solar system. Galileo incited severe ridicule based on a protected characteristic. He ridiculed the Pope because of his religious beliefs. For this, Galileo was forced to recant for his heresy, and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Effectively he was punished for ancient forms of the sort of law that we are debating today.

I will bring you to another interesting example of why free speech is very important, and I will acknowledge that the protected characteristic in this case does not apply to this law, although I am sure that if public health officials had a say in this law, they would consider their views and their beliefs as protected characteristics. Let us go to public health. Back in the early 19th century there was a man named Ignaz Semmelweis. He was a physician and scientist, and he worked in Austria. He was very concerned about a condition at the time. Many women unfortunately passed away very soon after giving birth to children, and they used to call it childbed fever. In the hospital that he worked in the mortality rate was somewhere in the order of 18 per cent – absolutely shocking by today’s standards. Giving birth in the early 19th century was indeed a very, very risky thing to do. Consider that this was before science had any idea of germ theory. We did not know what germ theory was at the time. He was a man with an inquiring mind, and he made an observation, or had a theory that he wanted to test, in the maternity ward, and so he tested this theory. He asked doctors, nurses and people working in the wards to wash their hands. He asked them to wash their hands before dealing with the soon-to-be mothers that were about to give birth. The mortality rate in the hospital reduced from 18 per cent to 2 per cent – outstanding results. But of course germ theory had not been discovered yet. He had just randomly figured this out through empirical observation. He had figured this out. He was vilified by the scientific community. In fact they considered him an outcast. He conflicted with the scientific establishment. They said, ‘There is no basis for your beliefs. This is quackery, this is pseudoscience.’ In fact he ended up getting committed to an asylum, where ironically, he died from an infection after he was beaten by the guards in the asylum. He died from gangrene. But many years later Louis Pasteur in fact did discover the scientific basis of germ theory and discovered that, actually, Semmelweis was very correct in getting doctors to wash their hands. It seems ridiculous these days, but back then it was a public health heresy to suggest that these esteemed doctors should have to do something as undignified as wash their hands before they help a mother giving birth. Like Galileo, Semmelweis was incarcerated for speaking heresy against the medical establishment at this time. This is a very important reason why we must always allow free speech. We must not condemn everything.

I do not for a moment deny that there have been awful, awful things happen in Victoria. People have been vilified for their religious beliefs, there have been awful attacks – many of the things spoken about today. People have spoken about arson attacks and threats and these sorts of things. The good news is that arson is already illegal, and people should be prosecuted for arson. Property crime is already illegal, and people should be prosecuted for property crime, like drawing awful things on property. Making threats against people is already a crime. The police cannot keep up, especially with arson in this state, with the crimes that are already happening. What we are proposing here is to add an entirely new branch of crimes, which presumably the police will not be able to keep up with either – unless they have got a new division or something; I am not sure how that is going to work or how much that is going to cost – and as has been pointed out by others, none of this has actually been tested yet, so it would be a very interesting situation.

I will point out this: there are many instances where bad things have happened and the government has responded. Let us look at the track record of the government trying to legislate away hate in this state, because it is absolutely abysmal. Let us look at one incident. I have spoken about it before here and publicly. Back in 2023 there were some Nazis that invaded or ambushed or hijacked, whatever you want to call it, a protest that was happening in Melbourne. I was there. I saw it. I did not actually know they were Nazis at the time. I just saw a bunch of dudes in black. I had no idea who they were; they were all wearing masks. They unfurled a banner, and they performed the Nazi salute, the Roman salute. In a kneejerk response the government said, ‘We’re going to legislate away hate. We’re going to ban the Nazi salute and ban Nazi symbols. That will help get rid of hate in this state. That will help suppress these people.’

During my questioning in the committee stage of the bill I asked the Attorney-General, ‘How will you judge success of this legislation? How will you judge whether you have actually succeeded?’ I do not want to misquote her, so I will paraphrase. Her response was something along the lines of, ‘It will succeed if it’s not used. It’s a deterrent. We don’t want people doing these things, because they are offensive to other people. It’s offensive when someone does the Nazi salute. People find it offensive. It will be successful, hopefully, if it deters people and those people do not do the things that we are legislating against. That’s a successful thing.’ I had a very different view. My view was that the very people that they were trying to suppress would almost immediately take advantage of this to become martyrs, to use it to recruit and point out that actually the government does not support freedom and to claim their much-treasured status as victims – trying to put themselves as victims. That is what I predicted would happen, and of course I was right. Within hours of those laws coming into effect we had someone charged – he was convicted – and they used it for recruitment. This did not help remove or combat right-wing extremism in Victoria in any way. In fact it has backfired in the most spectacular fashion.

Indeed the same people that were watching that law and took advantage of it are watching this very law go through Parliament today. They want this to pass. If anyone here thinks that neo-Nazis or Islamic extremists are scared or worried about going to prison or being charged with these crimes, you need to think again. They see laws like this as a way of pointing out the hypocrisy of the state – and the state is hypocritical because it is going against the traditions of western liberalism by not supporting freedom of speech, by trying to legislate away hate. We are in a situation now where they are waiting to take advantage of this and make themselves martyrs to get a platform to spew their abhorrent views to the rest of the state.

This is so utterly irresponsible and dangerous.

Anyone that thinks that the government is serious about this only needs to look at what happened during the pandemic or what happened later after that Let Women Speak rally where the government, which apparently takes right-wing extremism very, very seriously, smeared anyone and everyone as Nazis – one of the most outrageous and hideous things to accuse someone of, unless it is actually true. They were smearing all sorts of people as Nazis. I cannot take them seriously when they have done that sort of thing.

Even more recently they were trying to smear the Liberal Party as being somehow associated with Nazis, and I will tell you this: it did not work. No-one is buying it. I notice the government has stopped doing that now, because it is not working. No-one is buying it. The average Victorian just does not buy it. In fact the government had been smearing people as Nazis for so long – everyone who disagreed with them – but no-one knew what an actual Nazi looks like. They are not very nice people, I can tell you. They are not very nice people. I am one of the few people that has been pushing back against them on social media. Racism is an abhorrent ideology. It is one of the lowest forms of collectivism that you can imagine.

The government now thinks that they can legislate away hate, and we have this potential now to give all these awful people a platform both in the courts and potentially with High Court challenges. I note that there was a letter from the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee wondering whether this bill might infringe on the federal constitution. I am sure there would be many bad-faith actors very happy to take this right to the High Court, and you know, they might win. How awful for this state – awful for the government but awful for this state as well – if we did end up with a situation like that, where they did win. I note the government always seems very confident in the constitutional validity of the laws that they pass here, but they have lost a few of them – the electric car tax was one more recently. They seemed very confident of that at the time and then lost it. This could be the same. This is a very high-risk proposition that the government is making here.

I do not think that anyone should be supporting this. What we should be doing is standing firm on the principles that our civilization was founded on. We already have a mechanism for maintaining social cohesion, and that is defending individual rights: freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of belief and freedom of association. We must stand proud and affirm these commitments to these freedoms, because the people that incite racism, that incite hatred, that attack these people – they hate these freedoms. They love it when governments collapse, when they turn their backs on those freedoms that our civilization has protected for so long, because they can call us hypocrites, they can attack us and move us towards authoritarianism, which is what we do not want. Our state and our country must stand firm in defence of freedom, and the Libertarian Party will never back down from that.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (15:03): I speak in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024. We have seen a concerning rise in antisemitic and Islamophobic attacks on our fellow Victorians in recent times. The shocking arson attack on Adass Israel’s synagogue on 6 December last year was a terrible example. In the week following that attack Premier Jacinta Allan met with leaders and members of the Jewish community. She heard how the Jewish community increasingly feel that the promise of modern, multicultural Victoria is being eroded. She reiterated the one, simple principle that lies behind this bill: whoever you are, whoever you pray to, you are safe and welcome here in this state.

I want to focus on the word ‘safe’. Peaceful protests are protected in this state – this bill will not change that – but we must not allow hate and antisemitism to thrive under the cloak of legitimate protest. Harmful, extreme and dangerous protests should not and will not be protected. We have seen too many of these protests recently, and let us make it clear: what is on the line is this bill delivers tougher new laws to crack down on people who want to whip up racism and hate against their fellow Victorians just because of who they are. This bill’s genesis was an Islamophobic act at a mosque, and it was debated shortly after the Muslim community was rocked by an act of violence against two women at Epping Plaza.

This government is proud to stand with a wide range of community groups that developed and are still backing this bill, including Victoria’s Jewish community, who have asked for some additional tools to fight the scourge of antisemitism.

All Victorians should feel safe in their neighbourhoods and in the communities that they live in. I never expected that this legislation would be so urgently needed in our wonderful multicultural state of Victoria. Political discourse over the last 12 to 18 months from some leaders has not supported harmony in this state but has exacerbated intolerance, anger and emotion. We have seen neo-Nazis being given a platform. We have seen violence in other parts of the world being justified in local discourse here in Victoria. Here in this chamber we have heard arguments implying support for one group or another in the context of a violent conflict when we all know that violence and intimidation is not a legitimate way to resolve a conflict. Violence is not acceptable in the prep classroom, nor is it acceptable on our playing fields, and nor is it acceptable in South Sudan, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Palestine, Israel or Myanmar.

What our leaders say and do influences how safe Victorians feel. Inciting hatred or vilification intimidates members of our community. It instils fear and provides momentum for those who are hateful towards others. Feeling passionate about injustice is not and should never be a justification for violence or intimidation or criminal behaviour. The bill provides a clear message from the leaders of this state, whether they are political, sporting, faith or any other leader, that everyone in Victoria deserves to be safe and feel safe, no matter how unique they are, no matter what their heritage.

I want to say to those in this chamber who might want to exploit extremists for their own political ends: do not do it. You legitimise hatred and anger, you make people feel like they are justified in targeting their fellow Victorians and you dismantle trust. As a number of my colleagues have said, the parliamentary inquiry that led to the creation of this bill was a bipartisan effort. It is right and fitting that we should take a bipartisan approach to addressing vilification and violence. We can debate the details and the practicalities by all means, but to oppose the enactment of measures based on the inquiry’s recommendations along party lines gives fuel to those who would like to continue to intimidate and vilify.

Let us be clear: what is on the line is that this bill delivers new laws to crack down on people who want to whip up racism and hate against fellow Victorians. The government is proud to stand with a wide range of community groups that have developed this bill together in consultation. I say to everybody in this chamber: there is a choice here in the Legislative Council. We can stand against antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism and hate, pass these tough new laws and help protect all Victorians, or they can side with the hard right and allow that crusade to continue.

Thresholds for the criminal offences in this bill are high. The offences are about inciting hatred, serious contempt, revulsion or severe ridicule or threatening a person or property because of who that person is, because they are gay or Jewish or Muslim, because they use a wheelchair et cetera.

This is not about merely offensive behaviour or something that makes people feel uncomfortable. This is about seriously vilifying conduct. This bill will expand the protections currently provided for race and religion to disability, gender identity, sex, sex characteristics and sexual orientation and also to those Victorians with a personal association to a person who has a protected attribute, such as the mother of a trans child or the partner of a person with a disability. The bill introduces new serious vilification offences, which will be crimes rather than civil offences. Inciting hatred against people with a protected attribute will become a crime punishable by up to three years imprisonment. Threatening harm or property damage will also become a crime, with a minimum penalty of five years imprisonment.

These changes are being introduced following very extensive consultation. We have consulted with human rights, justice, legal, multicultural, advocacy and faith-based groups, and we have continued these conversations with the community and MPs as the bill has made its way through the Parliament. Those conversations have continued to shape this bill, and I want to say thank you to those who have engaged in those conversations. In particular I want to thank those with lived experience of vilification and their advocates for engaging in the reform process. It is not an easy thing to have to talk about these traumatic experiences. I want you to know that you have been heard and that your courage and resilience in sharing your stories is helping to build better laws for us all and a better state for us all. It has not been possible to adopt or reconcile all views, and it is clear that Victorians have diverse opinions about these reforms. All advice and feedback have been carefully considered and balanced in developing this bill.

This bill is supported by a broad range of community and religious groups, as I have mentioned. Quoted in the Guardian article cited above was Rabbi Gabi Kaltmann, who I think expressed best the purpose of the bill:

“Doesn’t matter whether you wear a kippa or a hijab, if someone vilifies you, if someone wants to go after you, your faith, your background, your belief, your sexuality, the chances are that they will be charged and go to jail or heavily fined,” he said. “We all become safer.”

I commend this bill to the house.

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:13): I also rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024. As has been stated, the purpose of the bill is said to be to strengthen and reform anti-vilification law to amend the Crimes Act 1958 to include serious vilification offences, to amend the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 to include civil anti-vilification protections, to amend the Bail Act 1977 in relation to the offence of performing a Nazi gesture, to extend the exceptions to prohibition on refusing bail in the Bail Act, to amend the ‘public display of Nazi symbols’ to ‘public display or performance of Nazi symbols or gestures’, to repeal the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 and to make consequential amendments to other acts. As has also been stated in this place, the attributes to be protected from the vilification, under what we currently have, are race, religious belief or activity. But the bill also seeks to expand the list of attributes which are protected from vilification to include race, religious belief or activity, disability, gender identity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation and the like.

I have listened to debate in the house so far, and I want to make it clear that, since it was first legislated, we have never had such far-reaching changes to Victoria’s anti-vilification laws as what this bill proposes. Having said that, I tend to feel very strongly too that we have had a lot of things happen in recent times that, as my colleague Mr Welch mentioned, we would never have imagined would happen in my lifetime in my city.

I am a person who went to school with a number of Jewish people, and they were my friends. They still are my friends. To see the prejudice and the prejudice-fuelled hatred, the violence, the assaults that have been taking place in our streets – it does not feel like Melbourne to me, and it does really upset me.

I am very thankful to David Southwick in the other place, our colleague, who sent a number of things that have happened to the Jewish community, with related death threats. Of course we had what happened on 7 October, and that caused a wave of antisemitic behaviour here in the Victorian community. We had the Caulfield riots on 10 November 2023, where rocks and other projectiles were thrown towards Jews outside the synagogue, forcing the evacuation of Central Synagogue during Friday night prayers. We had someone drive a motor vehicle on the footpath towards a group of Jewish people in Caulfield. There has been the targeting of visiting families of hostages and survivors of the 7 October massacre at the Crowne Plaza in Melbourne. We have had death threats to Jewish people, graffiti attacks on Jewish homes and institutions and even day school Mount Scopus, which had dreadful words written on it about wanting Jewish people to die.

I am a person who as a teacher taught about the Holocaust, about antisemitic behaviour and about hatred. It is just so distressing for me to find in our city of Melbourne that we can see such appalling behaviour. However, it also concerns me to see the way the government puts these bills together. I want to see what is best to protect the Jewish people, but establishing what is best to protect the Jewish people and the Jewish community does not mean that you then open up a floodgate of opportunity to allow opportunists to take advantage of legislation, and that is what this will do, because it is an overreach.

In the beginning, when it first came into the other place, it included things like preaching and proselytising in the government’s definition of ‘religious purpose’. I mean, it really had not been thought through. I represent the south-east, which is a place where more than 70 per cent of the community are affiliated with or are directly committed to religious practices, or have family who are, so it is really important to me that we are protecting the people of our communities so they are able to go about their lives in everyday Australia.

I want to read and quote – and I believe it is relevant to this debate – from the Australian Liberal Party’s beliefs:

We Believe:

…

In those most basic freedoms of parliamentary democracy – the freedom of thought, worship, speech and association.

In a just and humane society in which the importance of the family and the role of law and justice is maintained.

In equal opportunity for all Australians …

What concerns me is that this is a bill which, again, has not had the work done on it, and again, we have had to, as a coalition, go backwards and forwards trying to make amendments in order to adjust things that could be extremely harmful for Victorians. We find ourselves still concerned about the bill in its current form.

I have to say that like, I am sure, many of you, I have received emails from people who are genuinely concerned about the significant risk to their fundamental rights and freedoms – the threat to freedom of speech, the threat to freedom of religion, the threat to freedom of expression by broadening the definition of ‘vilification’ to include subjective interpretations. Faith groups are really concerned that they will be facing legal consequences for expressing legitimate opinions or engaging in public discourse. There is, as has been mentioned by my colleagues already, the potential for abuse and misuse if there are others around who have different views in religious, political and social contexts.

It creates an environment of fear, and it can discourage open and respectful discussion. The impact on religious freedom means that schools and religious practices need the protection of the law so that their own teachings and beliefs are not deemed to be offensive under legislation. We need to allow our faith communities to have the opportunity to teach their perspectives on marriage, on morality and other core beliefs without fear of prosecution, and that includes faith schools. I am not going to go on for a long time because I am not particularly well – you could probably hear that in my voice – but there are great concerns that the harm-based provision is subjective, that the religious implications of this are going to potentially allow individuals to define what is harmful, making it easier to silence religious or moral views simply because someone feels offended. This is a huge red flag for us as Liberals, because we do not want to prevent people from having that freedom of speech and freedom of religion. We want to make sure that that is a discourse and a dialogue that is allowed to continue. We see this as an overreach and that there is a potential threat here to the freedom of speech and freedom of religion, which of course goes against the grain of who we are as a political party.

Legitimate religious activities should never be lumped as hateful conduct. I attended an iftar dinner last night, and some of the interpretation of the call to prayer was put up on the screen. It occurred to me that sometimes people do not take the time to understand what other people believe and that this vilification amendment could be so harmful to so many religions that I represent in the south-east and so many different people and communities that are represented there. I really urge the government to consider further amendments or just let us throw out the bill.

Rikkie-Lee TYRRELL (Northern Victoria) (15:23): I rise today to speak in opposition to the government’s Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion Bill) 2025. As a member for Northern Victoria, it is both my privilege and my duty to represent the voices of the communities I serve. In doing so I take seriously the responsibility of standing up for the rights and freedoms of Victorians, especially when it comes to legislation that could potentially impact the very freedoms that make our society thrive.

Today I stand before you to express my firm opposition to the proposed anti-vilification laws in their current form. I strongly believe that as written these laws pose a grave threat to the fundamental right of free speech in our state and could deeply undermine the unity of our society. Let me be clear: I understand the intention behind these laws. The aim is to protect individuals from hate and discrimination, and that is a goal we all share. The provisions in this bill are far too broad and too subjective to achieve the intended protections without significant risks. The vague definition of ‘vilification’ opens the door for potential misuse. This creates a situation where malicious legal actions could be initiated, allowing activists or individuals with agendas to target others simply for expressing legitimate opinions or beliefs.

We must ask ourselves what is the cost of such a law. We risk creating an environment in which open debate and critical discussion of sensitive issues are stifled. Instead of fostering meaningful discussion, we will find ourselves in a society where the fear of legal repercussions silences those with differing views. This is not just a concern; it is a fundamental threat to the democratic principles we hold dear.

In a democracy like ours the right to express differing opinions not only should be protected, it should be encouraged. These laws, however, could be weaponised by political opponents, used to silence dissent and used to prevent the free exchange of ideas. This is not the kind of society I believe we want to foster in Victoria. Moreover, the low threshold for vilification outlined in this bill presents a real danger to everyday Victorians, particularly those of faith or those who hold traditional values. People who express their deeply held opinions could find themselves falsely accused of vilification not for any malice but simply for speaking their truth. The result would be a chilling effect on public discourse, where individuals and communities are discouraged from engaging in the conversation altogether. Rather than uniting us, these laws risk further dividing us. That is why I call on my fellow members of this Parliament and the government to reconsider this bill. Rather than fostering an environment of fear and self-censorship, we should strive to create a society where differing opinions can be expressed respectfully, where dialogue can take place in good faith and where legal threats do not hang over the heads of those simply exercising their right to speak. Let us not sacrifice the freedom of expression and the open exchange of ideas in the name of protection. Instead let us find ways to address discrimination and hate that do not infringe upon the very rights that define us as a free and democratic people. I will not be supporting this bill at this time in its current form.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (15:27): I am very pleased to rise to speak in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024, which is before us today. It is an incredibly comprehensive and important piece of legislation that goes to some of the most distressing and disturbing ways that members of our community can be vilified through hateful action and seeks to create a new and improved legislative framework to help protect those individuals who are subject to that vilification. It is not, as some of the speakers opposite in the course of the debate would have you believe, about creating crimes or creating civil penalties and circumstances where people take offence at things. That is a diminishment of the seriousness of these issues and a diminishment of the seriousness of the experiences of members of the community who are subject to the sorts of racially motivated vilification that we are seeking to prevent through these laws, because the provisions in the bill are very, very clear. Some of the conduct that we are seeking to target are those things which, for example, are considered by a reasonable person with the protected attribute to be hateful, seriously contemptuous of, reviling or severely ridiculing the person or groups of persons. This is far beyond someone taking mere offence.

I want to spend a bit of time at the beginning of this speech on a couple of probably slightly unexpected tangents about the impact that hate speech has, the toxicity that hate speech has and its potential to pervade our society and therefore why we need legislation such as this, which puts some pretty clear markers in the sand about why that speech is unacceptable to our community and in our community. We know that at its very basic level hate speech is designed to ‘other’ members of our community – that is, through victimisation, discrimination and vilification create fear-stoked hatred, all on the basis that someone is different to us. They are the ‘them’ or the ‘they’. It is something which those who are making those utterances and saying those words are seeking to particularise. That othering is exceptionally toxic to a range of people in the community. At a very human level, exposure to this form of hate speech clearly turns people against each other. It is clearly something that seeds conflict, that creates prejudice. But also, as certain studies have shown, for the individuals participating, it erodes empathy and erodes the personal perspectives of the people who are exposed to and perpetuating that sort of speech and leads to a sort of general emotional numbing that can have quite clearly deleterious consequences.

I was reminded to look at some of this based on some of the speech that Hugh de Kretser, the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, gave at the Australian Intercultural Society’s Parliament iftar dinner last night. Mr de Kretser, in a very powerful contribution, reflected on some comments that the Director-General of Security at the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Mike Burgess made in his annual threat assessment, which was delivered in a declassified speech given in February this year, which gave us all a very stark warning about the consequences of politically motivated violence in our community and what he described as activities that are directed to incite violence between different groups in Australia so as to endanger the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth. Mr. Burgess spoke with quite a degree of alarm about the rise of politically motivated violence raising the temperature of the security environment. He said:

We expect nationalist and racist violent extremists to continue their efforts to ‘mainstream’ and expand their movement. They will undertake provocative, offensive and increasingly high-profile acts to generate publicity and recruit. While these activities will test legal boundaries, the greatest threat of violence comes from individuals on the periphery of these organised groups.

Mr Burgess went on to say:

I remain concerned about young Australians being caught up in webs of hate, both religiously and ideologically motivated …

In the polarised, grievance-rich environment I’m describing, social cohesion will remain strained and we can expect spikes in communal violence …

So Mr Burgess, the head of ASIO, is warning about the evolving threat environment that is challenging our community to stamp out these forms of racially vilifying speech. But he also said – and I think this is one of the more interesting things – that this evolving threat environment is challenging traditional definitions, categories and assumptions about what motivations are and that it is not the left–right analysis that you might have expected 40 years ago. He went on to say:

Individuals are cherry-picking seemingly antithetical ideologies to create new, hybrid beliefs. In one case last year, we found an individual apparently motivated by Islamic State propaganda and neo-Nazi propaganda. In another, an individual allegedly described himself as a left-wing environmentalist aligned with Adolf Hitler. Yet another apparently considered himself to be ‘a radical communist anarchist’ while allegedly embracing nationalist and racist violent extremism.

I make this point to say that, yes, the issues that we are confronting here are ones that affect individuals and ones that affect affected groups in the community themselves, but they also pose, as our security agencies are telling us loudly and clearly, that the rise of extremism and the use of racially motivated words is affecting our community and the security risks that affect our community more broadly. The director-general of ASIO was very, very clear that we all need to take this very seriously and it is an incredibly salient part of our current threat environment. These are not minor matters with which we can have a little quibble; they are serious issues that we need to confront. What this bill is doing is making it absolutely clear that in Victoria vilification is not acceptable, that the sort of race-based, religious-based vilification that some seek to normalise in our community is not acceptable, because yes it does seriously affect those communities at which it is targeted, but it affects us all because it makes us all less safe. I think that is a stark reminder of why these sorts of issues are ones we need to take exceptionally seriously.

I do want to spend a moment talking as a member for the Southern Metropolitan Region, home to a large part of Melbourne’s Jewish community. We have spent a lot of time, particularly since 7 October but also more broadly, engaging with the community about the worrying rise of antisemitism and hateful speech and hateful conduct that members of the Jewish community are witnessing.

I do not need to tell members here just how important and how significant the richness with which Melbourne’s Jewish community has contributed to the fabric of our society is and how it has made its mark on our wonderful multicultural community, but the community has been subject to some exceptionally abhorrent attacks in recent times. I have sat down and I have spoken with representatives and members of Melbourne’s Jewish community and I have seen the real harm that this sort of hate speech is having on them. We saw it as one of our colleagues, the federal member for Macnamara Josh Burns, had his office targeted in an antisemitic attack last year where the windows of his office were doused in antisemitic trope. I was there in the morning on the streets of Ripponlea with the members of the congregation from the Adass Israel congregation as their synagogue was a smouldering ruin, talking with them about the impact that this had. Later I toured the charred remains of the synagogue with Minister Stitt and one of the local councillors, and I do not think any of us will forget the acrid stench of hate that we experienced walking around those walls – to see the burned and twisted metal lying on the ground, the holy books that were charred, acts that we do not want to see again in our community, acts that we know of have had profound effects across Melbourne’s Jewish community.

We know these effects are real. Just last week I was at Chevra Hatzolah talking with the community first responders there. One of the things that we were talking about was the effect on their community, the increase in psychological trauma that they are responding to in call-outs from members of the community. Historically they would have just dealt with things like first aid and emergency CPR. But now, particularly in the last 15 or 16 months, the serious toll the clear rise in and threat of antisemitic activity and behaviour is having on Melbourne’s Jewish community is absolutely real. It should not be understated, it cannot be understated, and we all must take a stand against it. That is what I think has been pretty clear, particularly in the joint statement that we have seen recently from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, Zionism Victoria and the Zionist Federation of Australia, which says quite clearly:

The Victorian Jewish community unites to support the hate laws that are being proposed by the Victorian Government.

They go on to say:

That is because we are facing a crisis of hate speech. There has been an explosion of hatred in our communities in recent years. Hatred is fuelled by hate speech – that is why the most extreme forms of incitement must be outlawed.

…

… Victorians will have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix our hate speech laws.

…

And it will send an important message – that inciting hatred or revulsion of another person on the basis of who they are has no place in Victoria.

There is no time to waste.

Those words are pretty powerful. It is very clear that members of the Jewish community here in Melbourne want these laws to be passed. Other members of different communities here in Melbourne want these laws to be passed. As Rabbi Gabi Kaltmann said in the Age on 22 February:

… those involved cannot afford to play politics with laws that impact real lives … Passing the legislation in its current form makes all Victorians safer.

I want to echo the rabbi’s words there, that passing these laws will make all Victorians safer.

Obviously it is not just the Jewish community who will stand to benefit. We know that other communities who are targeted by hate speech will also benefit from the protections contained in this bill – the gay and lesbian community, for example, and the transgender community as well. They are best placed to understand what homophobia is or transphobia is and what it means to them. That is what is embodied in the strengthened civil anti-vilification provisions contained in the bill and the introduction of the new harm-based protection, making it unlawful to engage in public conduct that is hateful, seriously contemptuous of, reviling or severely ridiculing another person because of who they are. The test of such harm, being an objective standard of the reasonable person from the relevant group, is a test that the courts and tribunals are familiar with and already use, and the reform is consistent with satisfying recommendation 9 from the previous term of Parliament’s inquiry into anti-vilification. The bill also modifies the incitement-based civil protection provisions. It will be unlawful for a person to engage in public conduct that is likely to incite hatred against, serious contempt for, revulsion towards or severe ridicule of another person or group based on their protected attribute.

All members of our community deserve to feel safe. In particular members of our Jewish community deserve to feel safe. They have spoken out very clearly and very strongly that passing those laws will help do that. We have taken repeated action to protect members of our community from obscene and vile acts. The laws outlawing the Nazi gesture and the Hakenkreuz are further examples of the commitment that this government is making. We need to pass this bill. We need to come together as parliamentarians once more to take action to protect some of the most vulnerable in our community. It is what our communities expect us to do, and I commend the bill to the house.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:42): I rise to speak to Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024. This is an important debate we are having in the house today – an extremely important debate. We often bring legislation into this house and we debate it. All legislation of course is important. However, there is legislation that really does impact the community, and this piece of legislation I think is one of those areas that will have significant impacts on our community. That is why I say it is a very important bill.

The bill, as we have heard, makes significant changes to the anti-vilification laws in Victoria, aimed at strengthening the existing protections contained in the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 and the Equal Opportunity Act 2010. It will expand the list of protected attributes which cannot be discriminated against. Currently under the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act only race and religious belief or activity are protected. The bill now extends those protections to include, as defined by the Equal Opportunity Act, race, religious belief or activity, disability, gender identity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, and personal association with a person who is identified by reference to any of the above attributes.

The bill introduces two new offences. I am not going to go through all of this; it has been outlined by my colleague Mr Mulholland very thoroughly. I do want to make a couple of points, though, given the areas where the bill seeks to include both the criminal provisions and the civil provisions. The criminal provisions will come into effect on or before 20 September of this year – 2025 – and the civil provisions will come into effect on or before 18 September 2027. That is 2½°years away – well after the next state election. I just put that on the record because I think that is an important aspect of this bill that has been swept over.

I want to go to some of these points around the concerns that the opposition have raised. I want to commend my colleague Michael O’Brien for his very considered and intelligent argument around the concerns. He has been explaining to the Victorian community, in a very thorough way, the coalition’s concerns about the government’s proposed bill that they presented to this Parliament last year.

Since then the government has come some way; it has not come all the way. I want to return to that because I think it is very disingenuous that the Premier herself, who does not make a considered or intellectual argument on the basis of this important legislation, has attacked the opposition by basically saying it is discovering new reasons to oppose the bill. This was after a letter was sent to the Premier from the opposition leader in conjunction with the Shadow Attorney-General Michael O’Brien, the Leader of the Nationals and the Shadow Minister for Police and Corrections David Southwick on 19 February 2025. I want to read in some of this letter because it is important for those that are watching and viewing or who will read this debate to understand exactly what was in that letter. It states:

Dear Premier,

JUSTICE LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (ANTI-VILIFICATION AND SOCIAL COHESION) BILL 2024

We write regarding the above Bill and the opportunity for your government to secure bipartisan support for its passage with one simple amendment.

While your government introduced the Bill in a form that would worsen social cohesion in our community by providing a green light for bigotry under the guise of a ‘genuine political purpose’, we note that you have reversed your position and deleted this proposed defence.

We also welcome your reversal on the definition of ‘religious practice’ that previously excluded proselytising but now includes this term.

However, there remains a serious flaw in the Bill.

The proposed harm-based civil provision upends Victorian law by removing an objective standard and replacing it with a subjective standard –

and there lies the point –

The test for unlawful vilification under the proposed s. 102D(1)(b) would not be that of a reasonable person – an objective standard under the law.

Instead, the test is to be that of a reasonable person with the protected attribute.

This subjective aspect will mean that the law will treat Victorians differently, and provide them with different legal protections, depending on a variety of factors that the reasonable Victorian person could not be expected to be able to know.

For example, some religious sub-groups may find the depiction of a prophet of their faith to be ‘seriously contemptuous’, while others may not.

As the Attorney-General’s office has confirmed in writing to the Shadow Attorney-General, “in cases where the conduct is directed at a particular sub-group of people with a protected attribute (i.e. a member of a particular religious sect) it may be appropriate that the assessment be considered from the perspective of a hypothetical reasonable person that is a member of that sub-group of that protected attribute” –

it is quite extraordinary –

If a Victorian cannot be expected to know how their conduct might be perceived by a member of a sub-group of a group with a protected attribute, the law will be uncertain, unclear and therefore unfair.

That letter spells out the flaws in this bill. It is, as I said, incredibly disingenuous of the Premier to come in and say the opposition just wants to oppose this bill when the Shadow Attorney has put out media release after media release for months on end – in October and again this year – and has been speaking to the public through the media about our concerns with the government’s bill. Unfortunately the government has not taken on board what the opposition has tried to amend. They took on some things and amended some things, which was a good move, but not all, as I have highlighted in that letter.

I have been listening to various members of the government in relation to their argument as to why this bill is needed, and I was listening to Mr Batchelor and he was talking about the Jewish community. We represent the same area. I live in an area which has a relatively large Jewish community, and I know what they feel and how they are feeling.

The government, since 7 October, has failed on so many fronts in this area. I want to just go through what the Jewish community has had to experience since the dreadful terrorist attacks of 7 October: on 10 November 2023, the Caulfield riots, where rocks and other projectiles were thrown towards Jews outside the synagogue, forcing the evacuation of central synagogue during Friday night prayers; the driving of a motor vehicle on a footpath towards a group of Jews in Caulfield; the targeting of visiting hostage families and survivors of the 7 October massacre at Crowne Plaza in the Melbourne CBD; the doxxing of 600 Jewish creatives and related death threats; graffiti attacks on Jewish homes and institutions; the targeting of Jews who gathered in Melbourne’s CBD at the Never Again is Now rally against antisemitism; the blatant display of jihadist terrorist flags and chanting of slogans; vile antisemitism being preached by some imams in some mosques calling for a final solution in Jews; the surrounding of an elderly Jewish disabled lady in a wheelchair, stealing her Israeli flag and then setting it on fire; university encampments, including at Melbourne University, Monash University, Deakin University, La Trobe University and RMIT; 72 weeks of violent protests targeting Jews in the Melbourne CBD, where members of our Jewish community just did not feel safe to even come into the CBD; Jewish businesses being targeted with boycott stickers; the terrorist attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue, which was absolutely shocking – a terrorist attack in our city; and of course we have seen, as I have spoken about in recent weeks, the antisemitism in our health system.

The government has done nothing about this for all that time. They have done nothing. There has been such weak leadership from the Premier and from the Minister for Multicultural Affairs. I make note of the multicultural dinner that was held in Geelong last year that I and others attended. I have to say I was horrified with the Premier’s speech on that night. On a night when it should bring the communities together in a bipartisan way, her speech was a disgrace. The Premier has failed in every sense in leadership on the issue around protecting the Jewish community, so it is a bit rich for members of the government to come in here now and say that they are supporting and looking at this. This bill of course is important, but the government could have done so much more, like support move-on laws and support our police officers in what they are doing. They are hampered by the restrictions that they have got. Mr Batchelor talked of ASIO and the evolving threats of terrorism. Well, yes, ASIO came and actually gave us a briefing, but we still had those protesters on the steps of the Parliament. Nothing was done for the Parliament – nothing. This Parliament did nothing. This government did nothing. So do not come in here and say you are now fixing the problem when you have had close to 18 months to be looking at what has been going on. This government will use an opportunity, and they have failed to actually address the concerns on so many areas. I have been calling on the Minister for Health. Well, she has called out the antisemitism in our health system, but how is she going to enforce it? I am still waiting for that answer. These are serious questions that need to be answered, and our Jewish community is concerned.

I speak to them all the time. All the time I speak to members of the community who have suffered a huge amount, but they must never forget what they have contributed to this community as well – the extraordinary leadership that the Jewish community has provided in so many areas, whether it is defence, science, politics, medicine, the arts and business. The leaders in this state that come from our Jewish community are extraordinary. The philanthropy – it does not go unnoticed. Their plight does not go unnoticed with what has been occurring in our state. I have been horrified by the extent of it; I think most people have, as I have said, as the Shadow Attorney-General has pointed out and as the Leader of the Opposition has pointed out in that letter to the Premier, which has been dismissed.

The Premier, if she was reasonable and really wanted a solution to this, could have sat down and provided that so that those issues around everyday Victorians will be protected and that a perception of a subgroup with a protected attribute where the law will be uncertain, unclear and therefore unfair, does not arise. For those reasons, the coalition will not be supporting the bill.

John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:55): I rise today in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024. This is an important bill and one I feel is particularly pressing in our current climate. Hate has no place in our community. It undermines not only social cohesion but also the benefits that diversity and multiculturalism bring to our community. The purpose of the bill before us is to strengthen and expand anti-vilification laws to provide better protection for individuals and our communities from vilification and promote the right of all Victorians to participate equally in a democratic and inclusive society. Currently in Victoria, only hate speech and conduct that meets the legal definition of vilification is against the law, but vilification is not just hate speech – it is much more than that. Vilification is an act that encourages hatred, serious contempt, revulsion and severe ridicule towards a person or group of people. It can include threats of physical violence.

The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 protects people from vilification that arises due to their race or religion. Some examples of this include posting a racist comment online that could make other people hate someone because of their race, instances of saying something at a public meeting that could encourage contempt of people because of their race or religion and writing graffiti that encourages hatred of people because of their race or religion. This was and largely still is a comprehensive and clear law which covers a wide range of circumstances which rightly should be outlawed. However, the fact is this law, however comprehensive, is nearly a quarter of a century old. The world has changed a lot since then. Social media and other forms of mass communication have come a long way since then, which has integrated our world more than ever. But with that comes a whole new challenge. It is easier than ever for vilification and hate to spread online, and more of our most vulnerable Victorians are exposed to hate.

People who are vilified for other reasons are not yet being protected by our current anti-vilification laws and they need to be protected too. The 2021 Victorian parliamentary inquiry into anti-vilification protections examined the operation and effectiveness of the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act. The inquiry found that many Victorians commonly experienced the harmful effects of vilification, whether that be online or in person. This includes First Nations, Muslim and Jewish people, women, LGBTIQA+ communities and people with disability.

The 2023Victorian Antisemitism Report, which examines the current themes and trends of antisemitism in Victoria from that same year, found that Victorian Jewish communities were subject to a dramatic and unprecedented increase in vilification, hatred and racism. 364 antisemitic incidents were reported in Victoria in 2023 – the highest number ever recorded in a single calendar year. A 2024 research report on racism in Victoria led by Victoria University professors found 76 per cent of survey respondents or someone in their care had experienced racism in Australia, with two-thirds of them having experienced racism in the past 12 months. The 2023 Fuelling Hate report by the Trans Justice Project and the Victorian Pride Lobby reported anti-trans hate is escalating in Australia, with 49 per cent of the trans participants surveyed having experienced online anti-trans abuse, harassment or vilification and 47 per cent having experienced that behaviour in person.

This shows that despite current legislation and protections in the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act, prejudice and hate still happens in Victoria. These statistics are just too high.

Nobody should be a victim of or experience vilification in this state. So with that in mind, it becomes clear that our laws surrounding anti-vilification need to be updated and updated clearly. As the world has changed in the past quarter century, the tactics by which extremists spread their hateful ideology has changed. This is why the Allan Labor government is now moving towards a change to better protect our community from hate, to modernised and anti-vilification laws. The inquiry I mentioned recommended extending anti-vilification laws to protect more Victorians and strengthening how the laws operate. Already this government has implemented the first of the inquiry’s recommendations by banning the Nazi symbol in 2022 and further by banning the Nazi salute and other symbols and gestures used by the Nazi party in 2023. These laws are already being put to use, cracking down on white supremacist rallies and neo-Nazis in Victoria. But more must be done, and that is what this bill seeks to achieve.

The reforms contained in the bill have been informed by extensive community and stakeholder consultation over several years. The proposed new laws have been carefully crafted to balance the rights to freedom of expression, equality and freedom of religion and belief. An outline of the proposed changes is as follows. First off, with the bill we will be bringing into effect 15 more of the inquiry’s recommendations. This will be done by way of strengthening Victoria’s anti-vilification laws by improving the operation of the laws in place. Improving the operation of these laws will go a long way in responding appropriately and effectively to the most serious cases of vilification in Victoria. These are all part of a balanced suite of measures to address conduct of increasing seriousness with regard to vilification and hatred in Victoria. Together these measures will further clamp down on extremist neo-Nazi activity in Victoria and stamp out hate wherever we can find it. It modernises our approach to anti-vilification so that it is fit for the 2020s and going forward. Such reforms are just one part of the Allan Labor government’s wider initiatives to address and prevent vilification, hate crimes and violence.

Because prevention is just as important as changing the law, we need to starve the root cause. We need to look at why people, ordinary people, can become so hateful as to revel in the vilification of minorities and vulnerable communities. That is why this government is also working on complementary prevention-based strategies and initiatives to reduce and eliminate vilification. In layman’s terms, it is to basically find the root cause of these moments and events and find out what we can do to help prevent them from happening again. These include initiatives to better understand and tackle vilifications, such as community- and school-based awareness and education programs and improved support networks for those who are impacted by hate.

As I said, extensive public and stakeholder consultation has benefited the development of this bill. In addition to the consultation conduct of the inquiry, the government has also held three submission processes supported by consultation papers and surveys on Engage Victoria and consultation with key stakeholders. Victorians have had the opportunity to provide their views on extending the attributes protected by anti-vilification laws, expanding criminal offences and strengthening the operation of civil protections. Engage Victoria published the findings of this consultation process in May 2024. Further, in September 2024 the government published an overview paper detailing proposed changes to the law and provided yet another opportunity for Victorians to have their say on the proposed reforms. Consultation with human rights, justice, legal, multicultural advocacy and faith-based groups has also been carried out. This amendment bill and the law surrounding anti-vilification are fundamental to shaping a more inclusive, tolerant and cohesive society. That is why, as you can see, no stone has been left unturned.

I would like to thank the Victorian community and the stakeholders for their input into these reforms over a number of years. Social cohesion is fundamental to a tolerant, democratic society, and it is our job as representatives to work to sew communities closer together, rather than divide them. It requires a complex, ever-changing, dynamic approach to the challenges facing Victoria on any given day. We cannot have a tolerant and cohesive Victoria if we do not act to stamp out intolerance now. I want to thank those who have lived experiences of vilification and their advocates for engaging in reform processes and helping by continuing to contribute to better laws for all. I know the road has not been easy, but it is one we are willing to take to ensure a better outcome for all. The feedback collected over these years of consultation has cited strong support for changes that would reduce the harm caused by vilification, protect more people, reflect the seriousness of hateful conduct and ensure that those experiencing vilification can seek help.

Of course it is not always possible to adopt or reconcile all views. It is evident that Victorians have diverse opinions about these reforms. However, the advice and feedback have been carefully considered and balanced in developing this bill.

It is the intention of this government to enact laws for the people of Victoria that respect the inherent dignity of all and promote equal participation in public life, because the Allan Labor government cares about Victorian communities. That is what we have proven time and time again, and that is what this bill will do. This bill is another example of the Allan Labor government putting Victorians first, ensuring all Victorians, regardless of race, religion, abilities, sexual orientation or preference, are welcome, safe and respected and that everyone can contribute to our great state equally. It is crucial that we continue to build this state to be more welcoming, tolerant and prosperous.

The important protections under the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act will be retained and further strengthened by improving how the law operates. Individuals and groups will continue to be protected from vilification based on their race, including their ancestry, nationality, ethnicity and ethnic origin – the existing provisions which prevent prejudicial discrimination and attacks against minority and vulnerable communities – but we are now taking this further. They will continue to be protected from vilification based on their religion, which includes their lawful religious beliefs and views and religious activities, and this bill will include those with personal associations with a person with a protected attribute.

Importantly, the bill introduces new serious vilification offences that will apply to the expanded protected attributes and will make it easier to prosecute serious examples of hateful conduct. It will be an offence to, on the grounds of a protected attribute, incite hatred, serious contempt for or revulsion towards a person or a group. As I mentioned previously, vilification can include threats of violence, which is the threat of physical harm towards another person or group, and threatening to damage property falls under this scope. At present it is not an offence to incite hatred unless a threat is also made. The bill modifies this to prohibit public conduct that is likely to incite hatred or serious contempt for a protected group based on a protected attribute. Amending the protection to capture conduct that is likely to incite reflects how the courts already interpret this protection and provides further clarity in the legislation, but what it also does is provide a broader scope to tackle these cases of vilification so as to leave no room for doubt and ensure bad actors cannot worm their way around.

The bill will also ensure that intentional and reckless incitement of hatred or threat is sufficient for criminal sanctions. As such, the bill will increase the maximum penalties from six months or a fine to three years imprisonment for the incitement offence and five years for the threat offence. This reflects the seriousness of vilification. A range of sentencing options that fall below the maximum will also be available for appropriate cases, including fines, community-based orders and restorative justice options. This amendment allows enough flexibility to oversee and address the severity, intent and impact of the criminal behaviour. It should spell out clear as day that Victoria has a zero-tolerance policy on bigotry, hatred and vilification. You cannot attack our most vulnerable Victorians and get away with a slap on the wrist. It is a serious criminal offence. These amendments ensure Victoria will take the necessary measures to keep this behaviour off the streets and out of our community.

Crucially, and in line with recommendation 9 of the inquiry, the bill introduces a new civil harm-based protection which ensures that the harm caused by vilifying conduct is considered from the perspective of the targeted person or group. This means public conduct that would in all of the circumstances be reasonably likely to be considered by a reasonable person with the relevant attribute to be hateful. By incorporating the provisions that consider the targeted group and broader society, this bill accounts for social, cultural, historical and other relevant factors in defining behaviour as vilification.

A person will be able to bring a complaint to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission or the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for a breach of the harm-based protection if the person had a relevant protected attribute and was part of the audience of the conduct.

This ensures that only people directly affected or targeted by the conduct, not a third party, can bring the complaint. The bill will also enable a representative body, such as a religious or community organisation, to bring vilifications without naming the persons that they are representing. That is why we are pushing ahead with these changes, so that the community leaders in Victoria can voice their concerns without fear. With that, I commend the bill to the house.

Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (16:10): It is an interesting debate, this one, and one that can often be fuelled with a lot of emotion, and understandably so too, given the subject matter. I am going to try and keep my comments very much focused on the legislation itself and try and be as objective as I possibly can be in the way that I go about this, particularly noting that the bill makes changes to the Crimes Act 1958, the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 and the Bail Act 1977. It repeals the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 and makes changes to a number of other acts as well.

The first aspect of this bill that I want to touch on is the amendment to the Crimes Act, in particular the expansion of powers regarding the protected attributes, which include disability, gender identity, race, religious belief or activity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation and personal association, with references to those previous attributes as well. One of the additional criminal elements that is included by this bill under new section 195N is:

A person commits an offence if –

(a) the person engages in conduct that is likely to incite hatred against, serious contempt for, revulsion towards or severe ridicule of, another person or a group of persons; and

(b) the person engages in the conduct on the ground of a protected attribute of the other person or the group; and

(c) the person either –

(i) intends that conduct to incite hatred against, serious contempt for, revulsion towards or severe ridicule of, the other person or the group; or

(ii) believes that conduct will probably incite hatred against, serious contempt for, revulsion towards or severe ridicule of, the other person or the group.

One of the concerns I have is with the subjective nature of those particular terms. What is the difference between inciting hatred and inciting disapproval or disliking? What is the difference between inciting serious contempt as opposed to moderate contempt or minor contempt? What is the difference between revulsion and disgust? What is the difference between inciting severe ridicule as opposed to mild ridicule or even criticism? These are subjective terms and by their nature are subject to interpretation, so will it be the courts that end up being the arbiter in this? Clarity on that point would be appreciated, because I think a lot of those subjective terms tend to be very, very close to each other, and having the courts decide on those matters – we have an opportunity to circumnavigate that if we can. Hopefully we might be able to clear up some of those questions in committee as well.

However, there are a number of potential instances where these changes could have serious unintended consequences. For example, what if there was a women’s rights rally in Victoria with those who were fighting for safe spaces for women? There might be terms or expressions used that can be interpreted as causing hate, revulsion and ridicule to trans people. What happens if there are counter-protesters, trans people or trans supporters who might use terms that might be interpreted as inciting ridicule or revulsion or causing hate? What happens to protesters and counter-protesters who hold rallies regarding the conflict in the Middle East at Gaza? If you talk about a protected attribute like race or religion, you would likely be found guilty of these provisions regardless of which opinion you actually have. Whichever side of the public debate you fall on, even with these two particular issues, you could be accused of being in breach of these laws. I need to make it very clear that we should be protecting everyone in our community from harm, regardless of any identity factor, including race or religion. There is no question that protecting our community has to be the highest priority.

The second aspect of this bill is the civil provisions which seek to bring about substantial changes to the Equal Opportunity Act, which may again cause serious unintended consequences. Section 102D of the legislation talks about vilification and states that:

(1) A person must not engage in public conduct –

(a) that is engaged in because of a protected attribute of another person or a group of persons; and

(b) that would, in all the circumstances, be reasonably likely to be considered by a reasonable person with the protected attribute to be hateful or seriously contemptuous of, or reviling or severely ridiculing, the other person or group of persons.

This seems to be particularly problematic because essentially we have got the reasonable person test but from the perspective of somebody with the protected attribute, whatever that attribute might be. There is a very clear difference between what a reasonable person is as a fairly broad representative term of a reasonable person across our broad society, compared to a reasonable person with the protected attribute, which is less representative of the broader community and could be quite small or narrow depending on that particular grouping of people covered by that particular protective attribute that you talk about. For example, what happens if a human rights campaigner says in a very public manner that they support the campaign against the practice of female genital mutilation as part of a religious practice? The test in this legislation is not broad – the reasonable person test with the person who has a protective attribute. In this case we would have to ask the person or religious grouping with whoever practises the female genital mutilation if they considered the comments to be contemptuous or ridiculing. From their perspective it is highly likely that that would be the case. If a human rights campaigner raises the legitimate matter for public debate and these laws stipulate that serious contempt, severe ridiculing or reviling are to be determined from a narrow perspective, that is the same perspective that we are asking to determine if there has been a breach or not. That is the same perspective that is also the subject of the criticism or the scrutiny.

What it boils down to is that if a reasonable person with a protected attribute finds any public comment likely to be hateful, seriously contemptuous, reviling or seriously ridiculing, you are basically subject to anti-vilification laws. The onus is on the person that it is said about. There is no broader context in society to weigh up whether a comment is actually vilification or not. That is quite a dangerous situation to be in I think, and it carries a lot of risk. I do not deny that it is a grey area, and this area is where the bill is operating. I do not think any reasonable person would support any move to somehow enable widespread hate across Victoria based on any particular attribute that a person may hold. I do not think that they are out there saying, ‘Yeah, we want to hate on people.’ That is just not the case. However, the way this legislation, written as it is in front of us, attempts to deal with these challenges I do not think appropriately responds in a way that really teases out the nuanced approaches that are very different in very different aspects of our society.

In closing, I urge members them to think about this very carefully, because the intent of it, as I understand it, is that no-one wants to support hate in our state, but the unintended consequences of this might actually end up backfiring on the people that you least expect.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (16:19): I am proud to stand and speak on this bill today, the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024. The government is proud to deliver on its commitment to expand and strengthen Victoria’s anti-vilification laws. The bill will give effect to 15 recommendations of the 2021 Victorian parliamentary inquiry into anti-vilification protections. As the inquiry found, vilification is commonplace for many Victorians, and its harmful impacts are real and pervasive. Recently we have seen an increase in reports of hate speech and conduct.

The inquiry found existing laws were ineffective and inaccessible and recommended extending anti-vilification laws to protect more Victorians and strengthening how the laws operate. That is exactly what we are doing. We have taken time to carefully craft this bill, respecting the feedback and findings from the inquiry and government’s extensive consultations on the reforms. Of course there are diverse views on aspects of these reforms, but we have very carefully sought to balance these. The bill is a collective effort in shaping a safer Victoria for all Victorians.

The bill will repeal the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, known as the RRTA, and move new serious vilification offences to the Crimes Act 1958 and civil anti-vilification protections to the Equal Opportunity Act 2010. In line with recommendation 1 of the inquiry, anti-vilification laws will be expanded beyond race and religious belief or activity to also protect the attributes of disability, including mental illness, HIV or AIDS status, gender identity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation and personal association with a group or group with a protected attribute. The bill only extends the attributes to the extent identified as necessary by the inquiry to protect the individuals and communities most at risk of vilification. The existing definitions under the Equal Opportunity Act apply to the expanded protected attributes.

The bill introduces two new serious vilification offences into the Crimes Act, an incitement offence and a threat offence. The incitement offence will apply to conduct that is objectively likely to incite hatred against, serious contempt for, revulsion towards or severe ridicule of another person or a group of persons on the grounds of a protected attribute. The offence is intended to capture only extremely serious conduct that urges or promotes the strongest forms of dislike towards a person or groups of persons. It is not intended to capture merely offensive or unkind conduct. This offence is punishable by up to three years of imprisonment. The threat offence only applies if a person threatens physical harm towards another person or group or damage to the property of or otherwise related to a person or group and does so on the grounds of a protected attribute. This offence is punishable by up to five years imprisonment. I think in any democratic society we do not accept threats of physical harm or property damage. Both offences capture intentional and reckless conduct, and the current offences will continue to apply to both public and private conduct, including online conduct. Existing general statutory and common-law defences such as self-defence, duress and the defence of mental impairment apply to the offences, and this is consistent with the current law.

The government has moved an amendment to remove the genuine political purpose defence. We acknowledge the concerns expressed by community and faith leaders that the provision could have been misused or potentially legitimised vilification under the guise of political communication. As further safeguards, the bill provides that only Victoria Police and the Director of Public Prosecutions will be able to commence prosecutions to ensure a level of experience, prosecutional oversight and avoidance of risks of vexatious private prosecutions. The bill also requires the DPP’s consent to charge an accused who is under 18 years of age, recognising the unique vulnerabilities of under-18s. We know that there is the potential for under-18s in particular to be more easily influenced or led astray.

The bill also introduces two civil and anti-vilification protections to the Equal Opportunity Act. These protections will capture public conduct, including online, that is hateful or incites hate.

New harm-based protections will make it unlawful to engage in public conduct that is hateful, seriously contemptuous of, reviling or severely ridiculing of another person or group because of who they are. The test of harm is an objective standard of a reasonable person from the relevant group who understands the impact of that harm. This is a test that courts and tribunals are very familiar with and already use. The characterisation of the test is harmful and wrong. It diminishes the lived experience of those who are being vilified and those who need protection.

There will be modified incitement-based protections, so it will be unlawful for a person to engage in public conduct that is likely to incite hatred against, serious contempt for, revulsion towards or severe ridicule of another person or group based on a protected attribute. The current civil exceptions have been retained with minor amendments. Exceptions balance charter rights and ensure legitimate activities are not against the law. The ‘genuine religious purpose’ exception had minor amendments to make the language consistent with other legislation protecting worship, observance, practice and teaching. We heard concerns that the revised language could have had the effect of narrowing the exception, which was not the intention. An amendment to the words ‘proselytising’ and ‘preaching’ will make the intentions of the bill crystal clear. The exception balances rights and ensures legitimate activities are not against the law and ensures that those who wish to genuinely practise their religions are able to do so. The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission’s existing powers under the Equal Opportunity Act will be extended to vilification matters.

The bill will also make minor technical amendments to the bail act so that bail decision makers can, if appropriate, remand a person who is charged with intentionally performing a Nazi gesture, as is already the case for the offence of publicly displaying a Nazi symbol.

The anti-vilification reforms will commence in two stages: the criminal reforms on 20 September 2025 and the civil reforms on 18 September 2027 or earlier by proclamation. This will allow more time for preventative efforts and implementation for the civil reforms while ensuring that the criminal reforms are in place first to address the most egregious conduct.

The government is proud to stand with a wide range of community groups that developed and are backing this bill, including Victoria’s Jewish community, who have asked for new tools to fight antisemitism. The government will not water down this bill to the point it becomes useless or toothless.

The parliamentary inquiry held extensive hearings and heard firsthand evidence from people about their experiences of vilification. It heard that vilification was common for many Victorians, including First Nations, Muslim and Jewish people, women, LGBTIQA+ communities and people with a disability. We recognise the toll it can take to participate in such processes and the value of these contributions which have ultimately led to the reforms we have before the house today.

In my first speech in this place I talked about what I think has been good progress in our society in the reduction of homophobia, racism and sexism. While some of those opposite might find some of that humorous, I do not – I am sure they are not laughing at that particular point – but it is a point that I am quite serious about. What traditionally has been broadly accepted to be humorous or knockabout or basically okay for us to use in general language, to be grotesquely sexist, homophobic or racist, I think we can all stand up and say belongs in a bygone era. Falling back on that sort of language, whether it is casual or meant with real intent and determined nastiness,– we can all agree is something that does not need to be in our society.

I think we have plenty of things we can get on with in our lives without needing to demean people, without needing to go after people who probably have enough challenges themselves without other people piling onto them. I am really proud to be part of a government that is addressing historical inequalities that exist across a wide range of areas and that is making life better and getting more equal outcomes for so many in our communities.

With the government having heard the feedback and recommendations from the inquiry, in 2023 the government held three submission processes supported by consultation papers and surveys on Engage Victoria in consultation with key stakeholders. Victorians had the opportunity to provide their views on extending the attributes protected by anti-vilification laws, expanding criminal offences and strengthening the operation of civil protections. A report back on the feedback received during these consultation processes was published by Engage Victoria in May 2024. Further, in September 2024 the government published an overview paper detailing proposed changes to the law and provided another opportunity for Victorians to have their say on the proposed reforms. There has also been consultation with human rights, justice, legal, multicultural, advocacy and faith-based groups. The bill was introduced last year to ensure the community and MPs could take time to consider it in detail. The government has continued its conversations and will continue throughout implementation.

I think that process of engaging community, consulting on this and bringing that sense of input but also sense of understanding has been really important. It was said in the second-reading speech to the Victorian community and stakeholders a thanks for their input into these reforms over a number of years, and I reiterate that myself, particularly thanking those with lived experience of vilification and their advocates for engaging in the reform process and helping to contribute to better laws for all and hopefully laws that will see Victorians live happier, healthier, more confident, safer lives. It has not been possible to adopt or reconcile all views. Victorians, as with any legislation, any regulation, have diverse opinions about reforms. However, the advice and feedback has been carefully considered and balanced in developing this bill.

The Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill will deliver reforms to expand and strengthen Victoria’s anti-vilification laws and better protect Victorians from the serious harms of vilification and hate conduct. It includes implementing 15 of the legislative recommendations of the 2021 Victorian Parliamentary inquiry into anti-vilification protections, including expanding anti-vilification protections from race and religion to also protect the attributes of disability, gender identity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation and personal association with a person who has a projected attribute, and repealing the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act and moving criminal anti-vilification fences to the Crimes Act and civil anti-vilification protections to the Equal Opportunity Act. It will improve how serious vilification offences operate, including by introducing new serious vilification offences, and how civil protections operate.

Jeff BOURMAN (Eastern Victoria) (16:34): I want to make a short contribution here. My main problem with this whole bill is the subjective part of it. When it comes to subjectivity, and now it is going to be the subjectivity of the person with a projected attribute, the mythical reasonable person is the person you would find on the Bondi tram or that sort of thing. We have now narrowed it down to the mythical reasonable person with a protected attribute.

The problem with that will be when, let us say, I tell two gay men a tasteless gay joke. One is highly offended and the other laughs. Which one is reasonable? We cannot expect this sort of legislation to be able to separate that. If we are going to have a reasonable person, it needs to be from the wider part of society. When it comes to the time where this starts getting enforced, the consequences I foresee may be unintended but they are surely not unforeseen. There will be problems with this. They will have to be sorted out. I think just taking it from subjective to objective would have sorted out a lot of the problems and a whole lot of the opposition to this.

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (16:36): Voltaire in the 1700s said – and it is often quoted in this place – ‘I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ When you research freedom of speech in any context you see presidents and prime ministers over the centuries and poets and philosophers making similar claims about the importance of free speech. In making free speech a tenet of a civilised society, there is a right of free speech and there is a subsequent responsibility that goes along with that free speech. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom to associate are highly, highly important rights. Balancing those rights is a weighty task that governments have grappled with over decades and centuries.

There is certainly a difference between freedom of speech and speech which actually incites hatred and coordinates, dictates and stimulates hateful acts on humanity. In many ways we have seen this. The act of hate speech which incites hatred and threatens physical harm or property damage on the grounds of a race or religion is currently covered in the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, which we have heard mentioned today quite a bit.

Sometimes in a small space of time you flick the television on on a Sunday afternoon if you get home from your duties. I did so recently, and there was a shocking, brutal, tender and poignant reminder 80 years after the emancipation and the liberation of the German Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz. There was one Jew who put himself into the camp. He chose to go into that camp. In fact I could not watch it all; I am probably a bit weak on that one. The subhuman actions that humans were able to perpetrate during that time should never be forgotten. We should watch those types of shows, and we should rally against, rail against and commit to never repeating that sort of harm, degradation and base subhuman treatment. I think it is important with all of those sorts of issues to remember, and we must not forget.

We have been speaking about the Parliament’s Legal and Social Issues Committee. It looked at anti-vilification back in 2019, and it did look at discrimination. One of the recommendations in actual fact related to the prohibition of flying the Nazi swastika, and that received bipartisan support, or support from the Liberals and Nationals as well. It defies sanity that we could do such things to people, and yet we did. That era is not out on its own. Humans have been horrendous and cruel to other humans since humans drew breath. How do we in a modern and civilised society get that balance right?

As I said, it is a conundrum that needs to be investigated and should be investigated, and we should have laws to protect vulnerable people. Indeed, this is the debate today.

We also have in 2025 the right to protest. No-one in this house, I would think, would claim that we should not be able to protest, to action our freedom of speech in a physical manifestation by camping on the steps of this state Parliament or by walking up Bourke Street. I am sure many of us in here have been party to various forms of protest – peaceful protests, protests where we have used our voice to deliberate and convince, but we do not use inciting language that creates the intention, the threat, to harm and, further, to provoke physical harm.

We have seen recently, and it has come in recent times, post 7 October 2023, terrible, brutish things and prejudice-fuelled hatred. These are not acceptable in our state. These are not working. In fact they often are counterproductive. I know Ms Crozier spoke about the various issues, the inflictions that have been perpetrated against the Jewish community. We are in a modern society; we are in a wonderful country. This is still the best country in the world, undoubtedly. Yet we see graffiti that says ‘Kill Jews’, ‘Jews live here’ and ‘Crush Zionism’, and as we have heard and we can discuss further, the use of Zionism would be a get-out-of-jail card if the ‘genuine political purpose’ defence was used. I am pleased to see that that has been taken out of the bill by this government. But these are horrendous things, and we should not accept them.

In relation to what this government has done, I came in in 2015, almost 10 years ago to the month, and what the government and Premier Andrews at the time did was remove the move-on laws – one of those things that the Baillieu-Ryan government introduced. In doing that they prevented Victoria Police from being able to break up dangerous protests, to manage those deliberately disruptive protests and those individuals who would cause harm and who are there for their own warped purpose. They are not there to stifle peaceful debate and peaceful protests. This government did that and opened the box to subsequent manifestations of more and more trouble. We have often argued that if this government was really serious about providing that protection, (a) it would not have repealed our move-on laws and (b) it would bring them back in. We have consistently made that commentary about that.

In relation to this Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024, it does seek to categorise protected attributes from the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act. It lowers the threshold of civil anti-vilification protections and amends the Equal Opportunity Act 2010. However, these changes will not come into effect until 2027. Why? If the government was really serious, it would be doing something – and I am not saying I agree with them – prior to that. This is a con, and it effectively occurs after the next state election. This bill also lowers the threshold for criminal anti-vilification protections. It transfers provisions from the RRTA to the Crimes Act 1958 and repeals the RRTA, and these changes will come in in September.

In addition to race and religion, it extends protected attributes to disability, gender identity, sex, sexual characteristics, sexual orientation and a person associated with a person who is identified as having one of those particular protected attributes. These are already protected under the Equal Opportunity Act in certain fields. Within the Liberals and Nationals I know Mr O’Brien, our Shadow Attorney-General, has done a power of work in this space on the bill, and with clarity debated it clause by clause. We do not have a problem with expanding those attributes; however, we certainly have a problem in relation to a great part of this bill. We also support in this bill the ability of Victoria Police to bring changes in relation to prejudice-motivated crimes without having to go through the Director of Public Prosecutions. The DPP has got a bit of a bad track record, in my opinion, on this one. You only need to go to the Lawyer X scandal and the amount of work that was done to present the DPP a compelling case on that, only to have it thrown out by some strange quirk of imagination.

In terms of the criminal provisions, the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act has twofold protections. To be considered to be a criminal provision, a criminal offence, somebody has to incite hatred and threaten physical harm or property damage on the grounds of race and religion. But this bill looks to produce two new criminal offences – to incite or threaten. Again, we have heard this before, but I want to put it on record: this incitement offence has a lower threshold whereby if a person is engaged in conduct that is likely to – highly subjective – incite hatred, severe ridicule, contempt of or revulsion towards one of those protected attributes. One has to wonder: these sorts of highly subjective cases, highly subjective tests, lower the thresholds, but they certainly create headaches in the legal system.

We have seen that the government has been listening to Michael O’Brien, the compelling case from him, on one of these conditions. The Jewish Community Council of Victoria and the Islamic Council of Victoria also raised concerns about this ‘genuine political purpose’ defence, which was just absolutely flawed from the start. We see, as I have said, that it was literally a get-out-of-jail card, opening up the floor to those people who would seek to hide behind heinous and hateful actions.

In relation to the civil provisions, again these are highly subjective. This bill looks to produce a test for civil vilification, assessing whether – and this is the part that we are going to move some amendments to – a reasonable person with the protected attribute would find the conduct hateful or ridiculing. Again, this is inconsistent. It is open to interpretation, and really all I can see is it is going to be legal central and an open slather in terms of the courts. Our courts are already clogged enough.

I will just pause very briefly. Mr Mulholland, our lead speaker on this, has asked me to move his amendments, and I am happy to do so. There are two sets of amendments. The first one is to remove the term ‘with the protected attribute’, so to redefine what a reasonable person is, tighten it and make it far more objective. Then the second one is to wipe out or omit all of the civil sections within this bill before the house.

Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.

Melina BATH: As they are being circulated I just want to make some brief and final comments. This bill risks undermining our social cohesion rather than strengthening it. This is not acceptable.

These amendments are important. As we have heard today, this is an important debate. People do need to respect the rights of others. People do need to be able to feel safe as they go about and be who they are. Very old-fashioned but one of my grandmother’s mantras was, ‘Live and let live.’ I know that has gone out of vogue, but I quite like trying to live by it. The other one that has also gone out of vogue is, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ This is a flawed bill, and I ask the house to accept these amendments to be debated in the committee of the whole.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (16:51): It is a privilege to rise today in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024, a bill that takes a critical step forward in protecting our communities from the devastating harm of hate-fuelled discrimination and vilification. This bill is not just about law reform. It is about reinforcing the values we hold as a community: the principles of respect and inclusion that define us as Victorians. It is about ensuring that every single person in this state, regardless of race, faith, gender identity, disability or sexuality, can live free from the poisonous reach of hatred and discrimination. I would like to join my colleagues in reinforcing that hate has no place in Victoria. It is absolutely shameful that those opposite are so entrenched in division they do not even understand what it means to stand for the betterment of all Victorians. They are a group who would rather stoke the flames of hatred and fear than work with us to build a safer, more inclusive Victoria.

There is no doubt that these protections are long overdue. In a world where racism, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, transphobia and discrimination continue to rear their ugly heads, it is our duty as lawmakers to respond with strength, with conviction and with laws that protect rather than leave out our most vulnerable communities and expose them to harm. As the co-chair of Victoria’s Anti-Racism Taskforce and as an Aboriginal woman, I tell you firsthand the damage that vilification does. I know the pain that comes when communities – our communities – are targeted by those who seek to spread hate and division. I have seen the devastating impact that racism has on people’s lives – the mental toll, the fear, the anxiety. It is the second-guessing of yourself, it is the masking of your voice, it is the anglicising of your name, it is conforming to being a model minority and it is being hypervigilant to who you are. And I have just got to tell you: that is not okay. The Anti-Racism Taskforce was not built on assumptions; it was built on the voices of Victorians who shared their life experiences and shared their horror at racism and discrimination. Why? Because they know that racism and discrimination are not just individual acts of hatred; they ripple through communities. And when racism and bigotry go unchallenged, they grow. That is why the Allan Labor government has made tireless efforts to support Victoria’s first ever anti-racism strategy, a strategy that is about more than just words. It is about actions and valuing what makes our state so beautiful: our diversity.

This bill supports the work of the taskforce and its strategy because it believes that in a modern Victoria no-one should have to endure hate, discrimination or vilification simply because of who they are, and that is why I and my colleagues on this side of the chamber are so supportive of this bill. It is a statement that Victoria is a place where no-one is silenced by fear, where diversity is our strength and where justice stands firm against hate. So I say to those that oppose this bill, particularly those in the Liberal Party opposite, who have so shamefully and predictably taken the side of racists and hatemongers, that their opposition is nothing short of a disgrace. They have once again shown their true colours, standing not with the people of Victoria nor with those who seek safety and justice but with those who believe they have the right to spew hatred without consequences. I am not going to stand for it.

This bill is critical for so many communities.

One of the main aspects of this bill is the expansion of anti-vilification protections to protect the attributes of disability, gender identity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation and personal association with a person who has a protected attribute. I embrace these changes with open arms, changes that will finally reflect the true reality of who is targeted by hate in our state.

I would like to take a moment to note the importance of the parliamentary inquiry into anti-vilification protections in the creation of this bill. This inquiry handed down a bipartisan report and was a real eye-opener for many of us. It exposed just how far we have to go in addressing the scale of vilification and hate in our society. The parliamentary inquiry into anti-vilification protections highlighted how current legislation, such as the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, whilst having some protections, is inadequate to address the full scope of vilification that many Victorians face every day. This inquiry was a critical step in understanding how the legal framework has failed to protect those most vulnerable to hate and discrimination, those whose lived experience of vilification often goes unseen and unheard.

What the inquiry made abundantly clear is that while the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 provides some measure of protection for racial and religious vilification, it falls short in other key areas. It excludes many groups facing vilification, such as people with disabilities, gender-diverse individuals, people living with HIV or AIDS and those facing hate simply because of their sexual orientation or mental health status. Simply put, the law is not as inclusive as it needs to be, and it does not reflect the full spectrum of hate and harm being directed at vulnerable groups. The bill before us gives effect to 15 legislative recommendations that came from that inquiry and makes sure that our anti-vilification protections are better suited to keep pace with the changing nature of hate and bigotry in our society.

Consultation has been at the heart of these reforms. The process of shaping this legislation has been guided by the voices of those who know firsthand the devastating impacts of vilification. The voices of First Nations people, multicultural and multifaith communities, people with disabilities, LGBTIQA+ advocates, legal experts and frontline services have all shaped these reforms. Since July 2023 thousands of Victorians have made submissions, with the most recent round of consultation generating 2500 submissions alone. This bill is not an isolated initiative. It is part of a broader comprehensive approach to tackling hate, fostering social harmony and ensuring that Victoria remains a place where diversity is celebrated, not vilified. It complements our ongoing work in Victoria’s first-ever anti-racism strategy. It builds upon the 2021 parliamentary inquiry into anti-vilification protections. It responds to the input of and consultation with those thousands of Victorians, to whom I pay my respects for their resilience and courage in sharing their experiences.

This bill is a call to action that we must honour. We must not simply tinker at the edges. We are making a commitment to real substantive change, and yet there are those who seek to stand in the way of progress. The Greens political party talk a big game on social justice but fail to understand the details involved in these reforms, details such as this bill having some really clear safeguards and high thresholds. We are not talking about persecuting behaviour that may make people uncomfortable, we are really tackling serious, serious vilification and hateful conduct.

More grave, I must say, is the position of those opposite. The opposition have shown their opposition to this bill, which to me is not only deeply disappointing but is also dangerous. Time and time again they have failed to stand up against the forces of division and hatred. They have chosen to ignore the cries of those in our community that have suffered under the weight of discrimination for far too long. I am going to call it for what it is: a failure of leadership, a failure of courage, a failure to uphold the basic principles of fairness, equality and human dignity and a failure to protect Victorians.

The Allan Labor government, on the other hand, has never wavered for a single second in our commitment to social cohesion, to inclusion and to justice. We were the first in the nation to ban the display of the Nazi symbol. It is this government that banned the Nazi salute and Nazi symbols. This bill goes further by ensuring that bail decision makers can remand a person who is charged with intentionally performing a Nazi salute.

I am enormously proud to stand with a government that is not just talking about tackling hate but is taking real legislative action to address it with this bill before us. Let me be clear, words matter, laws matter, and the message that this bill sends is undeniable. Hate has no place in our state. We will not allow those that peddle division to go unchecked. We will not allow discrimination to fester in our communities, and we will not allow those who spread vilification and harm to undermine and fray our precious social cohesion.

Let me say to the communities who have fought tirelessly for those protections, to those advocates, to the legal experts, to the grassroots organisations but most importantly, absolutely most importantly, to the people with lived experience who have shared their pain and demanded action: this is for you. Your voices have been heard. Your struggles have not been in vain. Today we are taking another step forward in making Victoria a place where everyone, no matter their background, can feel safe, respected and valued. This bill is about justice. This bill is about safety. This bill is about ensuring that every single Victorian is protected under the law. That is why I stand here today with immense pride to support it. I commend this bill to the house.

Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (17:01): I rise today to speak against the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Bill 2024. Before I begin I would just like to say how very, very relieved and glad I am to hear that we are all here against hate. We do not want hate in our state, and we all oppose vilification and support the right to protest. I am glad to hear that, because I have to say it has not been my lived experience that that is the case. Having been subjected to vilification, I feel like I have had a bit of an education in this topic. I am glad that you all value lived experience so much. In my case, where I was defamed and vilified, in total the judge dedicated 25 paragraphs discussing the various vilifying, disparaging material about me, and I was awarded significant damages. I was also targeted with violence. Even though I am against this bill, please do not imagine that I do not take it seriously. I feel extremely sympathetic to all people who are vilified, and unlike this bill I do not pick and choose my favourites.

I could not help but notice that this bill makes rules for thee but not for me. We have parliamentary privilege, but we do not lead by example, I do not think. I could not help but notice also that the consequences of the insane civil provisions in this bill will not even kick in until after the next election, and I think that is because it will be an absolute clown show of people registering complaints about each other and that they will be impossible to resolve. Everyone will be deeply offended. Everyone will feel deeply reviled, deeply humiliated by other people’s opinions. This is just terrible legislation for a good cause.

Vilification is a public act that incites hatred, ridicule or contempt towards a person or a group. Like I said, it picks its favourites. We have added in, with race and religious belief or activity, disability, gender identity, sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation and personal association with people with those attributes. But what about when you are vilified on the basis of jealousy? What about if you are vilified on the basis of someone else’s insecurity? What about if you are vilified for someone else’s career progression prospects? What about if you are vilified because the other person is just a really garbage person? What about if you are vilified in order to win an election? What about if you are vilified for your atheist beliefs? The problem with this is that it is just the same old identity politics and the hierarchy of rights that Labor and socialism and communism are also famous for.

We have all mentioned antisemitism today, because it is that benchmark of evil in history: the Nazis. I just need to say that I am so glad that my uncle who was a Holocaust survivor died before he saw how that particular topic was exploited indefensibly in the pursuit of vilifying somebody else.

What we are going to get from this bill is victim blaming. It gives the impression that these people with these attributes, somehow because they have these attributes, have attracted all this hate. That is victim blaming. That is ridiculous. To vilify others is a character failure. It is a moral failure on behalf of the perpetrator. It is got nothing to do with anybody’s attributes – they are the victims. You do not put it on their shoulders or act like they are a magnet when it was nothing to do with them. We are going to have victim denial: people who did not make that list, did not make the cut. Their experiences of vilification are not even going to be acknowledged. Then you are going to have the crybullies. You are going to have people who abuse and misuse this law. That is what I find most offensive. It is going to waste resources, and it will be like the boy who cried wolf. Anyone who tries to speak up about being vilified is not going to be taken seriously because it will just lose all meaning.

The other problem with this is that putting identity politics into the law is very divisive. There are many well-known cases which can help illustrate how identity politics and selective law enforcement based on them can create systemic injustice and have led to failures in protecting vulnerable people, inconsistencies in sentencing and misplaced law enforcement priorities. For example, if we go to the UK, you have got the Rotherham and the Telford grooming gangs. Authorities in the UK failed to take action against particular grooming gangs due to fears of being labelled racist. Despite evidence from victims, social workers and police officers, these cases were ignored, and this allowed thousands of young girls, mainly from working-class white backgrounds, to be systematically abused.

There is Scotland’s hate crime war police prioritisation. The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, implemented in 2024, criminalises certain speech offences based on protected characteristics, not unlike ours. Critics, including JK Rowling, argued that police resources were being diverted from serious crimes, such as sexual violence and grooming gangs, to investigate social media posts and perceived hate speech. There is a well-known woman who was investigated for being ‘untoward toward paedophiles’.

Kirralie Smith had an AVO taken out on her for refusing to lie by saying that she believes a man called Riley Dennis is a woman – that was considered violent. Lesbians in Victoria have been told by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission that holding a lesbian event which only allows same-sex-attracted females to participate, rather than including opposite-sex-attracted males who identify as females, is discriminatory. Lesbians have been accused of hate speech and hate conduct simply for asserting their own identity as same-sex-attracted females. What about the feelings they have about feeling humiliated by having their sexual orientation usurped by somebody’s gender identity? I mean, this law is internally incoherent.

Let us be honest, what we are going to get with this law is coerced speech, coerced silence. It is just classic Labor: we are going to have inquisitions instead of investigations. This bill criminalises civil disagreement. There is no protected attribute of a genuine or reasonable belief, just ordinary disagreement. In the UK they have a protected attribute of a belief or a philosophical belief. You can be an atheist and hold genuine beliefs that have protections when you express them. In the UK they have five qualities:

(i) The belief must be genuinely held.

(ii) It must be a belief and not … an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available.

(iii) It must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour.

(iv) It must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance.

(v) It must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, be not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others

This part of their law honours and protects the fact that, like them, we should live in a democracy free to discuss, assert and debate our genuine beliefs, even if we are not religious, without being punished by the state just because some people find those beliefs seriously offensive or ridiculing or they decide they feel hated by them – they take offence when none was intended and suddenly your accuser is also your judge. This provision in the UK law is the section of law which has protected women over there from being unjustly smeared and defamed as bigots. It protected Maya Forstater when she was discriminated against and defamed by her employer due to her belief that biological sex is immutable. The judge stressed that while gender-critical views might be profoundly offensive and distressing to many others, they are beliefs that are and must be tolerated in a pluralist society. The fact that in this bill there are no such protections for ordinary differences of belief, for ordinary agnostic or atheist people or just everybody, that that kind of a defence is totally absent from this bill, tells me all I need to know about this bill and this government.

In terms of making the people who accuse, or someone who accuses on behalf of those people, the accuser and the judge, I would like to know where they get the idea that they are hated and who has been spreading all this hate. Obviously you have got your genuine actors, your ridiculous, horrible Nazis and all kinds of other people, but they do not have to have a label either. Anybody can do it. It is a character failure, as I said. But why is it that so many of these groups that you have listed here feel so hated? I have got my own opinions, and I will tell you one of them. One of the worst offenders is this government. This government seems to me to love nothing more than to tell groups of people and children that they are deeply hated and that they should expect to be discriminated against if they exhibit those attributes. I think that is outrageous. Of course they feel hated. Stop telling them that everybody hates them. I reckon they get told that they are hated by regulations, curriculums and policies from this government nine out of the 10 times that they actually are interacted with on the basis of those attributes. This government needs to have a really long hard look at itself and work out how it actually is being counterproductive to its so-called goals.

We already have Brodie’s law when it comes to bullying. We already have anti-discrimination laws. We already have laws about harassment. We already have defamation laws. We already have laws about assault and incitement to violence. This is a government which has such delusions of grandeur that it believes that it can stop hurt feelings by criminalising and punishing hateful feelings, neither of which it has been able to properly define. The law simply does not have the power to control or regulate emotions, feelings or even opinions. This is absurd. This is not the correct tool for combating hateful antisocial behaviour. The best tool for combating that is civil society. It is all of us leading by example, not being hypocrites, not abusing parliamentary privilege and not attacking each other and vilifying each other here in front of everybody, often with students in the gallery, often to be used in articles in English classrooms across the state. I will take this government seriously about wanting to stop hate when they actually stop exhibiting vilifying behaviours themselves.

Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (17:13): Vilification is devastating. The harm it causes can have a long-lasting impact on a person’s wellbeing, their physical health and mental health. Vilification isolates and it kills. It divides and damages communities, and it erodes equality. One thing is clear: our laws, first written before developments such as social media, are no longer fit for purpose. Since the start of this term, I and many other members of the crossbench, including my colleagues from Legalise Cannabis Victoria and from the Victorian Greens, have been asking the government to update Victoria’s anti-vilification laws to protect members of communities receiving some of the worst forms of mistreatment and hate speech.

It would be remiss of me to commence my speech on these long-awaited laws and not talk about my good friend Fiona Patten. She has been a steadfast advocate for strong anti-vilification laws and continues to be to this day, because it is important, vital in fact, that all vulnerable and marginalised Victorians are protected from hate speech. That is not the case when the existing laws only protect discrimination on the basis of race and religion.

In September 2019, Fiona Patten introduced her own private members bill designed to enhance our state’s anti-vilification laws and to add new protected attributes on top of race and religion. This resulted in a parliamentary inquiry heard by the Legislative Assembly’s Legal and Social Issues Committee, with recommendations in the final report guiding many of the proposals in the bill before us today.

The bill before us today has some critically important changes to our existing laws in it. It expands the list of protected attributes to include sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, disability and personal association. There are of course many more that could have been included, such as hepatitis status and homelessness. I am hopeful that in future we can expand our laws again.

Lowering the threshold for civil litigation is also another important feature of this bill. For those who want to access a remedy for hate speech, it should be accessible. The fact that there have only been a few successful civil cases under existing laws shows the need for this change. I understand that Ms Payne will be bringing an amendment for the commencement of the civil protections to be brought forward, which I am supportive of. The current commencement date of 2027 puts these important changes at risk in the event of a change of government at the 2026 election, and having these protections in place before then will help to safeguard any attempt to remove them.

While these changes to civil litigation are welcome, they will only operate at their best if those who can access them are supported. As we already know, the most vilified and marginalised people in this state are also the ones who are the least likely to have the ability to seek justice in a court. I support the calls to strengthen the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission’s powers alongside this bill. Laws are only as strong as their ability to be enforced, and the commissioner must be able to investigate systemic vilification and compel information from online platforms. This can only be achieved through increasing the commission’s funding. This will mean that the new system does not rely solely on people who are already victims of vilification to do the labour of seeking justice on top of the harm that the vilification has caused. Importantly, while the work to punish anti-vilification is important, it is even more important to implement measures to prevent it happening in the first place. I am disappointed that this bill does not include a positive duty to actively prevent vilification, as we have seen other states do in their legislation.

As well as lowering the threshold for civil litigation, this bill also proposes changes to criminal provisions for anti-vilification. Part of this includes expanding police powers. While hate speech should be treated as a serious crime, we know that the communities this change is designed to protect have also been historically over-policed and have suffered from police violence. Their trust in police is rightfully and understandably low or non-existent. This is exactly why it is essential that the notes be inserted for decision-makers to consider the context and power imbalances when prosecuting for criminal offences and contraventions, because we know police officers are not turning their mind to systemic injustices or the social, historical and political context in which they do operate. The unintentional consequence of these provisions could be that these enhanced criminal protections could be weaponised against the very communities they are designed to protect.

The last Victorian Pride Lobby survey found that three in four do not think the police can be trusted to use their powers reasonably, two in three think police treat LGBTQIA+ plus people unfairly, and 80 per cent think police abuse their powers and harass groups without cause. Instead of listening to these communities, the government did initially decide to work with the coalition behind many of us on the crossbench and expand the religious exemption for hate speech, allowing for preaching to be exempt from prosecution. I understand that there could potentially be an amendment to remove this change in the lower house, of which I would be in full support.

The questioning of expanding police powers is rightfully done when we have examples in recent years of police refusing to act under our already existing laws, two of which happened on the steps of this very building – in 2023, when neo-Nazis held up a violent anti-trans sign and performed a Nazi salute, and only a few months ago, when again neo-Nazis held up an antisemitic sign on the steps of Parliament. To this day, to our understanding, nobody has been arrested or punished for these actions.

[The Legislative Council report is being published progressively.]