One Nation, Labor and teal MPs have joined Jewish community leaders in calling for new powers to target hate preachers after a religious extremist called for followers to “take up arms” against Christians and Jews.
Wentworth MP Allegra Spender said the statements from Melbourne preacher Abu Ahmad, who is allied to a notorious Sydney fundamentalist linked to the Bondi shooters, proved “why we needed stronger and nationally consistent hate speech legislation”.
“I hope the royal commission will make recommendations relating to this, but regardless, I will continue the push and urge all politicians who express sincere concern about hate preachers to back stronger protections,” said Spender, whose electorate incorporates Bondi Beach.
Reflecting worry about radicalism across the political divide since Australia’s worst terror attack, Pauline Hanson also reacted to this masthead’s report of the call to arms from a young and increasingly popular figure who has set up a Melbourne “outpost” of cleric Wissam Haddad’s Sydney network.
“We need stronger federal powers to shut down the extremist and fundamentalist mosques and Islamic prayer centres. These centres are popping up across our suburbs and seemingly allowing terrorist recruitment and advocacy to fester unchecked,” Hanson said.
“Give ASIO and the AFP the resources and targeted powers to dismantle these networks. Bondi should have ended the excuses. Australians must never pay for this government’s political cowardice with their lives. Christians aren’t calling for jihad. Hindus aren’t calling for jihad.”
Hanson, who was widely condemned earlier this year for suggesting there were no good Muslims, talked about “advocacy” of terrorism but stopped short of endorsing broad anti-vilification laws that would make it easier for authorities to go after religious leaders, neo-Nazis or others who promote hatred based on religion, race, gender or sexuality.
Labor initially proposed such laws after the Bondi massacre but the Nationals and Greens opposed the push and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shelved the proposal.
Debate over hate speech laws, which have long been a thorny issue in Australia, has been revived on the same day that British authorities foiled an alleged terror plot at an air force base in England that has been used by US warplanes to bomb Iran. US President Donald Trump said the suspects, spotted by a local farmer, were “looking to do big damage”.
One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce has described the Bondi massacre as having “lit the fuse” for One Nation’s rise.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim, who remained close to Albanese after the Bondi attack, said the offence of inciting violence was virtually impossible to prove as it was currently drafted. He said authorities were often left to search for other offences, which made it extremely difficult to target religious extremists.
“There has been an air of unreality about the way the hate speech debate has been conducted to date. People who have deliberately and calculatedly promoted hate speech against targeted communities have successfully played well-meaning civil libertarians for suckers,” Wertheim said. “It’s not a left-right political issue.”
Wertheim’s views were in line with Federal Court Justice Ian Jackman, who used a speech last month to call for a re-think on the judiciary’s attitude to free speech, which he said was not fit to deal with modern forms of extremism.
Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher also backed Jackman, arguing that free speech and freedom of protest were core to liberal democracy, but Australia did not have the balance right.
“The recent rhetoric of some activists and even some judges suggests that political communication has a presumptive priority or trumping power over many or all other rights, no matter how it is exercised,” Fisher said in late August, pointing to the NSW Court of Appeals’ decision in April to strike down the Minns government’s anti-protest laws.
“After almost three years of this experience, I think it is high time to ask whether we have the balance right between freedom of political communication, now recognised as implied in our Constitution, and other fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to gather and worship in peace.”
Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said: “Jewish Australians should not have to wait until threats of violence become acts of violence before authorities can respond.
“Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are fundamental rights, but neither provides a licence to incite violence against other Australians.”
Federal Labor MP Josh Burns has been pushing for Labor to enact broad anti-vilification laws.
In his submission to the royal commission, he said his office had received 10,000 emails, 1000 phone calls and countless social media messages since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. The overwhelming majority, he said, reflected strongly held views that were often deeply critical of the government’s policy, expressed respectfully.
But a portion, which Burns provided as evidence to the commission, showed an ugly strain of prejudice.
“I have no doubt the royal commission will receive many submissions on the distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and informed criticism of Zionism as a historical movement or political ideology can be, like criticism of any political ideology, legitimate,” he wrote.
“But in the examples, the word is not being used to engage with an ideology or its history. It is being used as a substitute for ‘Jew’, deployed alongside antisemitic vitriol, and wielded as a shield against the charge of antisemitism. That is not political criticism. It is hate, dressed in political language.”
A spokesman for Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said the government wanted to pass laws against vilification after the Bondi massacre but “the Coalition stopped it from happening”.
The Coalition was contacted for comment.
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Paul Sakkal is Chief Political Correspondent. He previously covered Victorian politics and won a Walkley award and the 2025 Press Gallery Journalist of the Year. Contact him securely on Signal @paulsakkal.14.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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