In the national interest, the Liberal Party has worked to fix legislation that the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and his government fundamentally failed to get right.
For more than two years, the Albanese Government failed to confront the rising tide of antisemitism and failed to keep Australians safe.
That failure was exposed by the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil and, when leadership was required, the Prime Minister did not provide it.
Instead, Labor produced a clumsy and deeply flawed package of laws that collapsed under scrutiny, divided the Parliament and risked encroaching on fundamental freedoms.
As a result of our action, the legislation has been strengthened and properly focused on keeping Australians safe.
The key changes secured by the Liberal Party narrow the legislative focus to combatting antisemitism and radical Islamist extremism by:
- Ensuring aggravated offences capture radical Islamist extremist preachers and leaders, including visiting speakers.
- Strengthening the role of Parliament in examining these powers, including mandatory two-year reviews by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to ensure the new powers are effective, proportionate and accountable.
- Making the Prohibited Hate Groups Listing Framework more targeted to the most dangerous hate groups seeking to incite violence.
- Ensuring the laws are directed at serious criminal conduct that impacts national security, not at free speech.
- Requiring consultation with the Leader of the Opposition on both the listing and delisting of extremist organisations.
- Closing gaps in hate crime definitions so Commonwealth offences are properly covered, and ensuring only the most serious state and territory legislation can be used to prescribe groups.
- Ensuring migration powers are used decisively to remove extremists who threaten community safety.
These changes strengthen the law, close loopholes, and restore clarity and accountability.
The Liberal Party will always strongly defend freedom of thought, freedom of worship and freedom of speech.
Those freedoms define who we are as a nation, and they must be defended even when the task before us is to confront hatred and extremism.
As a direct result of the Liberal Party’s stand, Labor’s attempt to criminalise free speech is no more.
The Liberal Party will always act to keep Australians safe, defend freedoms and put the national interest first.
